Sketch: Using LEGO® to Explore ‘Professional Love’ as an Element of Youth Work Practice—Opportunities and Obstacles

This sketch details how dialogical and transformational learning is enhanced when LEGO® is used to facilitate classroom-based discussions with undergraduate students about critical aspects of their professional practice. It details how students can use modelling to represent their sense of identity as youth and community work practitioners, and to facilitate discussions about their professional practice. Particular attention is paid to how students use LEGO® to demonstrate ‘professional love’ as an aspect of practice with children and young people. Students’ use of metaphors is discussed, highlighting the benefit of using LEGO® to facilitate dialogue in the classroom. This alternative approach to discussing practice is shown to impact on students’ behaviour in class, suggesting that the use of LEGO® potentially opens up different neural networks.