Subject:
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'Lego Ban' at Seattle School Fueled by Anti-Private Property Crusaders
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lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:15:40 GMT
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L'Eggo My Lego
By Maureen Martin
28 Feb 2007
Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property
rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.
A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle. According to an
article in the winter 2006-07 issue of "Rethinking Schools" magazine, the
teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private
property ownership is evil.
According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate
"Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its
destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership."
According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of
values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic
participation."
The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about
ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of
a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be
unjust and oppressive."
They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political
understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social
justice."
So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the
students shared the teachers' anathema to private property ownership. "If I buy
it, I own it," one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the
students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of
several months.
At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children
agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All
structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes."
The teachers quote the children:
"A house is good because it is a community house."
"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes."
"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your
building."
Given some recent history in Washington state with respect to private property
protections, perhaps this should not come as a surprise. Municipal officials in
Washington have long known how to condemn one person's private property and sell
it to another for the "public use" of private economic development. Even prior
to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London,
Connecticut, which sanctioned such a use of eminent domain, Washington state
officials acting under their state constitution were already proceeding full
speed ahead with such transactions.
Officials in Bremerton, for example, condemned a house where a widow had lived
for 55 years so her property could be used for a car lot, according to the
Institute for Justice. And Seattle successfully condemned nine properties and
turned them over to a private developer for retail shops and hotel parking, IJ
reports. Attempts to do the same thing in Vancouver (for mixed use development)
and Lakewood (for an amusement park) failed for reasons unrelated to property
confiscation issues.
The court's ruling in Kelo, however, whetted municipal condemnation appetites
even further. The Institute for Justice reports 272 takings for private use are
pending or threatened in the state as of last summer. It's unclear if Legos will
be targeted. But given what's being taught in some schools, perhaps it's just a
matter of time.
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