July 26, 2007
Legos: capitalist tools
Here is a newsletter from a Seattle school explaining how legos were capitalist tools that interfered with the childrens' education, banned them and then reintroduced them with new rules after the children were indoctrinated with what the school considered correct values:
It's hard to pick a favorite passage, they are all so illustrative of the mind set of these educators, but I rather like this one:
- 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.
Can't wait to see how they deal with marbles.
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