Part I of this series discussed the lessons my grandchildren’s toys taught me about higher education. In this posting I will discuss what I learned about higher education when I reflected on my own childhood toys.
The first images that come to my mind when I think about my own toys were images of a large card board cylinder with a set of Lincoln Logs with which I played. Lincoln Logs were very different from Lego’s. Lincoln Logs only came in one basic color, bark color, and in one shape and a limited number of different sizes. You could build a cabin, if you put the logs together in precisely one way. You could put in doors and windows only if you had the framing pieces for the doors and windows. Lincoln Log cabins were essentially identical. They all looked the same. In some branches of higher education, the institutions are like the Lincoln Log cabins. They can only be put together in one way, and they all look identical. You can’t tell the difference as you go from one institution to another.
I also had a large cardboard chest that contained an Erector Set, with all the different sized beams, and extra nuts and bolts. This set included the extra wheels, axels, gears and a small electric motor to drive the axels. With this Erector Set I could build anything, or so I thought. I could put together cranes, skyscrapers, airplanes, cars, and trucks. Although these objects were all different, because they were put together using the same parts and using the same methods, they all had a similar appearance. Because many institutions of higher education are built in this way, using the same parts and construction methodology, they all appear to be the same.
I also had two Lionel Train sets for which my father and I built a train board to display my two train sets. The board consisted of two 4’x8’ sheets of plywood, that contained two villages complete with streets and lighted streets lights, roads with working traffic lights, rail crossings with working rail road gates at the points where the tracks intersected the painted roads on the board, and several industrial sites with loading and unloading equipment for specialty cars in my two train sets. The train board also had mountains, one of which included a train tunnel, several painted streams complete with rail bridges, and a train depot complete with a powered round table. I even had an engineer’s cap which I wore when I played with the trains. The train board and extras made the experience seem realistic. However, the trains never got anywhere and never accomplished anything. All they ever did was go around in circles. This is very similar to some institutions of higher education, Lots of action, all the bells and whistles, but they never go anywhere, except around in circles.
My fourth toy was an extra large Gilbert toy science set. It came in a fold out metal case. It included a lighted microscope with slides, instructions and material to prepare them. It included a small telescope with a map of the northern sky. The microscope opened the small world to me, while the telescope opened the vast expanses of the universe to me. It also included the basic tools of a chemistry lab such as test tubes, beakers, and chemicals. As a concession to safety, the Bunsen burner was a candle instead of a gas burner. The set also included a small handbook filled of Dos and Don’ts, and safety suggestions. If you only used the chemicals that came with the set, you could never get into trouble. It was only when you struck out on your own, did you run the risk of a major accident or explosion. This is very similar to higher education. If you stick to what is given to you within the curriculum, you’ll never run the risk of a major accident. However, how many of us are the compliant children that do everything that we are told, and avoid the forbidden areas? I can remember a few times when I went beyond the safe instructions, and I had messes to clean up in my mother’s kitchen.