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School Bans 'Tag'
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:49 AM
from the sorry-fun-has-been-cancelled dept.
from the sorry-fun-has-been-cancelled dept.
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!
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Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
How do you think we get goth kids?
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweet freedom! And that's just the people who haven't done everything. Get convicted of something and you are a prisoner for the rest of your life, if not in bricks then in opportunities.
And WHAT ARE THE ODDS of a terrorist attack hitting anyone? What are the odds of being killed by your car? Why aren't cars illegal, then? Why aren't there driver terror lists? Alchohol watch lists? Oh, why go on.
We've given up what it means to be free because we're terrorized cowards incapable of rational risk analysis. No sense of human rights, no idea of history not promulated by Fox News or equivalent.
So, what's a kid gonna look forward to after they release him from the school prison but the bigger prison that we all are sharing (unless we're rich -- whole different world for them, always).
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
It puts the lotion on the skin, else it gets the hose again?
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Stiches, scraped knees and broken limbs are part of being a kid. You learned from your stitches. It took me more stitches - but i eventually learned.
We shouldn't take the learning experiences away from kids.
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Funny)
And now, if you're lucky, you've got a cool scar across your eyebrow, which says your dangerous, and might help you get laid some day. Think of the adults-to-be! Encourage kids to play tag, injure themselves, and maybe they, too, will get lucky down the road.
Sadly, my dropped-bench-on-my-toenail-injury doesn't work. Good thing I'm married!
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Insightful)
To amend your statement: Thank you, opportunistic lawyers, wussy judges, and uninformed juries of America for creating a sue-me state that makes a simple game of tag a serious legal liability.
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Informative)
Write to the principal who implemented this rule: gheppe@attleboroschools.com
And to her boss, the superintendent: pdurkin@attleboroschools.com
And to anyone else you can find on this page: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/home.asp?mode=so&ot=
Parent
Re:DCFS (Score:5, Insightful)
This is prime example of what they have spoken about as far as the Wussification of America. We don't play tag, we don't play sports to win or lose, we have to cry to the authorities when things don't go our way.
This is a joke. Sports and especially games like Tag and Dodgeball teach prime lessions about life. That is mainly - if you don't like being the guy picked last or the one that is always it, or always getting hit first - GET BETTER. Seriously. If you are slow, and you are IT in tag, you better get faster or else you will always be it. If you don't like getting hit by the ball in dodge ball - learn to catch, and then learn to dish it out when you do have the ball.
Hell, sports - places don't want to keep score because "it will hurt feelings." BOO HOO. If you don't like losing - start winning. Learn to play better. Catch the football, hit the baseball, work out your jumper.
The amazing thing is that some of our best athletes were guys who learned that they hated to lose - Jordan (guy didn't even make JV his Sophmore year in high school!!!), McEnroe, Sampras, Montana, Gretsky (canaidian, but you get the point).
Fact is - IMHO, things like this are what are taking the competitve edge away from our country. It is starting the wusses young and making them that way as they grow up.
RonB
Parent
Re:Simple Child Care (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Ban Mantels! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are very simple life forms, they don't have a firm grasp of logic and hence do stupid things which get them hurt. This is a basic fact of life and if you repress it you make adults who do the same because they never learnt any better.
How the hell can any school know so little about children but have them for so long..
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
A large portion of the physically fit people I know are physically fit because we like playing/competing in sports. I wonder how many of these kids who might otherwise get interested in a physical activity will shy away from them because their school tells them they are too dangerous? I wonder how many of these kids "saved from the dangers of physical activity" will end up dying from a heart attack? If there can be lawsuits against McDonalds for making kids fat, I think there can be lawsuits against a school for making kids fat. Maybe if there are enough of these lawsuits then kids will be able to have fun again.
Parent
Sheep, Wolves, Sheepdogs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll paraphrase:
Most people are Sheep - not in the pejurative sense, but rather in the sense that they are utterly incapable of doing violence to another human being. Most people will go through their entire adult lives without ever comitting - or even witnessing - an act of violence (not counting TV etc, which isn't "real" violence)
Sadly, there are Wolves, who prey on Sheep. Wolves seek out sheep to fuck them up, because they know that sheep cannot protect themselves.
Happily, there are also Sheepdogs; those who place themselves between the Sheep and the Wolves.
But to a Sheep, a Sheepdog looks a lot like a Wolf - same shape, same teeth, same snarl. So sheep are very uncomfortable around sheepdogs, because sheepdogs trade in violence, and it is violence (not intent) that most upsets sheep.
Sheep are always trying to make sheepdogs more like sheep, even when that is counter to their own long-term interests, because the ideal SheepWorld is a nice, safe, non-violent bubble where nothing bad ever happens to anybody.
So Sheepdogs must remain vigilant and active - not only counter the Wolves, but also counter the Sheep. It falls to the Sheepdogs of the world to prevent the sheep from defanging their own protectors.
As an aside, there's a local radio commercial here that just drives me absolutely insane - it's an ad for a jewelry chain, in which a soccer mom (with the most teeth-gratingly patronizing voice ever) congradulates her husband on his "evolution" - he packs lunches, he makes playdates, he cleans the house - but when it comes to buying gifts, he still sucks. So go to Jeweler X and don't screw it up this time. Oh, and don't forget to pick up the daughter and get her (irony alert!) to Tae Kwon Do by 5:00....
This is a PRIME example of the sheep trying to sheep-ify the sheepdogs.
But here's the real question: if you are a Sheepdog, what are YOU going to do about it?
DG
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hypothesis that much of the adrenialine-junkie, self destrcutive behaviour that has become a staple of American life is due in large part to overprotection of our children.
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
If you actually correlate government size/responsibilities with overprotection of kids, I think you will come to very different conclusions. (Hint: this stuff happens in the US and never in Europe)
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a child goes through life placidly believing what their parents tell them, as good as the advice may be, that child is going to grow up to be a worker bee, not challenging authority, just following orders. Kids need to learn to push boundaries, that is the only way they are going to get ahead.
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Near as I can tell, this is a design goal of the current school system. See: Dickens.
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
By and far Dickens is my favorite author.
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet here we are, the intelligentsia of the present, blaming the school for something it shouldn't have to worry about in the first place.
The best solution I can imagine would be a "loser pays" system, whether only those truly liable would be punished through the legal process. At present, both sides are financially penalized, and a wealthy litigant (or one with political support) can run a public school into the ground. In these circumstances, the school is perfectly understandable in it's efforts to prevent behavior that creates complaints and lawsuits.
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Why home schooling is booming (Score:5, Insightful)
With absurdities like this, is it any wonder why?
Take a look at the new Los Angeles Unified Director - he wants to "crack down" on children, make them all wear "regulation uniforms", adopt a "zero tolerance" set of rules, etc. None of which encourage anything like creativity, individuality, or happiness. And so the march of students into alternative programs grows ever stronger every year.
In my own home town of Chico, CA, there's a newspaper piece a few times per year, something like "Where are all the kids?". The census demographics indicate that Chico has a young population, inclined to produce lots of children. So for years, they've braced for this tidal wave of kids, that never came. Enrollments are lower than ever, and they're dealing with some fairly serious budget shortfalls.
So, they closed down the most remote school - a small school with like 50-60 kids - with the idea of bussing the children to a larger school closer in to save operating costs. Guess what happened? The parents of the school that closed down got a charter and opened up their own alternative education program in the same building as the old school. And *that* school now has almost 100 students! Closing the school actually *cost* the district money since now they no longer get the funding from either the kids they already had, nor the additional kids now enrolled in the new educational program!
It's choice in action - I wonder how long it will be until they get a clue and start competing?
Parent
Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
This isn't really new (Score:5, Funny)
Free country, my ass! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh gods.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Attleboro, MA <> Boston, MA (Score:5, Informative)
We'd reach new heights of absurdity... (Score:5, Funny)
Not the sport, the spray (Score:5, Funny)
I hate to make gender-based.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
A Modest Proposal . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is this a brilliant idea from a liability standpoint, preventing children from engaging in these sorts of dangerous games can reduce bruising and other possible damage during their critical growth period.
I propose that schoolchildren not be allowed to move at all. They should be hung via sturdy cloth from the ceiling, thus immobilized, and fed heartily whilst at school. I have been assured by a very knowing gentleman of my acquaintance in Boston, that a young healthy schoolchild well-fed is at elementary school age a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled . . .
hello overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm talking about the millions of people who will view the acts of a few schools around the country as the downfall of American society.
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.
Little Susie gets hurt playing a neighborhood game of tag. Nobody sues her parents. If little Susie gets hurt playing a school yard game of tag. The parents can sue the school.
The parents might not win, but who wants to be sued for something that can be avoided?
P.S. The difference between PE & recess is that you usually have to sign a waiver f liability for athletics.
Can't normal people get on with their lives? (Score:5, Insightful)
As is often the case, the majority of average, decent, middle of the road parents/children are dealing with the consequences of vocal extremes. On one hand, we have unsupervised kids causing all sorts of problems, and resulting zero-tolerence policies in schools where even a minor, accidental infraction can cause a serious interruption in the education even of a model student. On the other hand, we have over-supervised kids whos parents live in so much fear for their child that neither that kid nor their classmates can act like children are supposed to act.
A normal child with decent parents will take some bumps and bruises as he/she grows up, and will end up stronger for it. While getting hurt is not pleasant, it's often an excellent learning experience. You learn that not only will certain things result in pain, but also that bad things are going to happen in your life, and you need to learn to cope with it. Denying a child the chance to learn such things is not good parenting.
Homeschool ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm... (Score:5, Insightful)