LEGO: A Love Story, Part I

Every story holds a natural ending and beginning.

Grief doesn’t possess an ending we recognize. You could say it ends when our souls fly from this life. But grief, if you experience any loss, is a journey for a lifetime. It will grow and shift.

I wrote about one ending in one area of our lives last weekend as I found hope, healing and forgiveness after it had shifted from anger.  I’ve also written about how I change in the ways I endure and walk with Corrie in spirit.

When I write about or my journey, I hope readers take away the fact that they’re not alone.  There is hope, and what I write is the truth.

I’ll edit my first line to: Most stories hold a natural ending and beginning. 

Throughout these two-and-half years (three years this May) after Corrie earned her wings, and during which John battled stage 3 colon cancer, we’ve had many stories from Corrie’s garden, to Hayes’ growth, in education and with us.  Another part involves LEGO.

Perhaps you’re reading this wondering: Wait, back up. I need to read that again.

LEGO

Yes, LEGO. Since May 2020, about two weeks before Corrie died, I started on a journey as a LEGO educator and writer never knowing where it would take me. I became a LEGO Master Educator. In 2022, the program changed the name to LEGO Education Ambassador for which I had to reapply. I’m fortunate to have been a part of this program for almost three years. It provides opportunities throughout for educator participants.

In our house, we had an old red box with LEGO bricks. I’d watched my children build different items with the LEGO bricks, and they had their own newer models. Hayes had cars and dinosaur sets while Corrie had Frozen LEGO bricks.

In 2019-2020, I taught Social Studies and English, and I focused more on having students building representations based on vocabulary. One of the first lessons I did in English involved students doing what I call: Read, Build, Write, and Create. At the end of 2019, my students read their book of choice for a period of fifteen minutes.

I didn’t know how far the use of LEGO bricks in my classroom would flourish because my eighth graders had to understand these are not toys, but tools to master comprehension and writing. During the time of learning from home in the time of COVID-19 in April 2020, I found out about an intriguing program for educators: LEGO Education’s then Master Educator program.

I made a video and applied.

Only a few weeks after I became a LEGO Master Educator (as it was called then), we lost our daughter, Corrie, on May 27, 2020 to an undiagnosed tumor.  Corrie and our son, Hayes, were proud for Mom to be something “so cool.”  Both had inspired it through my observing of how focused both children were as they built.  Our son, diagnosed with autism and who struggles with paying attention, built a helicopter.

When I introduced LEGO in my classroom, it occurred to me:

Let’s see what all learners could do with it.

BEFORE AND AFTER

In my LEGO Education story, there is a before Corrie’s death and after.  Much like first picture on today’s post where Corrie builds a LEGO house in my classroom, her house represents before.  On May 26–without knowing what the following day would take from me–I took down her house after I went to the school for a few hours believing my students would need as many LEGO bricks as possible for the following school year.

I wish I’d never taken her house apart.

After Corrie earned her wings, my co-worker, who encouraged me throughout the application process, told me that we could hold off on doing anything with LEGO.  I had my first DonorsChoose going at the time, and I knew in my heart Corrie would want me to hold on to this. 

I wrote the first DonorsChoose grant during COVID to obtain LEGO minifigures and plates. At a time when I was unsure when new students and I would re-enter the classroom, I wrote a DonorsChoose for LEGO items that my students said were needed to expand the program.

Before the first grant was filled, it stood in limbo like my decision on teaching and using LEGO in the classroom.  It was in the process when Corrie died.

The grant came about when my first group of LEGO students said before schools shut down, “Mrs. Bridges, we really need people.”

Just like my uncertainity in the summer of 2020 after Corrie, I also didn’t know if a second set of students could use LEGO bricks when we returned to school during COVID on an A/B schedule.

I found a way for students to use LEGO bricks in the classroom. I told my close work friend, who helped me through everything in her knowledge of self-care, that I could assign bags to students. In each one, they’d have a LEGO plate and some mini-figures. She helped me get a light to hold over the bricks and it cleaned them. The bag of bricks would be assigned to each student like a textbook or iPad, only it stayed in class.

The 2020-2021 school year marked a step into an uncertainity as I went forward only two months after Corrie earned her wings. For me Corrie and Hayes were embedded in every brick and plans for lessons. It wasn’t just innovation. The inspiration to use LEGO in the classroom forever unites my children on this Earth.

I saw what it could do.

I just had to step forward after Corrie.

This journey in how LEGO Education helped me through grief will continue in Part II.

For more information about LEGO Education Ambassadors, check out more here. To clarify, this does not mean I work for LEGO, but I promote the use of LEGO in my lessons and classroom as part of the LEGO Education Ambassador program. LEGO Education is excited to share the following:

I’m encouraging my students to #RebuildTheWorld with @LEGO_Education! Through #STEAM learning, my students can change the world, little by little. 

Register for an info session and start exploring #STEAM careers with your students. #LEGOEducationAmbassador http://bit.ly/3JCnTeG