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School Bans 'Tag'
GillBates0 writes "CNN is carrying a story about a school in Boston which has have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable. According to the article, some elementary schools in other states have similarly banned "unsupervised contact sports". A parent was quoted as saying that her son feels safer now and that she'd witnessed enough 'near collisions.'" See, it's not just dangerous virtual games that are harmful to children!
..generalizations, I do. But I have a 2.75 yo son and I take him to the playground 3-4 days per week (his mom, the rest of the time). There's a fairly significant divide between how men and women treat their children at the playground. Dads tend to hang back, contributing support and help as kids need them (and to be sure, too many fathers hang on the park bench the whole time and can't be bothered to participate at all). Mom's hover, ensuring the kid never suffers a risky moment.
Those kids tend to have less certain notions of what's possible, what isn't, and what's just plain stupid. Some of those kids certainly got it in the nature-equation - meaning those parents may, in fact, have some reason to be fearful. Plenty of other kids are developing much shallower skills with respect to falling and not falling.
So, to wrap up with another generalization, it's more likely a mother would feel relieved at this ridiculous development than a father.
How the hell can any school know so little about children but have them for so long..
It's much the same in the UK, and I'll bet there's the dank and clammy hand of the insurance industry behind this. To be fair, schools are probably wistfully nostalgic of the days when they could spend money on books and stuff, rather than having to shell out for lawyers every time some chancer with a bruised kid hires a shyster. This sort of initiative is probabably a desperate attempt to reclaim those halcyon days, regardless of how ridiculous it looks. They'll lose, naturally, but democracy seems to involve letting insurance companies dictate the rules of acceptable behaviour. In theory, this should be left to legislators, but they've got less money and don't seem able to hire the talent.
My high-school's superintendent was a "Doctor of Child Psychology" yet his decisions never actually reflected an understanding of a child/adolescent's mind. I can recall several times where he has lied about the motives of a move in school policy to the student body, thinking we weren't smart enough to see through it. These kids will be able to see though this school's stupidity; if not now then very soon. I always find it funny when the same people who praise a classes brains go and do something assuming the ignorance and inability to think of that same class. This kind of thing also is adding to our declining education in America. More and more students are treated as cattle sent to pasture between different fields (classrooms). The students can no longer feel any ownership to the school as there once was and if you can't feel connected to the school you really aren't going to care if your assistant principal wags his finger at you.
I think this has a direct 'colombine effect'. Kids that are uncomfortable when they are near or in physical contact other children are IMHO more likely to lash out in extreme ways, such as with weapons. Boys especially need to let off this type of steam.... the more 'alone' we become the more trapped we are in our minds.
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I believe you mean a Nation of Wimps. Definitely a good read.
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Yeah really. "Land of the Free" my ass. The kids aren't allowed to play tag?! TAG!!?
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...this crap is being foisted on us by the twin horrors of insurance liability and the femininization of the education system.
Take my son's school in Ontario, Canada for example.
The mother of one of my son's female classmates succeeded in getting the school to ban the playing of ballgames at recess because "her daughter has the right" to stand in the middle of the basketball court while a pickup game is in progress.
However what can you expect from a school board that has banned kids from packing juice in their lunch bags, because juice "attracts bees and wasps, and some children are allergic to bee stings."
Except this is not overreacting. While this single event isn't the downfall of the US, it's a part of the attitude that nobody is ever at fault, it's always somebody else. Following closely is the idea that if it's somebody elses fault, then somebody owes the victim millions of dollars. While gross negligence has always been and should continue to be actionable, there's no reason that things which are truly accidents should be.
To take it even further, I can see how the victim mentality that our legal system has fostered has extended to areas beyond suing anybody for anything. I mean, surely our foreign policy can't be to blame for terrorist attacks. It must be Saddam's fault. Let's sue him. I mean bomb him.
I just recently learned that our school district (Greeley, Colorado) has done away with recess altogether. Apparently the superintendent feels that the time should be better used in the classroom.
I know a teacher in the district (in fact, as I recall, she was recently named "Teacher of the Year" for the district, if not the state), and her experience confirms what most people would find obvious about the system: the kids hate it, the teachers hate it, the parents hate it, and student's ability to concentrate (especially in the afternoon hours) has taken a nosedive.
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
Hey, tag is a dangerous game. Just think, CHILDREN ARE TOUCHING EACH OTHER!!11ONE1one1! The next thing you know they will be screwing each other like rabbits in the playgrounds!
Ok, kidding aside, I actually did manage to end up with stitches in my eyebrow from a game of tag when I was young. I went for one of those high speed turns where you grab a pole and whip around, and another pole ran right out in front of me. The last thing I recall was seeing the school upside down, sometime after that I woke up on a couch in the office. I ended up with several stitches in my left eyebrow. (Is it just me or does the needle they use to do that look awfully similar to a fishhook?)
So, would I stop kids from playing tag because they might hurt themselves? HELL NO. It's a ton of fun, it gets kids out and running. Which, when you consider all of the health risks of kids being obese, I'll take the trade off of one or two of them getting knocked cold now and again. Also, any parent who sues over this sort of thing should be taken out and shot. Kids are going to run around and play, they are going to fall and get cuts, bruises, they will require stitches and they will break the occasional bone. This is why you have health insurance, to keep those occurances from breaking the bank. Use it as a teaching opportunity to explain why you need to be careful and GET OVER IT!
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
This nambification has been going on for ages. When I was at schoolu lldog
everyone used to play British Bulldogs [on tarmac], but that was banned
(and this was decades ago) since it caused too many injuries
[about one broken nose or equivalent per day].
Bloody fun game though - a bit like rugby, but not nearly as
safe http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/games/sept.htm#b
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
http://zorb.com/main.html
I hear that. If I have kids, I'm gonna make sure there tough as nails. "Whats that? You dont like green beans? Well I guess you dont want dinner tonight. Oh you want them now? Timmy wanted them.... there gone now." They'll never complain about anything. Ever.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
All 6 years ago, we used to play British Bulldog in the dark. This involved two teams of about 30 kids in the sports hall, no lighting whatsoever and we'd just run at each other in the pitch black. Whoever had the most people still standing was declared the winning team. We'd also play rugby thrice a week and not a single week would go by without a broken bone for someone in my year.
This was at an exclusive private school and i have to say that most of those people in my year grew up to go into law, medicine, business or sports. I firmly believe that had we not had the freedom to do such things, we probably would not have had the independance, drive and ambition to strive for goals in life. When you're constantly told aren't allowed to do something, you start to wonder just what you can do.
It seems to me that the problem isn't with the education system per se but with the state education system, where ridiculous lawsuits often do happen. Admittedly we're some way off from this situation here in the UK but i can see a ban on contact sports happening within the decade and that will be a very sad day for traditional sports.
"No, no, no, don't tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to."
You have never spoken truer words.
I can still remember it. I must have been 6 or so at the time. I wanted to see if a burner on the stove was hot. Have no idea why, but I wanted to know. So I laid my hand on it. It was hot. I have been much more circumspect ever since.
So I get old and have my own son. We move into a house with a wood burning, fireplace insert type stove. BIG chunk of very hot steel sitting at one side of the room. I still remember the pain from that hot stove, and I could imagine Robert falling and landing with his face against the fireplace insert (that's what clumsy kids do). I heated up the fireplace, held my sons hand within mine and held it close to the hot steel. Only after I felt some pain did I let him go, and my hand was closer than his. Then we got to have a good talk about how "near the fireplace" was not where we should play.
He had to feel the pain in order to learn, but not as bad as I felt it. Bumps, scrapes, bruises, etc. are a necessary part of learning about the world around us. Games like tag let us learn without causing permanent damage. Unfortunately, kids from this school will get to learn the implications of E=mc^2 only after getting a driver's liscense.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You guys have nothing on California. A local school here has a "peaceful playground," which doesn't allow competitive playing or running of any sort.
new york state parks with pools have diving boards. use 'em all the time. Many private campgrounds I visit also have them. most schools have them, around here at least. the only place I see diving restricted is where the water is shallow, i.e. 4' pool.
If you want a "man's hobby" for your childen, get into historical reenacting. They can learn to shoot a gun, dress in military uniforms, pretend to kill people, cook food over an open fire, and camp under the stars all in the same day. If you join something like a competitive target shooters club, they can fire live rounds at targets too. In fact, there are clubs that fire live artillery rounds. That's a real man's hobby. Forget bowling.
aside from that, my son came home with a paper card game from 1st grade the other day. It was basically "war" just with number cards no face cards, so they could recognize 0 through 10 dots in different configurations on a page, and learn to quickly tell the difference between the numbers. Anyway, he proceeds to divide up the cards equally, 2 number 10s for you, 2 for me, 2 number 9s for you, 2 for me etc. I immediately got angry and lept to the conclusion that the directions make the game attempt to be "fair" rather than "random" as you would expect, and that it was more soft-peddling the games to our kids, and started to blame the teacher... then I read the directions. The directions were war, shuffle the deck, hand out cards randomly etc. Infact he was stacking the deck so he would win, there were actually 5 of each card. He was keeping the extras to ensure victory.
I wasn't sure if I should be proud he had figured out how to stack the deck, or be mad he cheated, thankful our local school district hadn't softened to the point of game-neutrality or what to think. So I thought them all at the same time, and proceeded to kick his ass in cards after shuffling. Only, as any good random card game like war is, he won the 2nd game without difficulty.
Then we went downstairs and played missle command, to teach him that life isn't like random car games, you win a few you lose a few, in fact, you win win until your cities go up in smoke.
Just to add some prospective (and play devil's advocate), try this on for size: Most children are required to attend school. That includes those too poor to afford the one-off medical expense or insurance. What happens when one of those kids winds up in a freak collision with a pole or another kid? The parents are pretty much screwed.
Now my family has chosen a lifestyle of voluntary simplicty. I work (from home) enough to pay the bills, put food on the table, and a little extra for misc expenses. We don't have insurance for ourselves or our two kids. While it's not really necessary for us to take advantage of, the kids receive free lunches (to put the financials into perspective). Near the start of school this year, we got this private insurance thingy just for while the kids are in school. It read (paraphrased): "Your school does not cover medical expenses for incidents on school grounds, so for $72/year, you can insure for yadda-yadda-yadda...".
I declined. Not that I couldn't afford it, but out of principle. I said, "Fuck that! They make school compulsory, so they will cover any any injuries as a result of them being there." I don't loose any sleep over it -- kids are tough and all but the most sever injuries would result in a confrontation with the school district over whether they should cover the expenses. If it's a result of my kids being stupid, then I'll suck it up. But if it's from some *other* kid being dumb, or negligence on the school's part (ice on the sidewalk, wet floor, class-time activities like P.E.),then I'll pursue it.
Sure, shit happens. Kids will be kids, and my own offspring (8 and 11) do dumb-assed things like all kids. However, the fact is that some kids are real monsters (I'm sure we've all seen a peer of our kids and thought, "Someone needs to put that little shit over their knee and teach them some manners!"), and being artifically exposed to an unnaturally high concentration of kids will statistically result in more injuries. Given that, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the schools to cover medical expenses from such injuries.
So, in the context of my post, I can see why a school my make the fiscal decision to ban rough forms of play. Hell, it may even be the result of a pain-in-the-ass liability insurance policy the school uses. I still think it's stupid, though. Shit happens, and misc medical expenses should just be in the school district's budget. The relatively high availability of insurance is the reason such stupid-simple medical cost so damned much, as it artificially raises what the consumers can bear, but that's best left for another rant.
Method of processing duck feet
Thank *YOU*, bullies of America, for pretending it's the lawyers' fault for taking away your excuses to kick the tar out of other kids in so-called "tag", "dodgeball", and "touch football" that too often led to serious fights because they were considered "safe" and no one could be bothered to supervise them.
The problem isn't the games. It's the failure, or refusal, to supervise and keep the games within the most basic rules. I've supervised touch football, and played it, and learned harsh lessons when I was a kid about how bullies would twist it into a chance to take out their aggression on other kids, without repercussion. My players played clean or sat out the game: one dirty player's parents even tried to get me suspended for interfering in their drive for him to win, but I'd already gotten the head coach to notice the problem and he backed me up at the meeting.
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Home schooling and other alternative education programs (EG: charter schools, distance education, etc) are growing at exponential rates, approaching 50% per year in many areas.
With absurdities like this, is it any wonder why?
Actually, yes it is. The thing I have never understood about complaining about public education, is that by the very nature of being public, every tax payer has a say in how it is run.
If you don't think the local schools are doing a good job, run for school commitee, or just attend the meetings, make your voice heard.
Most people who complain about public education have never attended a school commitee meeting and have never stood up when the commitee was looking for input (something my local one does at every meeting).
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
The problem these schools are seeking to resolve is this: They have all the responsibility for what happens to your little angel/monster but none of the parental immunity that comes with it.
Time for a parent to speak up here. Tell me about parental immunity versus government immunity. You spank your kid, you go to jail. Teacher spanks your kid they might get a talking to. You take on educating your kid and s/he doesn't do "well enough" on mandatory tests: you face child abuse allegations and a visit from CPS (seen it happen to others, and some states have this in their law books). Teacher "educates" your child but child fails to do "well enough" in the same (or easier) mandatory tests: well it was the kid's fault.
So don't tell me that parents have soem sort of magical immunity when the reality of the comparison is that parents' rights have been gutted by the very people promoting and mandating the poor performing "we are not responsible for your child's education" government schools. The courts have decided that the government schools have no responsibility to teach anything.
And this isn't limited to one or a handful of schools. It is many schools. Fellow parents report this happening at various schools from around the country. It is also a combination of this and otehr similar actions that lead to a problem. A key problem is that those making the decisions tend to not be parents and have a vested interest in parents not participating,
It legally dates back at least to when the courts decided schools were acting 'in loco parentis' - in the place of parents. Yet even this is shirked when it suits them,
This is all exacerbated by the so-called teacher's unions and the career path and prerequisites for advancement. None of it is performance oriented at all, and those who dedicate less and less time to teaching will advance quicker.
I also don't belive this to be motivated by the lawsuit threat. However, if these activities are banned that means the teachers and playground supervisors have much less to do, right?
I know there are damned good teachers. But they are the minority, a very very small minority.
P.S. The difference between PE & recess is that you usually have to sign a waiver f liability for athletics.
Have yet to see a waiver need to be signed for playing any sport in PE classes. If you don't sign a waiver for your child to be in PE athletics do they get excused from PE? After all, PE is athletics.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Well the government is just being efficient by cutting out the middle man. I mean why would any kid need to learn all of those life lessons if the government can just tell them the right thing to do from the start. Don't play tag you'll get hurt. Don't do drugs you'll feed the terrorists. Don't play video games you'll kill someone. It's all very simple. If we have a rule for everything then you don't need choices.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon