Into their coffee shops and houses, 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. As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.
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.
As teachers, we were excited by these comments. The children gave voice to the value that collectivity is a solid, energizing way to organize a community, and that it requires power-sharing, equal access to resources, and trust in the other participants. They expressed the need, within collectivity, for personal expression, for being acknowledged as an individual within the group. And finally, they named the deep satisfaction of shared engagement and investment, and the ways in which the participation of many people deepens the experience of membership in community for everyone.
From this framework, the children made a number of specific proposals for rules about Legos, engaged in some collegial debate about those proposals, and worked through their differing suggestions until they reached consensus about three core agreements:
* 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.
With these three agreements, which distilled months of social justice exploration into a few simple tenets of community use of resources, we returned the Legos to their place of honor in the classroom.
Children absorb political, social, and economic worldviews from an early age. Those worldviews show up in their play, which is the terrain that young children use to make meaning about their world and to test and solidify their understandings. We believe that educators have a responsibility to pay close attention to the themes, theories, and values that children use to anchor their play. Then we can interact with those worldviews, using play to instill the values of equality and democracy.
The full heartwarming progressive article can be read here. That dose of social justice invigorated me, and I set out to formulate a teaching technique to spread the values of equality and democracy. What I came up with has the power to shake the very foundations of the education system. I call it FairGrade.
Suppose there is a classroom, free from thought crime, which has three upstanding members of the proletariat; we will call them Proletariat 446245232-A (pA), Proletariat 425425423-C (pC), and Proletariat 450085834-F (pF). Under the regular fascist grading scheme, pA has a grade of 95%, pC has a grade of 75%, and pF has a grade of 40%. It should be clear to everyone that 95% is an excessive amount of grade points for only one member of the proletariat. Would it not be more equitable if we were to transfer some of those grade points to the less fortunate, say, to pF? From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
Under FairGrade, we take 25 grade points from pA, 5 grade points from pC, and give 30 grade points to pF, resulting in each member of the proletariat having a grade of 70%, which is perfectly respectable - I will call it the Equal Winner Grade. Perfect academic equality has been reached, and everyone passes. You have to understand that there are root causes to poor academic performance. Things like mental illness differentness, George Bush, sickness, the bible, family village trouble, global warming climate change, fast food restaurants, second hand smoke, gender confusion, Halliburton, homophobia, socioeconomic status, lack of access to abortions, processed food, addiction, corporate advertising, being differently brained, SUVs, species extinction, American hegemony, AIDS, child molesting priests, guns, cooked animal flesh, etc. FairGrade compensates for these social crimes and returns education to the equitable place that is the right of the people.
Thoughtcrime is the only way to have a lower grade than the Equal Winner Grade, with those grade points removed being placed into the People's Grade Bank to be distributed to those harmed by displays of social injustice (i.e. Hate Crimes - which includes all thoughtcrimes). Failure will thus be taken as a crime against the state akin to treason, with the guilty Hate Terrorists sent to reeducation camps to be rehabilitated for the common good and for the security of the motherland.