Reihan Salam On Andrew Sullivan: Banning Legos in Seattle

Salam is guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan this week, and comments on this article from Rethinking Schools Online.  Here’s the subtitle and a quote from the article:

“Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom”

Uh-oh…

“The children’s reaction to the winners of the trading game was a big warning flag for us: We clearly had some repair work to do around relationships.”

If only the complexity of human instinct fit into our ideas….and these political ideas…

Salam suggests that for these teachers:

“Challenging and reformulating Legotown means changing which kids are at the top of the Legotown hierarchy.”

So, the teachers of radical equality gave kids legos, observed them through radical egalitarianism-colored glasses, and are attempting to change their behavior….agreed.

Then again it’s Seattle, and I’ll comment more about that later.  Those of you who’ve been here might appreciate this kind of protest:

Addition: My suggestion is that the legal and economic structures in place are doing their work, a longer, better work than these idealogues.  I have yet to be convinced that Seattleites are really thinking beyond those structures, especially not the people at Rethinking Schools Online. 

Another Addition: Is there a lurking danger of people pursuing freedom and liberty too zealously? Here’s a good discussion at bloggingheads between a thoughtful conservative (Kantian libertarian?) and a thoughtful liberal.