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Why We Banned Legos (2006)

rethinkingschools.org

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Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#311

Post by majormajor »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #155
jacobolus wrote: post #137

Earlier 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…

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…

Dress it up in fancy words all you (or they) like, but teachers told kids to share 30 years ago too.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#312

Post by zoomablemind »

Reading through, one question kept popping on my mind: "Is it not an experiment with human subjects?".

It seems at first as just an attempt at setting up a fun game for the kids to play. But at some point it devolves into "Let's see how they can handle the challenges".

Reminded me of Arthur cartoon episode, where D.W. and Emily were building a long-spanning town from blocks [1]. There they too became "hostages" to the project. All got "freed" from it thanks to the age-approptiate behavior of other kids.

Not sure if the episode was inspired by this story, which appears to pre-date the cartoon.

[1]: "Blockheads" https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Blockheads

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#313

Post by WalterBright »

mwcampbell wrote: post #305
WalterBright wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the whole world a fixed pie? Nope. We use energy to transform valueless things into ever more valuable things.

Someday our current cheap energy will run out, and we'll just have to divide up what we have left. At least, that's what I hear. People have been predicting this for a while, and it hasn't happened yet (at least where I live in the US), but that doesn't mean it won't.

The Earth is just a dot in the sphere around the Sun through which all the Sun's energy passes.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#314

Post by Breazy »

a_shovel wrote: post #164
Breazy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is article about teaching children to share Lego toys. No, it's about using lego to teach teaching kids about capitalism and power structures. > Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom > 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…

> Seriously, count how many times the article mentions "power", and count how many times it mentions "share". Why? What would that even tell me? Toy-hogging is one of the earliest and simplest examples of a power imbalance a kid will see. Teaching the kids about the power imbalance directly instead of just decreeing "you have to share" is outstanding teaching, and certainly much more effective. These are some lucky 8…

> Teaching the kids about the power imbalance directly instead of just decreeing "you have to share" is outstanding teaching, and certainly much more effective.

Uh huh, it sounds like you agree with me now? The article isn't about sharing lego. It's about using lego to teach kids about society, power structures, and capitalism. The article lays the ideology motivation of these teachers bare, it isn't hiding anything. You don't need to read between the lines because the article is quite open about all of this. This article is not about "teaching children to share Lego toys" as you previously claimed. It's about "Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom". That's what the article says the article is about.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#315

Post by WalterBright »

Apocryphon wrote: post #307
WalterBright wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means it's not a free market. It is totally constrained by the made up rules making it a fixed pie game.

Not all ideologies that constrain free markets are socialist. Georgism even has libertarian variants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism I should also note that zoning laws and other regulations make the real world into a fixed pie game. And those are often completely apolitical, their only ideology being NIMBY.

Zoning laws, rent control, etc., are not a product of free markets.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#316

Post by trs8080 »

jollybean wrote: post #168
notriddle wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intervening when some of the kids are hogging all the pieces doesn't seem all that unreasonable, especially since, in this case, the adults noticed it was mostly older kids not letting any of the younger kids play with any of the pieces. That's not a healthy environment. That's literally the big man screwing over the little man.

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…

The political contextualization of the article exists because this is a social justice magazine for activists called "Rethinking Schools." The "wrong outcomes" you're decrying come from people who are already entrenched in the same ideals that led this group to question modern education in the first place. Something tells me this isn't their target audience.

It's important to teach children at an early age about equality and empathy. Actively engaging with them over the course of weeks in order to help them understand complex ideas of power dynamics and community is commendable, not ridiculous.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#318

Post by a_shovel »

WalterBright wrote: post #296
a_shovel wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how that argument usually goes. "This policy proposal might be helpful. Is it? Let's see: The policy is socialist in nature + socialism killed millions in authoritarian communist regimes = this policy will kill millions. Therefore we must not allow the policy to succeed." I can't imagine how they ignore the flaws. People do this, without exaggeration, unconditionally for every socialist policy.

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.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#319

Post by kevingrahl »

hackeraccount wrote: post #300

Rather then be teachers and teach it was easier to just remove the opportunity to learn. Even doing nothing would have been an improvement.

It’s very obvious that you did not read more than the title.

How on earth did they not teach? It’s exactly what this article is all about.

Re: Why We Banned Legos (2006)

#320

Post by DiffEq »

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…

Except it wasn’t the legos causing the trouble. It was a few kids. Instead of correcting those kids that were being selfish jerks they blamed the toy and punished everyone. Well those kids will still be selfish jerks, the problem remains.
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