I was expecting something like "we don't wear shoes in the house". Honestly I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action suit from parents about this.
Why We Banned Legos (2006)
241–250 of 440 posts
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#242There is such a wide range between "every man for himself"-style capitalist environments and "conform or be sent to the gulag"-style socialist environments, but for some reason many commenters here feel like it's a binary system. Are you in favor of absolute free markets without any oversight? No? Well you must be a Marxist then.
From a European perspective, this way of thinking feels so weird. There are so many different ways to organise a society without going into either extreme. Compared to the US most countries in western Europe are much more towards the "socialist" end of the scale, with higher tax rates but more social welfare programs. The teachings that are described in this article feel very much normal from my perspective, and it doesn't feel like a slippery slope into totalitarianism.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#243It would be nice to know what is the opinion of the teachers if someone apply the same kind of rules to them. For examples teachers care a lot about they school they go, and old teacher usually hopped a few times until they reached their ideal school. This is unfair because new teacher may be forced to go to a school that is far away and have a long commuting time, or go to a school where the principal is a moron, or…
I'm really trying, but I can't figure out how what you just wrote relates to the kids' new rules.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the builders began excluding other children. Occasionally, Legotown leaders explicitly rebuffed children, telling them that they couldn’t play. Typically the exclusion was more subtle, growing from a climate in which Legotown was seen as the turf of particular kids. [...] These negotiations gave rise to heated conflict [...] Kendra suggested a big cleanup of the loose Legos on the floor. The Legotown builders were…
If you read the article, this was a months-long series of forced conversations. I don't think it's comparable at all to normal intervention.
Essentially all schooling is a series of forced conversations. I know a lot of kids who didn't want to talk about math or Shakespeare, but our society has decided that it's important for people to learn those things.
It's definitely valid to question what those things should be, but some conversations need to be "forced" in order to educate children about things they don't know and likely won't discover easily for themselves.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure? When I talk about free markets, I usually get a strong net negative reaction here.
In stats class in uni we spent a good deal of time discussing the issues with different types of polling. Internet polling was "newish" at that point and so there were interesting debates going on with whether it'd suffer from the same effects as other voluntary polls (TL;DR it does). When a poll is voluntarily responded to, even if the poll is eligible to the entire population you want to poll, you'll end up with so…
Some good points. Thanks!
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#246Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you miss this part? > We recognized that children are political beings, actively shaping their social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity — whether we interceded or not. We agreed that we want to take part in shaping the children’s understandings from a perspective of social justice. I'm sure that the children of the Nintendo generation frequently discussed the power dynamic of King Koop…
I say, let the kids learnt these dynamics naturally without adult suggestions. These political ideas emerge from fundamental ways of social behavior. Let the kids learn these from a bottom up approach rather than a possibly flawed and skewed top down approach.
Sure, then a bunch of kids end up learning the lesson "I'm better than my peers" and a bunch of other kids end up learning the lesson "My peers are always out to hurt me".
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#248I agree with some commenters that this article has some very 'woke' conclusions which might over interpret what the children actually thought or did. Nonetheless, I find it very concerning that multiple commenters here think, that trying to get children to share and play nice together is indoctrination/socialism/etc and that anything that isn't based on total self-reliance must be wrong.
There is a very distinct strain of American thought that says freedom means the biggest or richest get whatever they want. Which is ironic because that’s actually exactly what tyranny is. But in that framework, fairness is tyranny, because they see themselves as the strong and feel that it is their birthright to take what they want from those they see as weak.
> There is a very distinct strain of American thought that says freedom means the biggest or richest get whatever they want.
Where did you get this idea? How do you reconcile it with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights?
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it were merely a simple 'hey kids, shar' - or a simple re-org of playtime to make sure kids get to play, it'd be fine. The hypersensitive political contextualisation of this piece elicits the wrong outcomes and it's a totem for so much that is wrong today. We're constantly over analysing and injecting bits of politics into the situation. It's ridiculous. Any sane, reasonable parent or teacher would have been able…
> Any sane, reasonable parent or teacher would have been able to solve the 'lego problem' without much fuss Do you have kids? Have you ever worked with kids? Helping kids to solve their conflicts is rarely “without fuss”. Even when there are only like 2–3 kids involved. Being “sane” and “reasonable” doesn’t go nearly as far as you might hope. (For that matter, the same goes for many office conflicts among groups of a…
I have 4 kids ages 6 and under. This is what you say:
"You can't share the legos and play nice? That means that the legos are going away for tonight."
"But we can share!!"
"Ok, but this is your last chance."
[kids play nicely or legos go away]
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
so you're acknowledging that our current political/economic system has built-in inequities? that playing by the rules is not a virtue in and of itself, especially if the rules cause harm to others?
I mean, it obviously has inequities, so yes.
and if it has inequities, we should strive to eliminate them, yes? shouldn't someone who benefits from those inequities be obligated to help those who are harmed by them?