Posts tagged learning

Childrens toys used to be feted as the answer to all one’s educational needs. We all know that drill. Kids learn through play, so they can be “tricked” into learning by buying them toys that are designed to appeal to their developing minds. It was, and is, a great idea – but it got derailed about 10 years ago, when all the toy companies realised it would actually be more profitable to trick kids into making their parents spend a ton of money on things that flashed, whizzed and broke frequently. The spectre of modern advertising, if you like, trampling all over a perfectly good feast of education.Well, not to worry – because educational childrens toys are back with a vengeance. Yes, of course one can still buy plastic nonsense that flashes and beeps and falls to pieces just in time for an incoming adult to get the sharp end in the sole of the foot: but, increasingly, the word on the children’s play things is back where it was always supposed to be. With the brain, rather than the suffering bank account of some poor mum. Possibly, dare one suggest, in response to the tottering abilities of modern schooling (which seems to be more about avoiding complaints than actually doing any teaching), the childrens toys industry has reneged on its regrettably capitalist excesses and gone back to doing what it does best: making kids smarter.

The thing about educational toys is this: they are always interesting. And that means they’ll always sell. A child only plays for long periods of time with the things it finds appealing intellectually – jigsaws, games, science sets and gizmos. As educational kids toys rediscover their market, the less substantial items are getting pushed out for good – as, in an extremely gratifying display of junior consumerism, the children discard them in favour of more long lasting appeal.

Kids, unlike adults, don’t really know that they’re only supposed to want things with superficial appeal and a short life span. All a child knows, when he or she encounters childrens toys that actually engage them, is that he or she likes what he or she sees. The advertiser, up to a point (i.e. as long as the educational toys are available) is powerless to do anything about it. And that makes the resurgence of educational kids toys more than just a welcome change: it’s little short of an active victory in the battle against consumerist nonsense. Tomorrow’s consumers, through their parents, are taking a stand against the replaceable world – what they want, if the sudden boom in quality educational childrens toys is to be taken as a token, is solid, well thought out stuff that really engages them.

That, frankly, is cause for wild celebrations. Throw your plastic soldiers and your bleeping whatsits from the rooftops. Oldies might not have the good sense to ignore rubbish when we find it – but the kids know exactly what they’re doing. What is it they say? Out of the mouths of babies and sucklings… Well, in the modern world (admittedly by proxy, but even so), out of the wallets of babies and sucklings comes a whole new edict. Educational childrens toys are in. The rubbish the advert maestros wanted us to buy is out.

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