Ask any preschool teacher. It happens almost weekly. A child, employing creativity and ingenuity, constructs from building blocks a castle or a bridge or a towering skyscraper. The child steps back to admire their work when another child darts across the room and, in a series of karate chops and swift kicks, reduces the edifice to rubble. Then a beat of silence, followed by shrieks of rage and remonstrance. The teacher steps in to soothe wounded feelings and mete out justice. Tomorrow the scene will replay with the actors switched.
It’s not a stretch to contemplate the benefits of creative construction: creating broadens and deepens our perspectives, makes new pathways in our brain, boosts physical coordination, enhances competency, and connects us with the Great Good. But what of creative destruction? Because, let’s face it, it feels good. Otherwise, it would not be a regular scenario in the preschool classroom. *A caveat here: I’m not addressing destruction that is motivated by anger; that’s another Soul & Solace; we’re exploring the delights of deconstruction.
Recently, I watched a preschooler work a challenging puzzle; it took some minutes and a few breaks. Placing the last piece, the child observed the completed puzzle, took a beat, and with equal joy, broke it down into separate pieces.
When you are small and young and most choices that affect you are made by people who are big and have more life experience, it feels good to use your skills to conquer something. To be able to take something to the bone.
Block deconstruction is developmentally appropriate when we are four. But not when we’re forty. What has changed? Partly, we move through the egocentrism of childhood into the empathy of adulthood, so if someone else has taken pride in what they have built, we feel a stab of pain at the prospect of us tearing it down.
But I think there’s more: I think we grow into recognizing that we can use our “taking it to the bone” ability to think critically about issues that matter. That discovering and using our personal agency feels as good and tackling a tower of blocks. That we can question and deconstruct claims that ring false. We can use our brains and our hearts with equal effect as our hands and feet.
We need people to use their agency to question what is, especially when what is demeans and hates and is the antithesis of what is compassionate and humane.
The block center holds a world of possibilities; starting anew from blocks scattered across the floor, we can build anything.
What are your early memories of construction and deconstruction? How do you take things to the bone now? Share your thoughts at contact@aspaciousplace.com.
