Without Prejudice The World Best Take Notes Of Mervelee Myers Who Has Been In The Press From 2004

“Gerry wanted to build a block bridge but couldn’t seem to do it. He set one upright in place, then the cross-piece and was dismayed that they collapsed when he let go to insert the second upright. He tried over and over. I could have demonstrated in a moment, but I decided not to. Eventually he moved to other activities. The challenge must have worked in Gerry overnight, because next morning he headed straight to the construction area. In no time, he placed the two uprights and laid the cross-piece on top. Gerry was triumphant and started creating bridges all over the room! He had cracked the problem and made the learning his own.”

When Martha decided not to intervene in Gerry’s problem-solving, I wonder if she realised she was taking the same approach as Friedrich Froebel. Nearly 200 years ago he wrote “To have found a quarter of the answer to his own question by his own efforts is of more value to the child than to hear it all, half-understood, from another.”

Find out more about the educational value of unit block play in this video: