Kindergarten Teacher Bans Legos For Boys Citing ‘Gender Equity’

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Why is this attitude so prevalent?
Bad teacher? Fire her!
Irritating SO? Dump her!
Frustrating job? Quit it!
Uneducated opinion? Please ban this poster!

Isn't encouraging education, understanding, and personal growth the preferable route?

Stumpokapow said:
Outrage culture. Minor anecdote about small town school that affects at most a dozen or so kids for a few minutes for one day... basically, if this story is 100% true, the story is "A Bad Teacher Exists". Okay. Now package it up into an article that has a politically provocative point and share across the internet, now people from all sorts of countries can get REALLY ANGRY about SOCIETY THESE DAYS.

Looking at the outlets that have posted this over the last few days:
The original story went minorly viral on the following subreddits 5 days ago:
/r/rage (111 comments, 629 points. It was posted by this guy)
/r/TumblrInAction (365 comments, 1,393 points, posted by this guy).
As you can see both posters are basically full-time contributors of social justice content that will make you angry. To give context to /r/rage, they do have a rule against "manufacturing outrage" but the current top weekly posts are a waiter receiving something mean on a receipt; a random person's facebook comment; a random person's tweet; an article from Tucker Carlson's site; and an animated gif of someone skateboarding while holding a baby. So I think I've established that it's mostly very small stakes stuff blowing up into viral ragegasms.

Although the original story died out, today the CBS story it got posted on reddit (presumably /r/news is the source for it being posted here). It was posted here 30 minutes ago and there are over 100 replies. Looked through the first 120 or so and here's what I found:
Posts less than 3 lines long but angry about this: ~95
Corrections: ~7-8
Other: ~10

So, mission accomplished. Outrage generated. FUCK THIS WOMAN, FUCK THIS TEACHING, UGH, FUCK, SOCIETY, FUCK
Click to expand...
The climax at the end really brought this post together for me. I feel like most GAF posts are emotionally charged reactions. It would be nice to see actual discussion take eminence. Of course, sharing opinions puts you at risk of a ban, while caps locking obscenities carries no risk and is much easier.

Honestly scared of being banned for this post.
 
El_TigroX said:
The solution to this is mixed gender play groups, and a rotation on toys, right? So if there is a lego station, all the kids get a chance to go through the station and play... together?

Sucks to look at a little kid, and think "yes, this is where I'll make a political stand"
Click to expand...
The solution is let the kids do what they want. Don't force the girls to do what the boys are doing, don't prevent the boys from doing what they want.
 
Funny. Just read a female child psychiatrist claiming boys should be boys as much as possible because they have so many female influences already, seeing as how most of the teachers they have before they are 12 are women.
 
No point in being outraged but I can say that, if my child were attending this school and I discovered this, I would remove them.
 
Joni said:
Funny. Just read a female child psychiatrist claiming boys should be boys as much as possible because they have so many female influences already, seeing as how most of the teachers they have before they are 12 are women.
Click to expand...


Yeah there are almost no male teachers before junior high. no sports programs in elementary school and male teachers are expected to dual as coaches due to gender roles so they teach junior high and highschool.
 
Love her reasoning for her methods when she then contradicts herself hilariously when she uses pink and purple blocks to attract the girls. What a blind hypocritical dumbass.
 
Joni said:
Funny. Just read a female child psychiatrist claiming boys should be boys as much as possible because they have so many female influences already, seeing as how most of the teachers they have before they are 12 are women.
Click to expand...

And honestly, boy-behavior is so demonized in these environments that it only makes them disengage with school and/or want to lash out at inappropriate times later.
 
perfectchaos007 said:
Yeah there are almost no male teachers before junior high. no sports programs in elementary school and male teachers are expected to dual as coaches due to gender roles so they teach junior high and highschool.
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, I didn't have a male teacher until junior high when we got a rotation of a few teachers, and those were gym teachers. Never thought about it before. I had no problems with it, just a funny realization reading these posts.
 
You guys are right, there's no need to get rid of dolls. I was thinking about peer pressure and advertising influencing the girls to flock towards dolls, maybe causing some girls who aren't so keen on the dolls to play with them in order to fit in, but perhaps that's a stretch for such young children. I don't know what age Kindergarten is, five years old?

Of course there's nothing wrong with wanting to play with dolls, LEGO or anything else. Kids should feel comfortable playing with whatever they feel like.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Outrage culture. Minor anecdote about small town school that affects at most a dozen or so kids for a few minutes for one day... basically, if this story is 100% true, the story is "A Bad Teacher Exists". Okay. Now package it up into an article that has a politically provocative point and share across the internet, now people from all sorts of countries can get REALLY ANGRY about SOCIETY THESE DAYS.

Looking at the outlets that have posted this over the last few days:
The original story went minorly viral on the following subreddits 5 days ago:
/r/rage (111 comments, 629 points. It was posted by this guy)
/r/TumblrInAction (365 comments, 1,393 points, posted by this guy).
As you can see both posters are basically full-time contributors of social justice content that will make you angry. To give context to /r/rage, they do have a rule against "manufacturing outrage" but the current top weekly posts are a waiter receiving something mean on a receipt; a random person's facebook comment; a random person's tweet; an article from Tucker Carlson's site; and an animated gif of someone skateboarding while holding a baby. So I think I've established that it's mostly very small stakes stuff blowing up into viral ragegasms.

Although the original story died out, today the CBS story it got posted on reddit (presumably /r/news is the source for it being posted here). It was posted here 30 minutes ago and there are over 100 replies. Looked through the first 120 or so and here's what I found:
Posts less than 3 lines long but angry about this: ~95
Corrections: ~7-8
Other: ~10

So, mission accomplished. Outrage generated. FUCK THIS WOMAN, FUCK THIS TEACHING, UGH, FUCK, SOCIETY, FUCK
Click to expand...


Haha, knew it it was Reddit. Anyway, here is the real, old non-news



In recent weeks, our Oct. 30 article about Lego play in Karen Keller's kindergarten classroom has generated a lot of controversy.

While we stand by what we reported - it was the story told to us by Keller - we have been discouraged by the number of unfair personal attacks made against her.

Keller has reportedly been receiving hate phone calls at her classroom and vicious messages on Facebook.

There is a difference between thoughtful and informed debate and aggressive and invasive hounding. We hope our readers will choose the former and voice constructive concerns and comments about the article's content in the appropriate forums.

This morning, the Bainbridge Island School District announced that girls-only Lego play in Keller's classroom has ceased.

"Following the release of a recent news article, the Bainbridge Island School District (BISD) has received inquiries that reflect inaccurate perceptions about student access to Legos in Karen Keller’s kindergarten classroom at Blakely Elementary School," wrote district spokeswoman Galen Crawford.

"In keeping with a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education grant, Ms. Keller gave girls a designated time to play with the building toys during a 30-minute 'free-choice' time block in September 2015. This isolated, short-term practice ended in October. All students in all classrooms have and will continue to have access to all instructional and noninstructional materials."

Meanwhile, many in the community have stepped out to defend Keller, sharing stories of the positive impact she has made in her students' lives - girls and boys alike.
Click to expand...

http://www.bainbridgereview.com/lifestyle/351888341.html

This whole thing ended in October. And now, at November 24, the outrage starts. Just lol
 
Karsticles said:
Why is this attitude so prevalent?
Bad teacher? Fire her!
Irritating SO? Dump her!
Frustrating job? Quit it!
Uneducated opinion? Please ban this poster!

Isn't encouraging education, understanding, and personal growth the preferable route?


The climax at the end really brought this post together for me. I feel like most GAF posts are emotionally charged reactions. It would be nice to see actual discussion take eminence. Of course, sharing opinions puts you at risk of a ban, while caps locking obscenities carries no risk and is much easier.

Honestly scared of being banned for this post.
Click to expand...

The story spawns outrage because it is outrageous. If someone posted it with that intent, it doesn't make it less outrageous because they had an agenda.

She's actively discouraging student development to half of her class because she feels they don't deserve it. Such a person does not belong in a school. Firing her sends the message that it's not to be tolerated.

Edit: it appears that she was told to stop. Good.
 
Stupid policy that put ideology ahead of nurturing young, impressionable minds, but I'm glad she seems to have reversed course.
 
Oersted said:
Read the article I linked to understand what happened. Read Stumps post to understand what happened.
Click to expand...

I read the actual story. When the idiocy occurred doesn't make it less idiotic. Distilling it all down to "outrage" is the very definition of lazy. The story doesn't instill outrage in me at all. I'm more depressed and surprised that someone who is supposed to be an educator couldn't see the countless better solutions and instead went with one of the absolute dumbest.
 
Oersted said:
Haha, knew it it was Reddit. Anyway, here is the real, old non-news





http://www.bainbridgereview.com/lifestyle/351888341.html

This whole thing ended in October. And now, at November 24, the outrage starts. Just lol
Click to expand...

I don't get these responses. "It's just one teacher"—then one teacher denying girls the opportunity to play with LEGOs wouldn't be a news story by that token too?

"The outrage only starts now"—People regularly post news stories here that are days or weeks old or older. We sometimes don't hear about that politician's misconduct until months or even years later, that doesn't mean that the statue of limitations to be upset or to make changes has lapsed.

This isn't the End of the World, and just because this teacher was stupid doesn't mean she deserves hate mail or death threats... internet mobs are gonna' internet mob, and that is a shame. But the instant dismissal of this topic using the exact same rhetorical flourishes that people are using every day to dismiss problems from police brutality to sexism are pretty mind-boggling. Whataboutism and "fuck them they're well off" is flourishing in this thread. It's a shame a mod is encouraging this.
 
Sho_Nuff82 said:
The story spawns outrage because it is outrageous. If someone posted it with that intent, it doesn't make it less outrageous because they had an agenda.

She's actively discouraging student development to half of her class because she feels they don't deserve it. Such a person does not belong in a school. Firing her sends the message that it's not to be tolerated.
Click to expand...

Following the release of a recent news article, the Bainbridge Island School District (BISD) has received inquiries that reflect inaccurate perceptions about student access to Legos in Karen Keller’s kindergarten classroom at Blakely Elementary School," wrote district spokeswoman Galen Crawford.

"In keeping with a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education grant, Ms. Keller gave girls a designated time to play with the building toys during a 30-minute 'free-choice' time block in September 2015. This isolated, short-term practice ended in October. All students in all classrooms have and will continue to have access to all instructional and noninstructional materials."
Click to expand...

.

EthanC said:
I read the actual story. When the idiocy occurred doesn't make it less idiotic. Distilling it all down to "outrage" is the very definition of lazy. The story doesn't instill outrage in me at all. I'm more depressed and surprised that someone who is supposed to be an educator couldn't see the countless better solutions and instead went with one of the absolute dumbest.
Click to expand...

You are welcome to call the outrage idiocy.
 
There are two deeply concerning things here.

1- The teacher and her choice of exclusion as a means of projecting her own disturbing style of 'equality'.

2- People who put 'legos' instead of LEGO.

The perpetrators of both these offences should be subject to a lengthy public stint in stocks and pelted with an assortment of rotten goods.
 
Maedhros said:
This is not true. I thought it was a meme at first, but some people really believe this.

Used to stomp my legos all the time as a kid. Unless they are making spikes now, I don't think they hurt.
Click to expand...

Did your parents happen to find you in a meteor in a field somewhere and adopt you? Did they mention anything about you lifting their car?
 
dalin80 said:
There are two deeply concerning things here.

1- The teacher and her choice of exclusion as a means of projecting her own disturbing style of 'equality'.

2- People who put 'legos' instead of LEGO.

The perpetrators of both these offences should be subject to a lengthy public stint in stocks and pelted with an assortment of rotten goods.
Click to expand...

They should be forcefully poked with this:
Speer.jpg
 
Fuchsdh said:
I don't get these responses. "It's just one teacher"—then one teacher denying girls the opportunity to play with LEGOs wouldn't be a news story by that token too?

"The outrage only starts now"—People regularly post news stories here that are days or weeks old or older. We sometimes don't hear about that politician's misconduct until months or even years later, that doesn't mean that the statue of limitations to be upset or to make changes has lapsed.

This isn't the End of the World, and just because this teacher was stupid doesn't mean she deserves hate mail or death threats... internet mobs are gonna' internet mob, and that is a shame. But the instant dismissal of this topic using the exact same rhetorical flourishes that people are using every day to dismiss problems from police brutality to sexism are pretty mind-boggling. Whataboutism and "fuck them they're well off" is flourishing in this thread. It's a shame a mod is encouraging this.
Click to expand...

The story is substantially outdated. The story is over a month old and changed in it such a significant way, which the OP does not reflect.

The reporting is missleading. This is what happened:

Following the release of a recent news article, the Bainbridge Island School District (BISD) has received inquiries that reflect inaccurate perceptions about student access to Legos in Karen Keller’s kindergarten classroom at Blakely Elementary School," wrote district spokeswoman Galen Crawford.

"In keeping with a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education grant, Ms. Keller gave girls a designated time to play with the building toys during a 30-minute 'free-choice' time block in September 2015. This isolated, short-term practice ended in October. All students in all classrooms have and will continue to have access to all instructional and noninstructional materials."
Click to expand...

Internet mobs gonna internet mobs is a horrendous handwave.
 
Oersted said:
The story is substantially outdated. The story is over a month old and changed in it such a significant way, which the OP does not reflect.

The reporting is missleading. This is what happened:
Click to expand...

So the quote where she says "When hell freezes over" was fake?
 
Wow, she is the very definition of a feminazi...

I say this sitting here playing legos with my 5 yr old daughter. lol. Open gaf, see this thread...
 
Ok, so i see a lot of people mad about banning boys from lego.

But isn't it also pretty screwed up that she downright was forcing girls into lego?

Don't get me wrong, i always found baffling that people think lego are a "boy's toy", specially the early age sets that are just the blocks, building blocks are pretty neutral toys, you can build whatever you want! you can't put a gender on creativity, so girls playing with lego toys is not an outrageous concept.

But this teacher wanted to FORCE girls into playing with lego, she was pissed that girls actively chose not to play with lego that she restricted boys access from the toy and made a (probably mandatory) lego club for girls....why?

If the girls don't want to play with lego, you win nothing for forcing them to play with lego, how is that different from telling her to play with "girl toys" because of their gender?

This all just seems counterproductive to me.
 
PSqueak said:
Ok, so i see a lot of people mad about banning boys from lego.

But isn't it also pretty screwed up that she downright was forcing girls into lego?

Don't get me wrong, i always found baffling that people think lego are a "boy's toy", specially the early age sets that are just the blocks, building blocks are pretty neutral toys, you can build whatever you want! you can't put a gender on creativity, so girls playing with lego toys is not an outrageous concept.

But this teacher wanted to FORCE girls into playing with lego, she was pissed that girls actively chose not to play with lego that she restricted boys access from the toy and made a (probably mandatory) lego club for girls....why?

If the girls don't want to play with lego, you win nothing for forcing them to play with lego, how is that different from telling her to play with "girl toys" because of their gender?

This all just seems counterproductive to me.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, you got it. In both directions it's just plain fucking stupid and nothing about it makes sense.
 
Fuchsdh said:
I don't get these responses. "It's just one teacher"—then one teacher denying girls the opportunity to play with LEGOs wouldn't be a news story by that token too?
Click to expand...

My position is that if the story has some sort of broader ramifications or there's evidence it's part of some pattern or people are bringing up a broader issue, then it is the kind of news story people should consider posting. If it's just local ephemera, then I agree that regardless of politics it's not really worth spreading. I think we can determine which one of these it is by looking at the content of the story, the immediate reactions, and the path through which the story gained traction and spread.

"The outrage only starts now"—People regularly post news stories here that are days or weeks old or older. We sometimes don't hear about that politician's misconduct until months or even years later, that doesn't mean that the statue of limitations to be upset or to make changes has lapsed.
Click to expand...

It's more about the unthinking way in which stories propagate on the basis of causing acute emotional reactions in people than it is about the age of the story. The observation that the story is old but was ignored until a flashpoint is part of the explanation that what's at work here is the broader internet virality, not the story itself.

This isn't the End of the World, and just because this teacher was stupid doesn't mean she deserves hate mail or death threats... internet mobs are gonna' internet mob, and that is a shame. But the instant dismissal of this topic using the exact same rhetorical flourishes that people are using every day to dismiss problems from police brutality to sexism are pretty mind-boggling. Whataboutism and "fuck them they're well off" is flourishing in this thread.
Click to expand...

It's not whataboutism to observe overall patterns in the kinds of stories that gain traction and the types of responses to them. My beef with this is not that there are more important issues out there--we can focus on many things at once--my beef is that this is not a story coming up because someone here is affected or knows someone who is affected or is speaking on behalf of someone who is affected. It's not about power or authority. It's not about anything except one dumb person doing one dumb thing (or, it turns out, maybe not, or maybe only for a little bit and it's already been resolved). In the same way, I would discourage people from posting threads that boil down to "Someone On My Facebook Said Something I Disagree With". I think it contributes to a climate where peoples' interactions with the internet are primarily signal-boosting stuff framed to go viral and just being increasingly frustrated, angry, and distraught. Basically anger porn, the same way dumb cat pictures are cute porn or stories about sad things are grief porn. I think moving towards quick and visceral emotional reactions to viral stories is the exact opposite direction of the detached, longer view we should be taking about thinks. I think the internet is making us dumber by cultivating this kind of thing.

And in characterizing this as outrage culture, I was not suggesting that everyone in this thread is smashing stuff in their houses because they're so angry. Rather, I was suggesting that the entire contribution of this story is to provoke a negative, frustrated, angry reaction and spread through that anger. That is essentially the definition of outrage culture. When it is used from a conservative perspective, presumably conservatives do not mean that a feminist saying "It's unfair that my daughter couldn't play on the boy's soccer team" is OUTRAGED to the point that she's ready to burn the town down. Rather, what they are typically alleging is the nationalization of a small, irrelevant issue is part of a broader narrative that angry news spreads and gets signal boosted. Have I misunderstood the term as it is used by people on that side of the issue politically?

It's a shame a mod is encouraging this.
Click to expand...

No moderation has occurred in this thread, I posted my perception of this story as a user. If there's a shame, it's that I haven't figured out a way to post with my username blue because now me expressing my opinion on something is taken as an indictment of GAF's moderation team.

I posted after the thread rapidly blew up with short, (mildly) angry responses. You can read the first page. Look for people who say something that's deeper than "This is a bad thing." Since that post, there has been more push-back, and we're closer to actually talking about something instead of just "+1 this is dumb". That's an improvement. I feel fine being judged as shamefully encouraging people to look at the context of this story more broadly rather than just instantly reacting to the story itself.
 
stufte said:
This right here. Don't reduce choice, kids will gravitate towards what they want to play with.

I played with dolls and kitchen toys in kindergarten.
Click to expand...

So did I. AND LEGO.

All 5 of my sisters played with LEGO. And cars. And video games. And dolls.

Karen Keller shouldn't be teaching anybody.
 
...just get more legos for everyone so everyone can enjoy them together? What she's doing is equally as bad as forcing girls to play with dolls.
 
I would hope (and assume) that this is just an isolated incident.....because everyone should know (I hope) that this is not the way to tackle gender equality issues.

Jeez >_<
 
Stumpokapow said:
My position is that if the story has some sort of broader ramifications or there's evidence it's part of some pattern or people are bringing up a broader issue, then it is the kind of news story people should consider posting. If it's just local ephemera, then I agree that regardless of politics it's not really worth spreading. I think we can determine which one of these it is by looking at the content of the story, the immediate reactions, and the path through which the story gained traction and spread.
Click to expand...

Well there's people defending her actions which may suggest it's part of a pattern.

Also people are bringing up broader issues about gender in early childhood education.

If you want to discourage emotional responses, why not discourage the emotional responses themselves?

Instead of trying to make people guess if a news story is worth spreading.
 
buying enough lego for every kid that wants to play with them would have been the simplest and most obvious decision, I feel like I am missing something here. not let the boys play lego doesn't help anyone.
 
"i want to play with the doll."

"no, you have to play with Legos."

"but I don't like Legos."

"you must! For equality!"

"miss, can we play with the Legos?"

"no, you're boys. So for equality, you can't play with Legos."


And this is a teacher... Those kids are fucked from the get go, never had a chance.
 
Stumpokapow said:
My position is that if the story has some sort of broader ramifications or there's evidence it's part of some pattern or people are bringing up a broader issue, then it is the kind of news story people should consider posting. If it's just local ephemera, then I agree that regardless of politics it's not really worth spreading. I think we can determine which one of these it is by looking at the content of the story, the immediate reactions, and the path through which the story gained traction and spread.
Click to expand...

That's a reasonable threshold for posting threads on GAF, but by this metric G/A/F threads shouldn't exist.
 
BobbyRobby said:
Okay, but this is pretty biased behavior from the teacher. If I had a kid there, I'd be worried about her treatment and evaluation of boy students in general.
Click to expand...

Right but that's just the thing. You don't have a kid there. If the parents wanna care, sure totally. If the little island newsletter thinks it's relevant to the community, yeah fine, go for it.

This isn't some Great Looming Threat To Children Nationwide. This isn't some trend sweeping the nation. One teacher, wielding zero power, makes some kids play with their second-favorite toy for a little while and then the kids go home for lunch. The republic will stand tomorrow.

The symbolism on this one is so obvious. This is happening on an island. Those kids maybe don't play with LEGO when they're kids but by the time they get to high school that's #7 in the state. Or they're crossing the Sound to a school that probably offers computer science in a nation where few do. Hell, by the time they're in high school Bainbridge Island probably will offer CS, through TEALS or on their own.

"How should we educate our children?" -- especially with regard to gender roles -- is a worthy question. This case doesn't give us useful access to that question.
 
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