Right On The Right

A big new theme here at ROTR is covering the education system, and the overwhelming liberal bias which has permeated the system. I've determined that there's something inherently socialist about public education, because the teachers depend upon the government to keep their occupation. Democrats love the dependent, and making the public dependent on them for education is a big part of their subversive plan. What's scary, is when these tendencies extend out of the public system, and when they affect kids of a young age.

A group of women run Hilltop Childrens' Center, in Seattle, Washington. Apparently, like many other kids, the kids at Hilltop had an affinity for legos. I remember being obsessed with wooden blocks in Kindergarten, so it doesn't surprise me. The kids at Hilltop even decided to do the same thing with Legos that I did with the wooden blocks, and that's build a town. That's when the teachers at the Center decided to step in, apparently with the ultimate goal of writing some "alternative education" report. Instead of just letting the kids play with the legos, they gave them a lesson in socialism.

"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.

Before I delve into the idiocy that surrounded their decision to ban Legos, let's take a look at these kids. They're bartering, engaging in social dialogue, and learning. If anything, they're displaying a brilliant knowledge of capitalism, and how offering services to others can be beneficial. Cool pieces represent natural resources, the town represents society, etc. The kids are learning a lot. Now, on to the idiocy:

Occasionally, Legotown leaders explicitly rebuffed children, telling them that they couldn't play. Typically the exclusion was more subtle, growing from a climate in which Legotown was seen as the turf of particular kids. The other children didn't complain much about this; when asked about Legos, they'd often comment vaguely that they just weren't interested in playing with Legos anymore. As they closed doors to other children, the Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used, and how "cool pieces" would be distributed and protected. These negotiations gave rise to heated conflict and to insightful conversation. 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.

Here's how I interpret what was going on. A couple of kids were smart and got to the Legos first, and realizing that they were running short on the small blocks, they started being fiscal with them. They used incredible social skills to keep the town going, and just like they're supposed to, they learned through arguing with other kids how to function in social society. I'd give this learning experience a checkmark, but the educators apparently had other plans. The story continues to talk about how the town accidentally got destroyed and they began this massive investigation and round-table discussion and temporarily banned the Legos.

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.

The children had Legos, felt they were being nice by giving the Legos, and knew they had control because the other kids had no Legos. It appears to me that the children had a perfect grasp on resource management and the power that goes with it.

We introduced the Lego trading game to the children by passing a bin of Legos around the circle, asking each child to choose 10 Legos; we didn't say anything about point values or how we'd use the bricks. Most children chose a mix of colored Lego bricks, though a few chose 10 of one color. Liam took all eight green Legos, explaining that green is his favorite color; this seemingly straightforward choice altered the outcome of the game.

When everyone had their Legos, the teachers announced that each color had a point value: The more common the brick color, the fewer the points it was worth, while the scarcest brick color, green, was worth a whopping five points.

In case you lost focus of what the teachers goals were, they're trying to teach the kids a lesson about resource management, probably so they learn later not to engage in land wars in Asia (or some other liberal stance). Basically, here, the teachers are making the game suck. The idiotic teachers decided to make the simple Lego game a complicated "life lesson." What they're doing here is guilt-tripping some of the kids for taking the Legos they wanted, and purposely causing conflict to make the kids think about Lego sharing. The socialist-lite lesson continues, as the kids go through the point lesson, and establish some rules:

Collectivity is a good thing:

"You get to build and you have a lot of fun and people get to build onto your structure with you, and it doesn't have to be the same way as when you left it.... A house is good because it is a community house."

A community house? What happened to teaching kids that working towards your goals is a good thing, and that owning things is something to be proud of?

Personal expression matters:

"It's important that the little Lego plastic person has some identity. Lego houses might be all the same except for the people. A kid should have their own Lego character to live in the house so it makes the house different."

God forbid someone have a house that expresses something. Instead, there are stock community houses and it's only your Lego person that matters. Ownership is something to shun, in favor of self-esteem and personal expression.

Moderation and equal access to resources are things to strive for:
"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes.... We should all just have the same number of pieces, like 15 or 28 pieces."

And right there, a simple Lego game where kids were learning lessons in social situations and even minor lessons in capitalism, becomes a game where the kids are thriving for a communal socialist society, with re-distributed Lego pieces representing distributed wealth in Legotown. These teachers destroyed a true learning experience for these kids.