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Why We Banned Legos (2006)

rethinkingschools.org

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Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#381

Post by jerry1979 »

cwkoss wrote: post #79
ALittleLight wrote: post #45

I feel visceral disgust reading this article. It seems like the kids were playing with each other in a healthy way and the teachers interposed themselves to change how the kids were playing for political and ideological reasons. This is disgusting to me because I think it's analogous to physical abuse. A teacher hitting a child is bad not just because it's a violent crime, but also because children are especially vul…

"visceral disgust" seems like such a superlative reaction to have at this. I didn't realize there was so much McCarthyist fear in the HN community. I wonder to what extent this is new, or if it has always been this way.

I consider myself a leftist, and when I read the article, I also got a very strong feeling of disgust. For whatever reason, I identified mostly with the kids in the article. A few things caught my attention:

- The teachers were concocting some way to fix the lego problem.

- Their way to fix the problem was to exercise total, unrelenting control.

- Their total power was juxtaposed with their bewilderment about the lego problem (this bewilderment was somewhat reminiscent of the "what's a potato" dinner date story from reddit). Is this the first time the lego problem has come up??

Those three things gave me the feeling that, even beyond taking away the legos, something very unfair and very annoying was about to happen. This was confirmed when I got to the part about their twisted waste-of-time game. Do they think the kids learned anything? I actually recall having to play a similar classroom game. I remember being annoyed at the teacher for wasting my time. I hope those kids are part of some longitudinal study, because their recollection of the lego fiasco would be pure gold.

Then the kids had to do drawings about power instead of playing with legos!?

How can a person with any anti-authority sensibilities react positively to this article?

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#383

Post by nickpp »

Aeolun wrote: post #365
WalterBright wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking turns and sharing is reasonable when there is a fixed pie, such as you're in a lifeboat with 3 others and a gallon of water, or you're in a classroom with a fixed supply of Legos. However, fixed pies almost never happen in a free market, and are not a valid model for a free market. I've seen socialists before using fixed pie economics in classrooms to extol the evils of free markets. The Monopoly game was inve…

Yeah, clearly we can just fabricate our way to more land in desired areas, nothing fixed pie about that at all. I agree that most things aren’t fixed pie. But some of the most important things in life are, and people who get lucky in that regard have a massive advantage.

> land in desired areas

While we’re not fabricating land (yet), we are certainly manufacturing desire.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#385

Post by efaref »

roenxi wrote: post #368
trs8080 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite possibly. One of the big successes of the law and modern political traditions like liberalism has been demonstrating that the most successful path is when "we" don't respond and provide mechanisms to let individuals sort out their own differences in a 1:1 fashion, personally navigating the power dynamics. This is definitely not a big success. What we get from this mentality is billionaires hoarding resources…

> What we get from this mentality is billionaires hoarding resources I'm always interested in this idea when it comes up because I don't understand what people think the billionaires are hoarding. For curiosity's sake could you give me a quick enumeration of the physical, real-world resources that you think the billionaires are using up? Like, do you think they have 10 million in rice hidden in a silo for a rainy day…

Land. Billionaires own thousands of empty luxury apartments in city centres, while the poor people who clean them travel in from the outskirts.

And billionaires do effectively hoard things like rice. That's what the futures market they invest in is all about.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#386

Post by jacknews »

Quillbert182 wrote: post #2

Stuff like this is why we get parents claiming that teachers are trying to indoctrinate children.

The teachers approach can easily be framed as simply keeping order in the classroom, and giving kids different perspectives and so on, which is fine.

But the author themselves seem to have a clear political position, that power and privilege, and even property, are unjust.

Perhaps that's true to some extent, but the point should be pressed on adult society first, not snuck through the backdoor onto the upcoming generation.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#387

Post by newaccount74 »

roenxi wrote: post #368
trs8080 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite possibly. One of the big successes of the law and modern political traditions like liberalism has been demonstrating that the most successful path is when "we" don't respond and provide mechanisms to let individuals sort out their own differences in a 1:1 fashion, personally navigating the power dynamics. This is definitely not a big success. What we get from this mentality is billionaires hoarding resources…

> What we get from this mentality is billionaires hoarding resources I'm always interested in this idea when it comes up because I don't understand what people think the billionaires are hoarding. For curiosity's sake could you give me a quick enumeration of the physical, real-world resources that you think the billionaires are using up? Like, do you think they have 10 million in rice hidden in a silo for a rainy day…

Also labor. If a billionaire buys a luxury product like a jet, or a yacht, or even just an expensive car, all the labor that goes into production and upkeep of that product is used up solely for the benefit of the billionaire. If wealth was distributed more fairly, all that labor would go into things that benefit a wider audience.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#388

Post by Sharlin »

golemotron wrote: post #335
Sharlin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. “Negotiation of relationships” practically means bullying and all sorts of antisocial and abusive behavior. There must be boundaries set by adults.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent "Helicopter parents are so named because, like helicopters, they "hover overhead", overseeing every aspect of their child's life constantly.[1][2] A helicopter parent is also known to strictly supervise their children in all aspects of their lives, including in social interactions." "study from the University of Florida found that helicopter parenting was associated wit…

False dichotomy. There's a fucking gradient there between helicoptering and total lack of rules and boundaries. Plus helicopter parenting is often the opposite of having boundaries anyway!

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#389

Post by Talanes »

solveit wrote: post #18
syshum wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point the evidence is pretty clear that is the case.. well maybe not "indoctrination" but for sure many many school systems do not share the value system of the parents sending their kids to the schools The question then becomes who's value system should "win", IMO it should be the parents, the parents should have the final say in their child's upbringing not the schools or "community".

More to the point, the parents will win. They'll send their children somewhere else.

The town I grew up in was small enough you needed to be rich enough for boarding school to have a "somewhere else" to send them.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#390

Post by scotty79 »

jacobolus wrote: post #137
ALittleLight wrote: post #45

I feel visceral disgust reading this article. It seems like the kids were playing with each other in a healthy way and the teachers interposed themselves to change how the kids were playing for political and ideological reasons. This is disgusting to me because I think it's analogous to physical abuse. A teacher hitting a child is bad not just because it's a violent crime, but also because children are especially vul…

> 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…

Isn't emotional regulation and conflict resolution like half of what children are supposed to learn?
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