Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Oppressive LEGOs?

I just read this on Fox News' Political Grapevine. I don't really have a comment other than "Huh?":

Banning LEGOs

Teachers at a Seattle day care center decided to ban LEGO building blocks — those colorful little bricks kids use to build such creations as robots, monster trucks, space ships and vast futuristic cities. The Hilltop Children's Center bills itself as a nationally recognized, non-profit, non-religious facility. So why did the teachers toss the LEGOs?

We'll let them explain: "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 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."

After months of what the teachers called "social justice exploration" — they let the LEGOs back in — but kids were only allowed to build "public structures" of standard sizes in a village dedicated to what they called "collectivity and consensus."

Update:
I found the following articles concerning this:
Why We Banned Legos
L'Eggo My Lego

I think the first article is actually from the people that did this, so I'll be curious to see what they say when I have the time to read it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NO FRIGGIN' CLUE what they're talking about.

Social justice exploration... is that like they taught the kids to be Batman?

Or maybe that's dark justice...

-Surge!

Anonymous said...

"Collectivity and consensus"... wow... apparently Karl Marx is very much alive and well and living in Seattle.

-Surge!