Amazing article about power structures and legos

[cherydactyl]

Why We Banned Legos, an account from a daycare/before- and after-school-care facility in an affluent Seattle neighborhood about an interesting conundrum of limited resources that arose from their school-age children building a 'Legotown.'

Totally fascinating. If you like or care for kids in any way, I strongly encourage you read it!

ETA: and here's a follow-up article: 'Lego Fascists' (that's us) vs. Fox News

Comments

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

That is so cool.

[eviljohn.livejournal.com]

Great link! Thanks.

[beginnermind.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff. I'm not sure the solution of nobody having a bigger house than the rest is a great message either, though. No airports, I guess, or pyramids, or world trade centres. A mayonaise world built of lego. Nobody free to follow their own particular vision if that vision is too grand and different from that of everybody else.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I especially liked the followup article that you found -- I thought it was even more interesting and thought-provoking than the original article.

[train-gamer.livejournal.com]

This is actually train_gamer's DW, bitter_lily. (Somehow we have never friended each other. Should this continue?)

My DH showed me the first article, although we haven't looked at the second one yet. I was deeply disappointed that despite the insight about "cool pieces" at the beginning, the rules the children developed completely overlooked the issue, with no objection from the teachers. "If we both can only build houses that are the same size, obviously mine will be better than yours because mine has more windows. You have no right to object when I grab for the tenth clear piece, even though you only have three."

I do think that creativity can flourish within standard restraints, just as my favorite poetry are sonnets, with the same meter and rhyme scheme as any other.

[dspitzle.livejournal.com]

I think the article misses an important aspect to this whole situation: the new pseudo-egalitarian rules came about because of the operation of the inegalitarian teacher/student power structure. It would appear that the removal and reintroduction of the legos were both done by means and timing of the teachers, without the request or direct consent of the students. While that power dynamic is pretty much unavoidable, the fact that it was largely ignored in the article strikes me as undermining the communitarian miracle they seem to be proclaiming.

For what it's worth, though, I think the key change that was made was explicitly declaring the legos to be a community resource, rather than a raw material with no ownership strings until they are used. I'm not sure how much the other rules changes were likely to alter the behavior of the group. I'm also curious whether a new Legotown ever spontaneously emerged, and if so whether it was more or less extensive than the original.