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Why We Banned Legos (2006)

rethinkingschools.org

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Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#351

Post by andrewflnr »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #157
andrewflnr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read to the end of the article, where they brought the Legos back?

I did, but by that point, is the damage not done? The children have seen their words twisted and the Legos taken away, only to be brought back after blame has been laid. These people talk about singling out done by children when in this very same article they have singled out two children making "assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and…

Even accepting your claim that they were twisting the children's words, there's no indication they relayed any of that analysis back to the children. Then they did use legos in a teaching exercise (one that I bet will stick with them), then they brought them back in a healthier way.

It sounds like your real complaint is you don't agree with the lesson they taught, or maybe even just the language they used to describe it. If so you should say that, not pretend they didn't try.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#352

Post by disambiguation »

WalterBright wrote: post #208
munk-a wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a place that attracts professionals of a particular enough field that it has avoided any internal siloing (i.e. Subreddits). Within Tech you can see nearly every political view represented - within SV in particular you'll find a very strong neo-Libretarian movement that's sprung up (in part) due to opposition against taxation - this group in particular is quite strongly anti-socialist. It has (at least for the…

Are you sure? When I talk about free markets, I usually get a strong net negative reaction here.

the average temperature is contrarian.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#353

Post by geoduck14 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #139
ALittleLight wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a problem with telling kids they have to share if they can't work it out. I do have a problem with the 90% of the article that was about the teachers pushing their ideological beliefs on the children who defenseless against the adults indoctrinating them.

They were able to take a situation with an easy way out, and instead took the hard way out and were able to get a bunch of elementary school kids to mutually agree to a set of rules for fair lego play. I'm actually impressed. Those are people that care about their job.

>They were able to take a situation with an easy way out, and instead took the hard way out and were able to get a bunch of elementary school kids to mutually agree to a set of rules for fair lego play.

They ran psychological experiments on the children that spanned weeks or months. They deliberately incited them to see what would happen - without any direct guidance or approval from the parents. If I had found out my kids had been subject to these experiments, I would be livid

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#354

Post by geoduck14 »

cwkoss wrote: post #89
slowmovintarget wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, the kids had developed a system that excluded other kids from playing. Past generations would use this as an opportunity to teach sharing and taking turns. These teachers, on the other hand, took it as an opportunity to teach socialism and collectivism.

What is the resolution you would have preferred? The rules that resulted after returning the legos seem pretty mild and unobjectionable to me. Classroom legos are a shared collective resource. Do you think there should have been some sort of meritocracy instead? --- For those that didn't read the article, here are the resulting rules: - All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. B…

>For those that didn't read the article, here are the resulting rules:

I didn't read the whole thing. I read through the kids being jerks, then the the town was destroyed, then the teachers started running experiments on the kids.

That was the part that really got me. Teachers running unsanctioned experiments to emotionally provoke my children. That is unacceptable

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#355

Post by artificialLimbs »

ertjaet wrote: post #225
artificialLimbs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want school to teach my children anything about beliefs or what the teachers/admins believe. I want school to teach my child art and language and facts, and leave the beliefs to me.

sure! facts like: - unfair power structures disproportionately harm those without power - including everyone in decisions about the allocation resources is an effective way to solve disparity - communities that form rules to govern themselves are more just and fair than communities where rules are formed by a minority

1.)Does anyone contest that? 2.)I love all those places that have disparity solved. 3.)Does anyone contest that?

If history and fables lend themselves to revealing these lessons through metaphor and tales of human struggle, the seeds for learning from them will be much more successful at growing than if the seeds are planted with a bludgeon.

It would be nice if my school didn't treat my child like a mindless robot to be programmed and instead provided context with content.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#356

Post by artificialLimbs »

michaelmrose wrote: post #176
artificialLimbs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want school to teach my children anything about beliefs or what the teachers/admins believe. I want school to teach my child art and language and facts, and leave the beliefs to me.

Every environment teaches people implicit lessons about the people that create, run, and equally importantly populate the system. From my own experience in public school most of the life lessons on offer were kinda bad because the environment was defective and abusive and the people fucked up. The idea that its possible to get hundreds or thousands of people together and only teach facts is absolutely impossible.

It's true, but it's a good aim.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#358

Post by WalterBright »

a_shovel wrote: post #318
WalterBright wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching kids a failed philosophy just sets them up for failure as adults. There's an infinite universe of things to teach - why not teach them something useful, something that works? > Therefore we must not allow the policy to succeed Oh, but we do allow it to succeed. There are no laws against communes and worker collectives in the US. Any group can form one. And many have - thousands of them. They all failed on th…

> Oh, but we do allow it to succeed. You allowed the minimum wage to be increased? You allowed us to require companies to give maternity leave? You allowed us to expand SNAP benefits? If so, it's news to me.

The US allows voluntary communism to do what it likes. You seem to want to do it by force. You can include me out of that.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#359

Post by lhorie »

leetcrew wrote: post #337
lhorie wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost questioning if we read the same article. To me, the wording of the article suggests that there was quite a bit of dialogue with the children and among the children, including active listening and encouragement of critical thinking. I never got the impression that there was coercion by the teachers and certainly nothing about it screamed "woke police". It feels like you're largely reacting to the taking awa…

> I'm almost questioning if we read the same article. To me, the wording of the article suggests that there was quite a bit of dialogue with the children and among the children, including active listening and encouragement of critical thinking. I never got the impression that there was coercion by the teachers and certainly nothing about it screamed "woke police". I mean, we don't exactly get to hear from the childre…

The thing for me is that I can vividly imagine an exact situation where this teacher would say this and I'd reply "that analogy is kind of a huge stretch but I think both agree there's an issue". And we'd move on because we both know that teacher is using colorful language for effect and that's not really the point of the conversation.

And the actual issue at hand is something I'd describe as a kid being "obliviously unfair". As I mentioned, it's a set of behaviors and attitudes that you know isn't cool but is very difficult to articulate why exactly.

Where I disagree with the article is that I wouldn't let what I consider to be oblivious unfairness to fester for months like some sort of experiment. Instead, I'd just make the executive decision to drop the diplomacy and just complain about the bad behavior right there and then.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#360

Post by cryptonector »

baryphonic wrote: post #331
cortesoft wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a loose definition of indoctrination... is any teaching indoctrination by your definition?

Oh, this is densely packed with indoctrination, but it's skillfully written so as to seem half normal. Here's a simple heuristic: if a teacher presents a false proposition as truth, is corrected, and has the epistemic humility to revise what she teachers, she's not indoctrinating. A student would have an easier time disproving the Pythagorean theorem, the Heliocentric model or even the history of slavery than convinc…

I love that heuristic.
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