*Editor’s note: Although this event originally occurred in 2015, we find it still pertains to kindergarten education today, as evidenced in Liberty Nation’s articles here and here, remains subject to left-leaning political indoctrination. The reason we highlight this story now is that the school in question has recently been nominated for a National Blue Ribbon Award.
Kindergarten boys in Washington state are not allowed to play with LEGOs, at least in Ms. Karen Keller’s classroom. The progressive teacher at Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary on Bainbridge Island got the bright idea that girls were not given a fair opportunity to learn how to build and decided the best way to go about offering them the chance was to forbid the activity to the boys.
According to Keller, the children have a 40-minute time slot known as “free choice” where they are allowed to play with whatever toys they’d like. She said the boys gravitate to LEGOs while the girls seek out dolls and crayons.
Keller at first tried to encourage the girl students by purchasing pink LEGOs, but that didn’t work. The girls still sought out their favorite toys and seemed to have no interest in playing with the building blocks. So, the crafty teacher decided to form an all-girls LEGO club where the boys were not allowed to play with their favorite toys. And to make matters worse, the caring teacher who is so interested in protecting and promoting good, healthy interaction and growth with her students, openly admitted she lied to the boys:
“I always tell the boys, ‘You’re going to have a turn’ — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, when hell freezes over’ in my head,” she said. “I tell them, ‘You’ll have a turn’ because I don’t want them to feel bad.”
Keller’s reasoning is certainly flawed. Not only did she elevate one gender over the other, she corrupted free-choice time, practically forcing girls to play with toys they didn’t necessarily care about while forbidding the boys their favorite past-time.
“I had to do the ‘girls only Lego club’ to boost it more,” she explained. “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.”
What will be next on her agenda? Will she ban girls from dolls because it might represent something so horrible as raising a family? Force boys to play with dolls for the same reason? Apparently, Keller doesn’t understand what free choice is all about. Instead of taking away their privileges during the free time, why not make it a classroom project where boys and girls participate together?
Keller even went so far as to obtain a Classroom Enrichment Grant for LEGO Education Community Starter Kits for three classrooms. She petitioned for the grant saying; “while it’s not necessary to board up the playhouse and adopt the babies out, concrete steps can be taken to ameliorate the gender gap in the kindergarten and present engaging ways to develop girls’ spatial skills.”
What the teacher didn’t mention was that she would forbid the boys to participate.
Let me leave you with one more quote from Keller that shows just how idiotic her plans are for her young, impressionable students: “I just feel like we are still so far behind in promoting gender equity,” Keller said.
Is it equity when you forbid one gender from participating just because you want the girls to become builders? Is it equity when you force your students during “free choice” to play with toys they have no interest in? Is it fair our school systems allow these discriminative practices to continue against our children?
27 Comments
Pike Guy
See You Next Tuesday!
Anthony Snyder
Thanks for saying it. It may not be nice, but neither is manipulation. Teaching little boys that women lie to them is most certainly counterproductive.
Mark
You can’t force children of that age into activities they have no interest in just for the sake of “gender equality”.
For gods sake, let the kids be kids. This teacher should be ashamed of herself for outright lying to the boys about something as trivial as play time. Typical lib
Sigint
She should not be ashamed, she should be FIRED for deliberate child mental abuse.
Mark
I completely agree but the sad fact is, most school administrators will applaud her initiative.
Anthony06811
Liberalism is a mental disorder that distorts reality to feed an elevation of self importance and righteousness…..So sad for those beautiful normal children that are forced to submit to this perverted and corrupted worldview.
Afterheart
Yup, she’s f’ing up their minds to get a liberal high. The is nothing less than the mental abuse of children and she needs to be removed from having anything to do with children in the future.
mike stanley
Free choice for this teacher should be,…….. you can’t teach kindergarten and must instead do construction work.
There are too many women teachers and not enough women in construction.
It needs to be equal, I know you understand the principle.
Defiant
She can even have a pink hard hat!
Lionel Mandrake
Exactly. What a stupid curndt. Apparently anybody with a pulse can be a teacher.
Garrett GarrettB
The war against boys continues.
P-38 Lightening
Nooooooo, another teacher attaining her “certificate” to teach from the back of a cereal box…..
julianusrex
Too many idiots in the teaching profession!
MAGA420
Public school and their prog teachers are no place for loved children, especially boys. This school also advertises on their front page website that they provide equal access to the boy scouts, but apparently not legos. School is a typical petri dish run by disturbed liberals. Sad for the kids to be abused in this way
just brad
If thay can take the boy out of scout then there is no place for only girls legos
Nabi Rasch
Unfortunately, teaching attracts too many with minor intelligence because it’s one of the easiest diploma programs and seems to offer security. Consequently you run across all kinds of mandated flakiness in the system–a trial for stable, logical types.
Texastherapy
What is wrong with these people? Has she considered that she is a traitor to the liberal agenda…she is female in a traditionally female job. She is buying into the role ascribed to her by the patriarchy. I think she should use her woke cred to work on a road crew, construction site or perhaps on an oil derrick. If she is caught being girly ie wanting to get everyone to work together, wanting to look pretty, wear make up, be noticed and found attractive by the opposite sex, sharing food, serving those around her, thinking about mating and motherhood, really offering any of the good things that come naturally to women ( once we were lovingly referred to as the fairer sex or someone’s better half ) If she feels sympathy or empathy that might slow construction, she should be told to woman up! Rare sight to see a woman on these Texas road crews or construction sites in the blazing Texas sun. I bet women apply for those jobs all the time and can do them just as well, maybe better, but those mean old crew chiefs just won’t give them a chance because they are women. The gender roles have room for some fluidity and there are always exceptions in nature, but in general the roles play to our natural inborn strengths.
Saf T Man
To Liberals equality is bring everyone down to the same level instead of lifting up all to a higher level. Teachers need to stay out of social engineering, and teach stick to teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic things that will help them in the future.
Defiant
Hilarious that this time in the classroom is called “free choice” time and then boys are barred from playing with some toys! TRULY a Liberal-Progressive move…
B. Miles
This story is 3 years old, not quite what it says and has been dealt with anyway.
Marie Wilke
fire her
TheRealDeplorableVoiceofReason
Don’t just gripe here among yourselves……
Let the school know how you feel………….
Phone: (206) 842-4752
bigjos18
This teacher, and all like her, need to be fired immediately. Her job is not to decide who should play with what toys. She’s an idiot.
David Johnson
If they did as you suggest there wouldn’t be many teachers.
Jan_in_NH
Welcome to future female haters and school shooters 101.
David Johnson
This “teacher” is too uninformed to even comment on.
She is not a teacher she is just spewing her form of indoctrination.
There is not free time in here classroom.
She should be forced out of the classroom and into ditch digging
because …….. well, she might like it.
CBDS
This woman is a mental patient. She is polluting these young minds. Parents need to speak up and send these regressive left nuts packing.