Commentary

Molding Young Minds through Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmetic, & Collectivism

From Washington state, a story guaranteed to make freedom-loving parents squirm:

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.”

Enjoy a tall glass of Pepto before you read the full story here. What’s truly unjust and oppressive is that these kids’ parents are forking over thousands of dollars per year to have their children indoctrinated with this collectivist blather. Luckily for them, they have the ability to vote with their pocketbook and place their kids in another school. Makes you wonder though…if private ownership and capitalism are so evil, then isn’t just a tad hypocritical that these teachers are working for a private school? Way to walk the talk, guys… One commenter to the piece summed this up pretty accurately: “This is nothing more than barcolounger communism and brainwashing.”