Kindergarten Teacher Bans Legos For Boys Citing ‘Gender Equity’

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. (CBS Seattle)– A kindergarten teacher in Washington state is banning the use of Legos among her male students in the name of “gender equity.

Bainbridge Island Review reports that Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary teacher Karen Keller doesn’t allow male students to play with the blocks in order to encourage use among females. She even makes up excuses sometimes to set her agenda in order.

“I always tell the boys, ‘You’re going to have a turn’ — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, when hell freezes over’ in my head,” Keller told the Bainbridge Island Review. “I tell them, ‘You’ll have a turn’ because I don’t want them to feel bad.”

Keller says she started doing this because boys were flocking to the colorful blocks during their “free choice” playtime, while girls tended to play with dolls or crayons. Keller hopes by blocking use of the toys for boys that female students may be encouraged to play with them.

The teacher says that Lego play helps with development acceleration and math skills, while dolls offer little challenge or opportunity for growth.

She first used pink and purple Legos to try to attract the girl students to play with the toys, but she found this ineffective. Soon after she requested funds from the school to purchase Lego Education Community Starter Kits. She did not tell school officials that access to the toys would be denied for male students.

“I had to do the ‘girls only Lego club’ to boost it more,” Keller said. “Boys get ongoing practice and girls are shut out of those activities, which just kills me. Until girls get it into their system that building is cool, building is ‘what I want to do’ — I want to protect that.”

Keller says the practice is “fair” because she’s giving different students the tools they need to succeed.

“I just feel like we are still so far behind in promoting gender equity,” Keller added.

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2015/11/19/kindergarten-teacher-bans-legos-for-boys-citing-gender-equity/

Girls getting shut out of legos kills her XD

Facepalm.

Now she is preventing those little boys from developing these skills also... Fail, like jesus. I get it except what she is doing is soo wrong.

Girls who like science being discouraged because it's an area dominated by males is a problem, but this is a policy that I find silly and is an awful way to try to solve this issue. This is not gender equity. This is the stuff that makes feminism look bad.

Just play Minecraft, it's cooler.

Even after going through all the trouble to give them the chance to use the legos, they still didn't care!?

Lol just Lol. Keep your stupid ideas to yourself lady and just teach like a normal teacher.

I'm sure it made sense in her head.....possibly.

I'm probably gonna get roasted for this, buut...

Anyway, really, I don't know why a lot of girls don't like Lego in general. You don't need pink and purple bricks to do cool stuff. In fact there are a few Lego "boy" themes that use purple for the highlights and stuff.

She did have a point that more girls should use them, but she didn't have to ban it for boys. She could have promoted both at the same time.

Why not ban the girls from playing with dolls than???

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

"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… 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."

"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."

So an occasional hobby of mine is to look up humans who stood out in some way, like say… the tallest people that ever lived etc, I know of this one site that is really hardcore about it and generally people in general tend to have a minor interest in the unusual, anyway this site has news clippings from all sorts of periods, because the news, often likes to publish little "freak" stories that capture peoples attentions. Happens a lot, but often a lot of exaggeration happens. Happens in other contexts as well, like that McDonalds Coffee lawsuit that was presented as a joke and taken as a joke by much of the public, but was actually quite serious.

Anyway I can't help but feel that "CBS Seattle" is being a little dramatic here, with their reporting of a reporting that shifts context out and omits other parts. I mean jeez they use a stock image from Getty Images. I may have overlooked it, but I missed who wrote the article. Yeah I wanted to see what other articles they wrote and how credible they were. Basically I am wondering how legit they were as far as taking another report, and whether this is actually a news story, or some guy who knows that there are a lot of people who like to "lol at the crazy dumb teacher who lol wants equality lol but doesn't realize she is being stupid lol, stupid lady lol, I just read news stories of news stories and automatically believe everything I read lol" and so publishes a fresh fluff piece, because that gets hits. I am making an exaggeration there, just to be clear, and hell, for all I know this lady teacher punches boys in the face and makes the foreign students sandwiches and makes the religious students lick the ground, and I definitely know that there are some crazy people out there who want equality but have no idea as to what that really is, but can we also be a bit more disconcerting with our news and making sure they are legit?

Not criticizing you OP or anyone else who thinks this teacher is legit crazy, just hope many people were actually in that classroom asking kids questions, putting context to this teachers words? She talked to them, she probably thought the journalist was writing a nice friendly article, but now the original article website "stands behind the story we reported" when the school and presumably the teacher rejects it, or at least some of how its reported. How isn't that being acknowledged? How many other news organizations are running the story with half quotes and little tidbits to make their version of the freak story different? How many other websites comments feeds are people just taking what they are being shoved like its candy without being more critically mindful?

Would be great if some actual journalist tried to find out the truth here, ask some parents of the children involved to get the proper context, but if this is how news and websites are towards stories like this, imagine how they are with stories to do with war, or homicides or shootings? We should expect better from journalists, news organizations, websites and news stories.

Lets say theoretically this was a great teacher who treated both boys and girls well, inspired many, but occasionally implemented activities that were more designed to encourage some students over others? In a way that would seem fair to someone actually in that room, as opposed to read from a random anonymous person online, reading a thread with a link, to a report, of a report, of an interview, and parents and students and the school was okay with whatever that was, maybe because it was only temporary, maybe because it happened and benefitted different genders of different times, for different reasons? Except now some journalist with an article crafted to gain attention for touching on really hot button sensitive issues "Equality, unfairness, girls treated better than boys, feminism, kindergarten" hashtag hashtag, and other journalists with the same mindset started to pile on… wouldn't it be a shame if all those kids and school missed out on having a good teacher? Of course I have no idea if thats the case because so much of this story seems underreported, and based on one article that is started to make concessions and seems to be omitting context but "stands by what we reported" well at least they are also saying they are discouraged by the attacks she is getting, and actually taken in some of that community's feedback.

Sorry I am getting old, and cynical towards websites that try reporting on "news" and science.

Its a biological thing caused by millions of years of natural selection.

Same thing happens with Male and Female Monkeys.

@deathpoolthet1000 said:

So much better than lower middle class.

Things like these sometimes just made me SMH, and partly contributes to my apathy these days

I am all for Social Justice Warriorfare, but I am equally for Common Sense.

Males and females are different. That's why there are two words. If we were the same then it would be like "earthworm" where there is only one kind of earthworm (sex-wise).

Boys TEND towards these things and girls TEND toward these things. Does that mean that a boy can't do this and a girl can't do that? Not at all. But recognize that the tendencies of each sex are natural. Just like you shouldn't bar a child from doing this or that (because of gender) - you shouldn't try to force them to like this or that, either.

Basically, let nature take it's course. Let the girls pretend to cook and raise babies. Let the boys pretend to race cars. The girls that like cars will find them.