Um?

I am thoroughly confused. There's a school in Seattle called the Hilltop Children's Center. It's an interesting school, to be sure. According to this article, the teachers are using some innovative teaching methods to teach about the supposed evils of private property ownership. Yes, you read that correctly. Here's an excerpt:

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."

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."

Um? It continues:

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes." The teachers quote the children:

"A house is good because it is a community house."

"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes."

"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building."

Is Stalin alive and well, and the Principal of Hilltop? Is this a Communist Russia indoctrination camp circa 1949? Shudder!

Reading a page on the school's web site, I understand they have what they called an emergent curriculum, which usually means they give out picture stickies of fruit and animals in lieu of actual grades.

"What did you get in Social Justice Mathematics, Johnny?"

"A pear!"

"Wonderful, Johnny, but you should really try for a Baboon."

Ugh!

According to them:

At Hilltop, we don’t plan our curriculum weeks or months in advance, as is typical in most child care programs. Instead, we grow curriculum in collaboration with children and their families. This approach is child-centered and inquiry-based. We observe children and take cues from them, providing stimuli and provocation to encourage exploration, analysis and reflection.

Child-centered, eh? What if the child--like I didn't--doesn't like reading or maths? Or if all they want to do is play video games? Or smear crap on other children's faces, or eat paste? Just what kind of curriculum guidance does that give these nincompoop teachers?

And if you take curriculum guidance from the children, who exactly is the teacher and who is the student? There's just so much wrong with this picture, I pity the children most of all.

The retardation continues:

At Hilltop, we are committed to growing curriculum from children’s questions and pursuits, and from our understandings of social justice, anti-bias education.

Social Justice, Anti-Bias Education? Whatever happened to English Literature and Grammar, World History, Geography, Mathematics and Science? I'm speechless, the leftist indoctrination camps continue their nefarious work, and I'm speechless.