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Why We Banned Legos (2006)
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Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#32Earlier 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".
I would rather my children go to a school that challenges our beliefs, because they may be wrong. I don't want the growing up parroting what I believe just because I believe it, they should come to their own conclusions.
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.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#33these teachers are unhinged. exactly the kind of meddling full-of-themselves adults I resented as a kid.
hey, maybe the reason why they are so territorial about these lego bricks is because they are forced to attend this institution and they have very little control over their environment. it's one of the few resources they can control and use to express their creativity. and those kids who are the most territorial are the ones with the most emotional investment. you're god damned right they don't want other kids using the special bricks.
>We also discussed our beliefs about our role as teachers in raising political issues with young children. 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. So we decided to take the Legos out of the classroom.
lord give me strength. imagine being locked in a room for 8 hours a day with these ideologues.
>Now, with Legotown dismantled and the issues of equity and power squarely in front of us, we took up the idea of power and its multiple meanings. We began by inviting the children to draw pictures of power, knowing that when children represent an idea in a range of “languages” or art media, their understandings deepen and expand. “Think about power,” said Kendra. “What do you think ‘power’ means? What does power look like? Take a few minutes to make a drawing that shows what power is.”
these kids are just going to learn to parrot back whatever insipid egalitarian ideas the teachers want them to say, so they can be left alone and go back to playing with legos.
it actually reads like some kind of clunky propaganda fable a libertarian might write about Why Collectivism Is Bad. but no, it's real. one of these kids will grow up to be the next Pinochet and cite this episode as the moment he was radicalized.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#34Why not buy more Legos rather than remove them?
Why not print more money to fix wealth inequality?
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#35This article is the best argument for unsupervised free play that I've seen. Adults have no business moralizing and interfering as children negotiate relationships on their own. It's developmentally important. Children who lack that experience will constantly look for authoritative arbiters of the relationships. That's the soil that societal authoritarianism grows in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
Children have had free play for millennia. Supervised play in after-school programs like the one described in the article is relatively new.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#36Earlier 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".
What if the parents believe in god's creation of the universe and the science teachers want to teach evolution? Or vice-versa?
[deleted]
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#37Earlier 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".
I would rather my children go to a school that challenges our beliefs, because they may be wrong. I don't want the growing up parroting what I believe just because I believe it, they should come to their own conclusions.
Teaching children does not attract the best and brightest, to be blunt.
Some teachers are fantastic despite the lack of incentive, many are not, and the situation seems to be getting worse.
>they should come to their own conclusions
And if the problem with schooling is a decreasing ability to generate exactly this, what then?
Children, people in general should be presented with a diverse set of views and morals (and not just the loudest A vs. B near, but at a small distance from extremists).
I took a philosophy class with undergraduates and a few of them were vocally rather upset when confronted with the fact that there wasn't just a "truth" that could be learned and for each topic there were several opposing views. Those students had experienced so little of that in their 20-odd years of life that being presented with it really bothered them.
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#38>We saw the decimation of Lego-town as an opportunity to launch a critical evaluation of Legotown and the inequities of private ownership and hierarchical authority on which it was founded.
Wealth redistribution is fun and games, until they take everything you have and also kill you and your family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_famil...
Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#39What's with all the paywall comments? I don't see one, with or without my adblocker running.
It's completely unviewable to me no matter how I try and get at it.
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Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would rather my children go to a school that challenges our beliefs, because they may be wrong. I don't want the growing up parroting what I believe just because I believe it, they should come to their own conclusions.
Good parents should do this, but from what I see this is not what is happening in modern schools. It was starting to change even when I was in public schools 30 years ago, and from what see it has only gotten worse. Lets Critical thinking, and less open questioning, more authority, follow the rules, do not question "The Experts", do as your told (but only what those in Authority tell you not your parents) etc. That i…
> Lets Critical thinking, and less open questioning, more authority, follow the rules, do not question "The Experts", do as your told (but only what those in Authority tell you not your parents) etc.
People have been saying this about schools since forever.
FWIW your anecdotes don't match mine. My public school stories are all about learning critical thinking, being allowed to think way outside the box, and being rewarded for questioning authority.
One time we got new math books in that were horrible. Obvious errors everywhere. The teacher gave us extra credit for spending the day finding math errors in the book.
9th grade European History started off with Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In 10th grade sex ed students got to vote on a movie. Nerds and Goths teamed up, we watched Rocky Horror Picture Show.
In 3rd grade, a group of students opted stayed inside during recess and construct hot wheels courses (tracks and ramps) out of whatever classroom supplies we could find laying around.
10th grade parents day, my genetics teacher tricked parents into extracting frog sperm from a solution and playing with it. The students were nonplussed, we'd been working with DNA for quite a while by that time.
12th grade final report, I wrote a paper on the future of LED lighting, where I rewrired some incandescent flashlights into LED flashlights (obviously back before LED flashlights where a big thing).
8th grade final report, 30 page history of video games starting in 1970 and up until the mid 90s.
7th grade debate class, Rome VS Greece, on the side of Rome we argued that "Greece doesn't get to take credit for philosophers it had put to death."
8th grade math class, we just went and full on learned college level stats.
6th grade, I read the book Druids. For those not aware, it has sex in it. Quite as bit of sex in fact. Good bit of historical fiction though, I learned about the Romans invading England!