You decide...
Posted on 07/25/2007 7:37:07 PM PDT by Lorianne
Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom ___
Carl and Oliver,* both 8-year-olds in our after-school program, huddled over piles of Legos. They carefully assembled them to add to a sprawling collection of Lego houses, grocery stores, fish-and-chips stands, fire stations, and coffee shops. They were particularly keen to find and use "cool pieces," the translucent bricks and specialty pieces that complement the standard-issue red, yellow, blue, and green Lego bricks.
"I'm making an airport and landing strip for my guy's house. He has his own airplane," said Oliver.
"That's not fair!" said Carl. "That takes too many cool pieces and leaves not enough for me."
"Well, I can let other people use the landing strip, if they have airplanes," said Oliver. "Then it's fair for me to use more cool pieces, because it's for public use."
Discussions like the one above led to children collaborating on a massive series of Lego structures we named Legotown. Children dug through hefty-sized bins of Legos, sought "cool pieces," and bartered and exchanged until they established a collection of homes, shops, public facilities, and community meeting places. We carefully protected Legotown from errant balls and jump ropes, and watched it grow day by day.
After nearly two months of observing the children's Legotown construction, we decided to ban the Legos.
(Excerpt) Read more at rethinkingschools.org ...
“The Boy”
Ah. Yer one of those guys. So is my Dad. I’m just shy of 40 and he’s just shy of 60 and still, walking into their home after a recent fishing trip I hear my Dad report the following to my mother, “The Boy” caught his limit and half of mine!”
When I was younger it bothered me. Now....I know it’s something I’ll miss when he’s no longer around to say it.
I and Missus are on top of it. She is involved heavily with the faculty, and my status as Returning Veteran hasn’t worn away yet.
This article needs an “It takes a (Lego) village” barf alert!
Idiots! The very society that they think is unjust and oppressive is what makes our country great. Without competition in a free capitalist system you end up with the dredges of humanity spread to all corners. NO one would be able to lift themselves out of disparity, leaving misery for all.
Where do these morons come from and why are they teaching our children?
Never heard an 8 year old child speak so eloquently. I do believe the story of the children is fictitious.
lol
That’s Not Fair: A Teacher’s Guide to Activism with Young Children by Ann Pelo
Whose Wars
A classroom activity asks students to define terrorism and ... By Ann Pelo
OMG what a read!
And the conclusion:
“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.”
Using play to instill OUR values on other people’s children.
For the past two years my 8yo daughter has been playing a game she and her friends made up called “Powers”. It involves about 800 rules, kids in shifting teams and ever-shifting power from person to person, depending on these mysterious rules. The kids love it because someone always is in power and others try to get the power. Guess this wouldn’t go over too well at the commune school.
The Boy is about to hit The Big One-Oh, and I’m still his best playmate for now.
They took away the legos for 5 months while they indoctrinated the kids about how it was bad to have power over others, and how important conformity was.
Then they gave the kids the legos back. Of course the kids did exactly what the teachers expected them to do — they didn’t want to lose their legos for another 5 months while they sat through stupid games that make no sense.
Too bad, because the kids were learning a valuable lesson about how things are worth only what value others place on them — if they had played more, and the teachers had encouraged people to build things OTHER than legotown, soon some kids would devalue the “valuable” legos out of necesity, and the kids in “power” would realise the law of supply and demand.
“This whole article makes my BS meter ring! Ding! Ding! Ding!”
Its real. Check out the school site... http://www.hilltopcc.com/
My oldest daughter is in the IB program for gifted children. In the middle of her junior year, the whole family attended her "pinning ceremony" where she was officially inducted into the IB (International Baccalaureate)program.
The Keynote speaker was the valedictorian of the first school year... 1999. She was a young woman that still looked like one of the students even though she was now married with a child. The Principal started his introduction with a Lego story.
He said, "The first time I met Jessica, she was playing with children's building blocks. Legos to be exact. She was in the 7th grade at (a private school) and I watched her play with those Legos for the next five years. She built a robot that could read with those Legos. She now has her degrees in robotics and language and is the head of the Lockheed Long Bow Apache attack helicopter long range fire control system."
I immediately thought of the videos of terrorist being splattered by the Apaches that I have seen all over the internet. When I got to shake her hand in the greeting line, I said, "I've seen your work on the internet... nice job!" and her reply was, "Awesome, huh?".
So, Legos are bad for commies and bad for terrorist, but they have a special place in my heart now!
good lord
there are so many ways to have kids build something like this without causing problems.
But its the teachers and their stupid rules that made the problems.
Why did they not just give each kid a random bag of pieces, and let the kids be cretaive using the pieces they got? Thats the beauty of Legos, you can make ANYTHING with them.
It’s a perfect example of how creating new rules in an attempt to regulate activity fails miserably.
“The Boy is about to hit The Big One-Oh, and I’m still his best playmate for now.”
That’s a great time. May neither of you ever forget the times that you are going to have, but I find at least from “The Boys’” POV that while I loved every minute with my Dad growing up, I have more of an ability to appreciate him now that I’m grown.
So much for the folks that say church based schools are better than public schools.
We all know the answers to those - they are leftists, but Americans still; and they teach because we allow them to.
“I do believe the story of the children is fictitious.”
http://www.hilltopcc.com/news/2007/03/14/response-to-why-we-banned-legos/
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