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Opening Arguments

Tag, you're out of it

Boy, am I glad I got through school before this crap started:

Some traditional childhood games are disappearing from school playgrounds because educators say they're dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., banned tag at recess this year. Others, including a suburban Charleston, S.C., school, dumped contact sports such as soccer and touch football.

In other cities, including Wichita; San Jose, Calif.; Beaverton, Ore.; and Rancho Santa Fe., Calif., schools took similar actions earlier.

The bans were passed in the name of safety, but some children's health advocates say limiting exercise and free play can inhibit a child's development.

Many schools are also sending kids home with long lists of homework assignments over the summer. Why not just lock them in a room with armed guards until they're 21?

Posted in: Current Affairs

Comments

Steve Towsley
Wed, 06/28/2006 - 11:36am

I'm sure glad they didn't ban boxball when we had recess. Boxball and Wildcat baseball were the only two "contact" sports I was good at.

It's hard to talk about overprotective parents because people tend to hear what they want to in the subject and assume they are the centrists.

I've seen both ends of the spectrum at one time or another. Parents who won't let kids risk much of anything usually raise kids who are poorly equipped to stand on their own or present themselves confidently to the real world. Those who claim to let their kids learn for themselves without a lot of supervision wind up having to save one of them from harm after failing to assure the presence of an alert adult when it was actually necessary.

Both kinds of fringe parents are usually projecting their own problems or immaturities onto the kids.

It's best to let kids risk -- while someone responsible keeps an eye on things from a reasonable distance when new risky behaviors are being learned. The balance is a talent parents have to develop; nobody should assume they were born & raised ready to juggle risk for their children without self examination (IMHO only).

Mike Harvey
Wed, 06/28/2006 - 12:02pm

Touch football? I remember "Smear the Queer" in recess. I think it kicked in some early logical reasoning for me... "Now, why would I want to pick up the football and run with it?"

Tim Zank
Wed, 06/28/2006 - 1:49pm

I was a kid back in the 60's and I gotta tell you, I sure had a blast! My moms'description of me was " a loud noise covered with dirt".

We rode our bikes everywhere all summer long without helmets or chainguards. We jumped boards and creeks and suffered the occasional wipeout.

We built tree forts with boards and nails without safety goggles. We stepped on the occasional nail and mashed an occasional thumb. Nothin' a tetanus shot didn't cure.

We played football without pads or helmets or mouthguards, and flags were for girls.

They used to have these long wooden things outstretched over the water, I think we called them "diving boards" and we would jump off of them into the water.

Those were the days! Makes you wonder how we ever managed to survive with out the help of the Federal Government.

Just lucky I guess...

Leo Morris
Wed, 06/28/2006 - 4:15pm

Well, as long as we're doing true confessions, here's how stupid I was. My older cousin Frank, who also introduced me to poker, science fiction and chili dogs, showed me these empty houses up by where he lived. We had fights by throwing plaster at each other -- it made a pleasant thwack! when it hit a hard surface but a mere thud when it hit a fleshy part. We also discovered that if you put a strike-anywhere match head first into a BB gun, it would ignite on the way out. Our best invention, though, was the Frisbee, long before the official toy came out, with coffee can lids. A family legend is the day I went running up to my mother, hand over my ear, blood dripping down my arm and onto the floor, crying, "It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault."

This all took place in rural Kentucky. Not only did the government not notice, but we even got out of there before the sociologists showed up, who probably have caused at least as much damage as the pointy headed bureaucrats.

Jeff Pruitt
Wed, 06/28/2006 - 9:15pm

What does the federal government have to do with this?

William Larsen
Thu, 06/29/2006 - 4:25am

I can remember getting hit in the face with a basketball; boy did that sting, especially on a cold day.

We had this merry go round that had three pusher/pullers on it. You would put two, maybe three kids on each pusher/puller and get that thing rotating so fast that you would get sick if not fall off. That was a great activity. They removed it from Village Elementary

Tim Zank
Thu, 06/29/2006 - 6:34am

Mr. Pruitt, The inference, albeit subtle is how the government is replacing the parent in the nanny state....from the feds on down to town councils to school boards somebody else is deciding what's best for us and our children.

Steve Towsley
Fri, 06/30/2006 - 11:22am

>My moms'description of me was
>"a loud noise covered with dirt".

Mr. Zank, that's a phrase worthy of Shepherd, Rogers, or Twain. Don't know if she said it first, but it was well said.

Tim Zank
Fri, 06/30/2006 - 1:08pm

Mr. Towsley,

She was an English Lit teacher, my guess is she "borrowed" that from Twain...

Trust me, it was an apt description too!

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