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Why We Banned Legos (2006)

rethinkingschools.org

401–410 of 440 posts

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#401
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, just because the kids stop shouting doesn’t mean they’ve come to a resolution that all of them feel are fair. It could just mean that one of them decided to the best strategy is to let the Wookie win.

Is that a bad thing? You have to learn to deal with conflict at some point.

> You have to learn to deal with conflict at some point.

Some become conditioned into being doormats for the rest of their lives, just to avoid conflict. IMO, it's a very bad thing.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#402
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a bad thing? You have to learn to deal with conflict at some point.

> You have to learn to deal with conflict at some point. Some become conditioned into being doormats for the rest of their lives, just to avoid conflict. IMO, it's a very bad thing.

They become doormats when their parents deal with everything for them, not the other way around.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What are the "false propositions" that the teachers are making? They are teaching kids about power, ownership, etc. You can disagree with what they consider a fair distribution of power, but you can't just say that they are wrong and you are right. Rather than deciding that the kids were indoctrinated, maybe leave it to the kids to decide what to take away from this? Kids aren't stupid, I'm pretty sure they will real…

Here's an example from OP:

> Several times in the discussion, children made reference to “giving” Lego pieces to other children. Kendra pointed out the understanding behind this language: “When you say that some kids ‘gave’ pieces to other kids, that sounds like there are some kids who have most of the power in Legotown — power to decide what pieces kids can use and where they can build.” Kendra’s comment sparked an outcry by Lukas and Carl, two central figures in Legotown[.]

The article goes on to transcribe "Lukas" and "Carl" rejecting the author's framing, and insisting that "giving" meant something more like "finding and sharing."

Of course, the kids here are right to push back, since "give" implies only mere possession of a thing, even of an unowned thing like knowledge.

But that didn't stop the teacher!

> These children seemed to squirm at the implications of privilege, wealth, and power that “giving” holds. The children denied their power, framing it as benign and neutral, not something actively sought out and maintained. This early conversation helped us see more clearly the children’s contradictory thinking about power and authority, laying the groundwork for later exploration.

A reasonable teacher would have reacted by questioning her own assumptions about the kids' motives. Perhaps they believed they had ownership (a legal-political claim) or perhaps just possession (a physical-factual claim). This teacher short-circuits this kind of self-skepticism, the aforementioned "epistemic humility," and immediately filters the kids' actions according to her ideology. Her tendentious interpretation of honestly quite reasonable arguments from the kids is a pretty strong indication that she's indoctrinating rather than just teaching.

She has a lot to say on the topic of power, but her analysis curiously falls just short of being applied to herself and her fellow teachers. They are evidently free to use their power to shame, shun and harangue the kids about word choice, distribution of bricks, capitalism and who knows what else.

Using power as a weapon to shame & shun is in itself an indication of indoctrination. I doubt many of us would rationalize Scientology's "e-meter" readings as well-meaning hokum when it's clearly a manipulative ritual employed as a tool to coerce followers into toeing the line. Why, then, should these teachers get a free pass?

Given the totality of the article (or even my excerpts), what is more likely to be true: she holds consistent beliefs about power and equity which she thinks she must inform these kids about, or she feels she is an enlightened activist whose mission is not merely to inform but to impose her beliefs by all means out of faith in her cause?

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think close to no children thought this at the time. It's adults that wrote all of the fan fiction, supported the industry, etc. after.

I was absolutely writing fan fiction as a nine-year-old.

I certainly expressed my contempt for level design that oppressed my agency and contentment as a nine-year-old. It was clearly a stealthy form of WWII retribution on the part of Japanese game developers intent on frustrating and humiliating American youth.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#405
Don't agree with all the teachers politics but I think some of these exercises and techniques are interesting. Getting kids to collaborate with one another on what's fair could be a useful teaching tool

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The lesson is what it is, I am neither here nor there on that. I think you're placing a false morality on my motives about that.

I'm saying they used negative reinforcement as a knee-jerk reaction and then, as an afterthought, brought back the Legos instead of having a discussion first and taking action second. They learned that action and punishment comes first and the discussion and concession is an afterthought, a problem all too prevalent in modern society.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have missed the section where they assigned point values to Legos and let the children create rules. The author clearly states that they had intended for the children to criticize the system for being unfair, but instead criticized the people within the system. The teachers wanted the children to challenge them, and they didn't! And yes, at the end of the day, the teachers always have the final authority.…

> And yes, at the end of the day, the teachers always have the final authority. Do you think it's a good idea for a group of children to never be told "no?" And yes, at the end of the day, the party always has the final authority. Do you think it's a good idea for a group of proles to never be told "no?"

So I assume that you have never told your child no before, then? When they want to touch a hot stove, eat an entire gallon of ice cream, or paint on the walls, you give complete deference to them, because to restrict them in any way would be an unforgivable infringement of their intrinsic liberties, is that right?

Context matters - situations dont become identical just because you can switch out a few nouns to make an edgy analogy.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#408

Earlier 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…

No one is injecting politics into this situation. The politics were already there. What the teachers are doing is preparing the kids to defend themselves against the default politics in the world today, the politics of capitalism, of "might makes right" and "I've got mine". Sure, you can scold them and tell them to share or the legos will be taken away, but by engaging them in dialogue you are allowing them to reach…

"What the teachers are doing is preparing the kids to defend themselves against the default politics in the world today, the politics of capitalism, of "might makes right" and "I've got mine". "

Oh please not more of this.

If you used the word 'capitalism' in teaching kids how to share, you're infected, you're part of the zombie army.

If the kids are not sharing, have them share in a few words and that's that.

If you write a treatise about it that uses words larger than the kids can even understand, you've decontextualized the situation and are spreading 'verbal covid'.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#409
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does weeding out the weak even mean here? Like they might identify the ones who aren't good at defending themselves, but then what? Are they planning on taking all the weak children out back and putting them down?

It's a flavour of social darwinism. The argument essentially goes that you encourage darwinian evolution of society where the weak are indeed weeded out, and that we should encourage people to "evolve" and become "strong". In my experience it's usually a rationalisation by those who wished to do the thing already, but now even more than apathy, there's a moral obligation to bully people, which is quite appealing if y…

Your comment doesn’t appear to answer any of the questions in the one it’s replying to.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the "false propositions" that the teachers are making? They are teaching kids about power, ownership, etc. You can disagree with what they consider a fair distribution of power, but you can't just say that they are wrong and you are right. Rather than deciding that the kids were indoctrinated, maybe leave it to the kids to decide what to take away from this? Kids aren't stupid, I'm pretty sure they will real…

Here's an example from OP: > Several times in the discussion, children made reference to “giving” Lego pieces to other children. Kendra pointed out the understanding behind this language: “When you say that some kids ‘gave’ pieces to other kids, that sounds like there are some kids who have most of the power in Legotown — power to decide what pieces kids can use and where they can build.” Kendra’s comment sparked an…

I am not sure why you are so eager to reject Kendras interpretation (Carl and Lucas decide who gets which bricks) while accepting their rationalisations (we're just helping the other kids).

8 year olds are masters of portraying their self-serving actions as selfless acts of generosity -- I see that all the time. It's easy to see who calls the shots when you watch a group of kids play, but that kid will totally insist that they are just doing what the group wants.

As for your assertion that the teachers were shaming the kids, that's something you are reading between the lines. Maybe they were, but I'm going to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they were respectful.

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