Not Part 2!
No, this is not "Part II". This is totally unrelated to anything.
So the new thing in schools is to... wait for it... ban tag. Now that the lethal terrors of dogeball have been conquered, several administrations are turning their gaze on the blood sport that is running around tapping each other gently. TAG!
Back in my day, we had snowball fight bans in our school, and they were looked upon with dreadful seriousness. Packing a snowball was treated like toting an AK-47, and carried with it an instant suspension. Every lunch break we would play a pretty vicious game of backyard football, where the emphasis was less on the score than on the tackle (trips, hits from behind and all that were quite common) and there were even some fights... but man, how we hated that snowball rule. (I suppose a snowball might actually put out an eye, though I've never heard of it actually happening). And now educators think it wise to ban friggin' tag. Lawsuits about kids getting injured, I think... and not just in the lawsuit crazy U.S., but also right here in Edmonton!
During my APT, Ii learned how unreasonable and agressive parents can get, and so I sympathize with the administrators... but just a little bit. Our population is getting fatter by the minute (man, it's hard to stay in shape when you don't have to make weight anymore) and we want to ban games that promote... gasp... moving around? ("Let's get our kids more active.. but only by running on a treadmill.. in a padded room... with supervision by trained doctors, and a life coach... wait, you can fall of a treadmill?")
Maybe some kid will slip and fall? Awww... Comment from some parent: "I'm glad. I've seen too many near collisions". What kind of wussy tag is that? You should be having actual collisions... .
"But Jens, you're a tree planter. You like to wrestle. You don't understand. My child is sensitive." I'm sure it is, but I do know what I'm talking about. When I was little I was always picked last at games, I sucked in gym class, and I was actually tested because my coordination was so poor. (My attempts to play basketball are too poor to even be funny) .
News flash parents... think back on your childhood.... I imagine you had bumps, bruises, scratches, maybe even shed a little blood, and yet you did not die. It might have even prepared you for a world where everyone is not in the business of trying to make you feel good. The "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" cliche may not apply to, say, crippling car wrecks but is sure as heck applies to running around on a playground. But no, the band-aid police is out in full force, protecting their children from the nicks and scratches of a healthy, fun-filled childhood, so they can go home, eat donuts and play "Lethal Carnage of Naked People 3" on their playstation without so much as a sliver because they aren't allowed to have normal fun anymore.
Here's just one link to an editorial that conveys it's annoyance far more articulately. I know the Edmonton Sun is a right wing trash rag bla bla bla but this one time they got it right. http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=32606743
4 comments:
One of the things that struck me about South Africa was how the poor kids never whined about stuff. Even the really little ones could fall on their faces or drop their snack in the dirt and not start sobbing. It seems to me that kids (or anyone) will be as frail as we make them out to be.
And I'm pretty sure treadmills are way more dangerous than tag or snowball fights, but there's no point trying to reason with the safety-mongers.
Trying to remember what the South African kids I met were like... but it makes total sense. In a dangerous place the little pretend dangers quickly fall by the wayside.
I think the whole idea that life should be as safe as possible and anything dangerous/painful should be banned is flawed. To experience life is to experience risk. (Not that I think tag really is risky, by the way).
Teachers hate supervision. When I was a pretend teacher for a month, I hated supervision. The problem comes in when no teacher wants to be responsible for having kids play rough games. It is a lot easier to say "well you just can't play it" then actually have the teachers give a damn and properly supervise and enforce the rules.
So really the ironic part is, we are making our children lazy and inactive because we ourselves are lazy and inactive.
I didn't even think about teacher laziness when writing this. I also hated supervision during my pretend teaching. You are quite right, but I'm not sure that's the only reason.
I'm still stuck on the idea that or society lives under the pretence that all risk should- and can- be averted. A recent example is the initial reaction to our troops in Afghanistan: "holy crap! People die in war?"
I don't want to downplay any death, Canadian or otherwise- each one is a tragedy- but the idea we can expect even war to be "safe" is kind of absurd.
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