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Comment by Breazy | Hacker News Reader

> This is article about teaching children to share Lego toys.

No, it's about using lego to teach teaching kids about capitalism and power structures.

> Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom

> 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.

Seriously, count how many times the article mentions "power", and count how many times it mentions "share".

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> Seriously, count how many times the article mentions "power", and count how many times it mentions "share".

Why? What would that even tell me? Toy-hogging is one of the earliest and simplest examples of a power imbalance a kid will see. Teaching the kids about the power imbalance directly instead of just decreeing "you have to share" is outstanding teaching, and certainly much more effective. These are some lucky 8-year-olds.

And what does this have to do with communist autocracies?

> Teaching the kids about the power imbalance directly instead of just decreeing "you have to share" is outstanding teaching, and certainly much more effective.

Uh huh, it sounds like you agree with me now? The article isn't about sharing lego. It's about using lego to teach kids about society, power structures, and capitalism. The article lays the ideology motivation of these teachers bare, it isn't hiding anything. You don't need to read between the lines because the article is quite open about all of this. This article is not about "teaching children to share Lego toys" as you previously claimed. It's about "Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom". That's what the article says the article is about.

I pointed out the part about toys to highlight the unbridgeable gulf in stakes between the last two commenters' fearmongering over socialism and the wholesome and inoffensive lessons that were actually being taught.

I do agree with you, that's what the article is about! I also believe that it's a good thing to teach children about when they're young. Things make a lot more sense when you understand the structures of power that created them. I kinda wish I had figured it out a bit sooner than I did.

They're good lessons to teach kids. Do you disagree with that, or did I just misjudge what you were saying?

The problem is that you teach that it exists without teaching tools to challenge or maintain it without blowing the whole thing up and starting over. That’s not very useful and is teaching more revolutionary ideologies. Capitalism isn’t going anywhere what kids need is ways to deal with it and improve their own lot.

> No, it's about using lego to teach teaching kids about capitalism and power structures.

There was nothing in there about teaching kids about capitalism. It was about exploring the kid's understanding of ownership and power, which are far more fundental concepts that predate capitalism by thousands of years.

While it wasn't teaching about capitalism explicitly, it says:

"...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."

In my experience, it is far more common for people to take issue with the classism within out capitalistic society than with capitalism itself.

Is is disheartening that any critique of power, class or ownership becomes synonymous with being anticapitalist. These seem like crucial topics to discuss if you want a well functioning capitalist society.

Agreed. Ironically I find many capitalists aren't really capitalists at all. They want socialism for the rich.

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