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View Full Version : Jumpstarting this folder again... Communism in our schools?



Terry S
04-04-2007, 10:03 AM
This is a week old story but I forgot to post this up when I first saw it. Sooo, in an attempt to revitalize this folder i'm reposting this.

I took the article from here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmQwMGVjNTU5YTQ5ZWU3MDE1NjBjNjkwZTQ0MmJhNWE=&w=MA==
but i'm sure you can find it from other sources like foxnews & such.

Anyways, here's the article:

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Banning Legos
And building a world where “all structures will be standard sizes.”

By John J. Miller

Perhaps you’ve heard about the schools that have banned tag. Or dodgeball. Or stories about pigs.

If so, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Hilltop Children’s Center in Seattle has banned Legos.

A pair of teachers at the center, which provides afterschool activities for elementary-school kids, recently described their policy in a Rethinking Schools cover story called “Why We Banned Legos.” (See the magazine’s cover here.)

It has something to do with “social justice learning.”

My vision of social justice for children of elementary-school age is as follows: If you’re tagged, you’re it; if the ball hits you, you’re out; and pig stories are fun, especially when told over microwaveable hot dogs.

But I try to keep an open mind, so I read the article on why Hilltop banned Legos.

As most aficionados know, Legos are made by a Danish company. The company name comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means play well. “Lego became a national treasure and one of the strongest brands in the toy industry,” wrote The Economist last year. “Its colorful bricks are sold in over 130 countries: everyone on earth has, on average, 52 of them.”

In their Rethinking Schools article, teachers Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin describe how the kids at Hilltop built “a massive series of Lego structures we named Legotown.” I sensed that something was rotten in the state of Legotown when I read this description of it: “a collection of homes, shops, public facilities, and community meeting places.”

My children have spent a large portion of their young lives playing with Legos. They have never, to my knowledge, constructed “community meeting places.” Instead, they make monster trucks, space ships, and war machines. These little creations are usually loaded with ion guns, nuclear missiles, bunker-busting bombs, force-field projectors, and death-ray cannons. Alien empires have risen and fallen in epic conflicts waged in the upstairs bedrooms of my home.

Perhaps kids in Seattle, under the careful watch of their latte-sipping guardians, are different. But I don’t think so.

At Hilltop, however, the teachers strive to make them different. “We recognized that children are political beings, actively shaping their social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity,” write Pelo and Pelojoaquin. “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.”

The root cause of Hilltop’s Lego problem was that, well, the kids were being kids: There were disputes over “cool pieces,” instances of bigger kids bossing around little ones, and so on.

An ordinary person might recognize this as child’s play. But the social theorists at Hilltop saw something else: “The children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.”

Pelo and Pelojoaquin continue: “As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.”

So they banned the Legos and began their program of re-education. “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation,” they write.

Instead of practicing phonics or memorizing multiplication tables, the children played a special game: “In the game, the children could experience what they’d not been able to acknowledge in Legotown: When people are shut out of participation in the power structure, they are disenfranchised — and angry, discouraged, and hurt. ... The rules of the game — which mirrored the rules of our capitalist meritocracy — were a setup for winning and losing. ... Our analysis of the game, as teachers, guided our planning for the rest of the investigation into the issues of power, privilege, and authority that spanned the rest of the year.”

After “months of social justice exploration,” the teachers finally agreed it was time to return the Legos to the classroom. That’s because the children at last had bought into the concept that “collectivity is a good thing.” And in Hilltop’s new Lego regime, there would be three immutable laws:

- All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. But only the builder or people who have her or his permission are allowed to change a structure.

- Lego people can be saved only by a “team” of kids, not by individuals.

- All structures will be standard sizes.

You can almost feel the liberating spirit of that last rule. All structures will be standard sizes? At Hilltop Children’s Center, all imaginations will be a standard size as well: small.

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Yup. Banned legos until they could solidify a communistic set of rules upon the children.

Discuss.

Terry S

Miss Evo8
04-04-2007, 10:58 AM
WTF... my son has played with legos most of his life... I don't feel legos made him "unjust or oppressive" toward other kids...he became quite imaginative when using them to play. He loved building things.. hmm maybe he will be an architect...

if anything the only time I felt the need to "Ban" the legos was when he didnt pick them all up and I stepped on them barefoot in the middle of the night :tickedoff:

Are these people serious? ... Future sociopaths in that group of kids... :buck2:

RPD_FKTARD
04-04-2007, 11:08 AM
what's lego?
are they expensive?

Miss Evo8
04-04-2007, 11:17 AM
what's lego?
are they expensive?


www.lego.com

RPD_FKTARD
04-04-2007, 11:27 AM
ahh.. rich american toys... :P
all i get was sand and clays when im young

toku-one
04-04-2007, 11:39 AM
i still have way more than 52

ozz
04-04-2007, 11:52 AM
WTF... my son has played with legos most of his life... I don't feel legos made him "unjust or oppressive" toward other kids...he became quite imaginative when using them to play. He loved building things.. hmm maybe he will be an architect...

if anything the only time I felt the need to "Ban" the legos was when he didnt pick them all up and I stepped on them barefoot in the middle of the night :tickedoff:

Are these people serious? ... Future sociopaths in that group of kids... :buck2:


Actually, you might be quite right.* I used to play with legos as a kid and now I am an architect.* It's a shame how people try to narrow down ways for kids to express themselves and develop their creative talents.

Terry S
04-04-2007, 11:59 AM
WTF... my son has played with legos most of his life... I don't feel legos made him "unjust or oppressive" toward other kids...he became quite imaginative when using them to play. He loved building things.. hmm maybe he will be an architect...

if anything the only time I felt the need to "Ban" the legos was when he didnt pick them all up and I stepped on them barefoot in the middle of the night :tickedoff:

Are these people serious? ... Future sociopaths in that group of kids... :buck2:


Actually, you might be quite right. I used to play with legos as a kid and now I am an architect. It's a shame how people try to narrow down ways for kids to express themselves and develop their creative talents.


That is exactly what a socialist and/or communistic way of thinking does though. They stifle individualism under the guise of "teamwork". It's the main reason why Russia is such a shithole since it's gone democratic. When every single person in the populous is told that they are worth what the government pays them for the job they assign them, very few develop an entrepreneurial spirit.

Socialism is bad. Communism is bad. And by extension, unions (which foster this line of though) are bad.

/*

Terry S

chavo_del_8
04-05-2007, 06:55 AM
It looks like the teachers placed a cap or limit, on the creativity or skills of certain kids so that the rest of the group wouldn't get their feelings hurt.* I don't know about you guys but when I was younger and saw that the praise, awards, and recognition went to the smarter kids it always made me work harder to achieve those goals. IMO the teachers are only setting those kids up to grow with a sense of complacency.

EVOMANIAC
04-05-2007, 07:50 AM
So basically we will take the strong or smart people and hold them back to the level of the slower or not so smart people and have a society of equally educated and creative children. Sounds like BS to me. No matter what there is always a pecking order. Some one is the stronger and someone is the weaker. Hell i bet Bill Gates never got to eat lunch in school, but look at him now. We are trying tro create a society where everyone is the same and it just cant be done. This country is definitley headed towards a Communist state.

Miss Evo8
04-05-2007, 10:24 AM
It looks like the teachers placed a cap or limit, on the creativity or skills of certain kids so that the rest of the group wouldn't get their feelings hurt.* I don't know about you guys but when I was younger and saw that the praise, awards, and recognition went to the smarter kids it always made me work harder to achieve those goals. IMO the teachers are only setting those kids up to grow with a sense of complacency.


No doubt on that one... when my son was about 5 I took him for a drive down by skidrow in downtown LA to see the tent city, bums and crack-heads....and explained if he was a loser at school and did drugs this was where he was gonna end up....a little harsh but I wanted him to realize early not to be a slacker.

Terry S
04-05-2007, 12:27 PM
No doubt on that one... when my son was about 5 I took him for a drive down by skidrow in downtown LA to see the tent city, bums and crack-heads....and explained if he was a loser at school and did drugs this was where he was gonna end up....a little harsh but I wanted him to realize early not to be a slacker.


Best lesson ever.

I remember getting those rides from my step-dad. He grew up in a POOOOOR ass area of Barstow back in the 60's & 70's. His parents did all they could so he wouldn't be stuck living next to crack heads and pooping in an outhouse. He ended up going to law school & becoming a lawyer. He was quite an ass but man, when he wanted to make a point, he knew the best way to do it.

Terry S