[aruanan]

We invited the children to work in small, collaborative teams to build Pike Place Market with Legos. We set up this work to emphasize negotiated decision-making, collaboration, and collectivity. We wanted the children to practice the big ideas we'd been exploring. We wanted Lego Pike Place Market to be an experience of group effort and shared ownership: If Legotown was an embodiment of individualism, Lego Pike Place Market would be an experiment in collectivity and consensus.

We offered the children some guidelines to steer them into a new way of interacting with each other and with the Legos: "Create teams of two or three people, decide as a team on some element of Pike Place Market that you'll build, and then start constructing." The first day or two, children created signs warning the other teams "Do Not Touch" their collaboratively constructed vegetable, fruit, and crafts stands. As they settled into this construction project, though, the teams softened the rigid boundaries around their work and began to leave notes for each other describing their work and proposing next steps for Pike Place Market. We celebrated this shift, seeing it as a sign that the children were beginning to integrate the thinking of the last months into their interactions.

These women are evil and politically manipulative.

[Jeff Chandler]

These women are evil and politically manipulative.

Probably ugly, too.

[Grizzled Bear]

The first day or two, children created signs warning the other teams “Do Not Touch” their collaboratively constructed vegetable, fruit, and crafts stands.

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Hey teacher! Our collaborating team collectively decided to build a butcher’s shop that specializes in processing wild game! Hey teacher! Are you alright?

[Bernard]

We offered the children some guidelines to steer them into a new way of interacting with each other and with the Legos: "Create teams of two or three people, decide as a team on some element of Pike Place Market that you'll build, and then start constructing."

Anybody who came up with groundrules like this and expected kids to follow them has never coached a 7&8 yo soccer or T-Ball team. Sounds like the scientists need to spend some time in the real world for a while before they start making observations that other people might actually act on.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

You forgot another adjective to describe these women: stupid.

[Chaguito]

These are wealthy people. I suppose they got that way through “negotiated decision-making, collaboration, and collectivity.” I think I’m going to puke.