Saving schoolkids from the tyranny of tag…and raising the next generation of Jimmy Carters
The public schools are breeding a generation of bubble-wrapped ninnies who can’t do math, are terrorized by the honor roll, and prance around peace trees while the children of jihad perform preschool suicide bomber training exercises.
With all that in mind, here is your reason number 99,995,432 to homeschool, via the WaPo:
A playground pastime is getting a timeout this spring at a McLean elementary school.
Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School, has told students they may no longer play tag during recess after determining that the game of chasing, dodging and yelling “You’re it!” had gotten out of hand. Hooker explained to parents in a letter this month that tag had become a game “of intense aggression.”
The principal said that her goal is to keep students safe and that she hopes to restore tag (as well as touch football, also now on hold) after teachers and administrators review recess policies.
The decision has touched off a debate among parents. Some call the restriction an example of overzealous rulemaking that fails to address root problems and undermines children’s development; others say it’s best to err on the side of caution.
“We are regulating the fun out of normal childhood activity,” said Jan van Tol, father of a Kent Gardens sixth-grader. “In our effort to be so overprotective, we are not letting children be children.”
Gerri Swarm, secretary of the school’s Parent-Teacher Association, said she was glad the principal was taking seriously student concerns about being pushed or shoved. “In this day and age, you can’t dismiss this as something not to worry about,” she said.
Many schools nationwide have whittled down playground activities in response to concerns about injuries, bullying or litigation. Dodge ball is a thing of the past in many places, and contact sports are often limited at recess.
The Fairfax County schools’ office of risk management maintains a list of activities that are prohibited at any school-sponsored events. In addition to bungee-jumping and scuba diving, students are not permitted to break dance or play dodge ball or tug-of-war.
Next up: Mandatory Thudguards for all.
***
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s such a big leap from playground pacifism to…Jimmy Carter’s latest hugs for Hamas. Your thoughts?
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The alleged educators at all levels of our society are the trojan horse openly destroying our nation.
NEA has got to go and some sort of a fairness doctrine needs to be installed in our disfunctional schools to counter the liberal bias polluting our kids.
Good Grief , it’s like the world has stopped spinning.
I’d be happy to pay for Thudguards for our trolls.
This is not new. Many years ago a lot of schools in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica outlawed tag because once ‘you’re it,’ you’re a victim…
On the bright side, this will give them more time to learn about proper condom use and alternative lifestyles.
In all fairness to Thudguards, perhaps if today’s generation of school administrators had worn something like them as children they might not have mush for brains today.
People are going to read this post and think that kids aren’t allowed to be kids.
So I challenge anyone to tell me exactly what this means:
That’s all we have. We don’t know if one kid was getting picked on. We don’t know if people were getting shoved instead of tagged. We don’t know if people were getting hurt (which is why my school banned “King of the Mountain”). We don’t know if kids who had no interest in playing were getting physically touched without their consent.
There is no information here. Just an opportunity to jump to conclusions.
There have been a rash of posts like this and the Karge situation at Marquette where Mrs. Malkin is posting and the commenters are doing their thing without a lot of relevant information. I find this disappointing.
That would be funny if it were not so true.
I agree.
Ugh! My country.
What has become of her?
Help me understand this. They ban tags but just last night I hear Mayor Vi Agra Grossa say that he’s going to throw money at taggers?
When they went after dodge ball that really made me angry. Now tag?!? These were staples when I grew up.
So, kids are being taught (in their formidable years) that playing is a no-no… Liberals never cease to amaze…
We need to curb this epidemic, immediately.
Also, we’re outlawing dodgeball. The practice of throwing large, rubber balls at high velocity at small children is barbaric, promotes an atmosphere of intimidation and fear (kids running from the ball wielding thugs), and severely damage their ego’s when someone screams they “hit you”.
Jump rope is next. Some children have sensitive feet, which may preclude them from taking part in that activity. And that’s not fair. It doesnt make them feel good. And because its rope, some “loose cannon” might just make a noose, afterall.
And we’ll go next to hide and go seek. This inexcuseable activity promotes extreme fear (someone’s coming to get you, afterall…), and singles out children who have to hide alone in sometimes around corners where their helicopter parents lose sight of them for .0005 picoseconds.
Beside, these useless physical pursuits contribute to global warming, with all the heavy breathing going on by the participants in these neanderthal-style childrens games.
/sarc off.
Seriously. When we these morons stop messing up childhood and let kids be kids? This type of conduct by the schools and “concerned parents” is completely asinine.
Can you imagine the horror of both the nannies and the PC police back when I was in grade school and boys would spend recess playing “smear the queer”?
Facts in this particular situation aren’t all in yet, so I’ll reserve specific comment. I will say, however, that my general experience in raising 4 boys in this day and age is much, much different from the way my brother and I remember our childhood. In many ways, we are sort of “wimpifying” (sp? and not really a word I know) a whole generation of kids in probably a generally well-intentioned, but misguided, attempt to protect them from all sorts of real and imagined dangers. Being a kid is nowhere as fun and empowering as it once was IMHO.
Nothing new. We weren’t allowed to pitch pennies.
Rusty,
This isn’t an isolated incident. Haven’t you been paying attention? Public schools as a whole are removing games from recess… games that you’ve probably played growing up and games that I can attest to having played as a child. These games weren’t detrimental to my growth as a person. I didn’t feel like a victim when the ball I was dodging eventually struck me. What is this business with?
PC run amok. They are friggin’ kids. Let ‘em be kids.
Instead of penalizing everyone for the acts of a few brats, and turning all the kids into gutless wimps, how about concentrating on the kids that are overly aggressive and bully others - take them out of the equation and there’s nothing wrong with a game of tag or football or anything else. Idiots.
“. . . tag had become a game “of intense aggression.”
Exactly! Isn’t that what running around at recess is SUPPOSED to do? Boys especially need to be running around. Ignorance plus Ritalin equals boys who don’t learn.
How else are children to learn proper behavior if they aren’t allowed to participate in any games? If a child is hurt playing tag bacause another child is shoving rather than tagging, that child (the shover), in front of the rest, needs to be told that shoving is not acceptable behavior (and possibly a time out). By doing away with games such as tag, dodge ball, or tug of war, the children are not learning to interact with others in a social setting, they are not learning team work, nor are they learning to be commpetitive.
Children in the rest of the world are learning to compete with the U.S., some in very voilent ways. These children that are not being allowed to play tag, are going to be the leaders and soldiers responsible for defending the U.S. from the rest of the world.
If we contiue this course, we are doomed as a society and a nation.
Rusty,
I’m pretty sure that by “intense aggression”, that if children were punching each other in the face and smashing kids into things, ala WWF-style, that it would have been part of the story.
That doesnt seem to be the case. Granted, the details could have been slightly better, but is it not fair to say on this face that “intensely aggressive” games of tag would have some details as to the reason why?
One would think so, given the case.
#12 abstractmind
I’m also going to stop playing “horse” with my son, since it will encourage him to want to abuse animals later in life. I’ll also stop throwing him on the bed (which he LOVES me doing) since that could be abusive to him.
Well first of all, we’re going to ban such barbaric sports as Bull-fighting and Cock-fighting. Also Boxing, both kick and the type with the gloves, and hockey, football, push-ups and anything in general where you have to take off your shirt, it’s so embarrassing…
Yeah, dodgeball goes, now tag. It sounds a little too much like Professor Frink’s idea of a utopian nerd society… only we don’t support any non-PC intellectual and cultural standards either.
I am no defender of far left wacko’s imposing rediculous rules on pre-teens that fit their agenda and demendted world view. But as an attorney who once represented a School District, I can assure you that most of these decisions are litigation based, given the Trial Lawyer Bar’s ambulance chasing obsession with suing School Districts over minor injuries.
I’d make sarcastic suggestions of what they’d ban next, but I’m afraid they’ll get ideas on the next stupid thing to try.
This is nothing new. I remember writing about something like this long ago on a blog far away.
Pathetic none the less. My kids will be outcasts.
#13…excellent point. Everyone played “Smear the Queer” when I was a kid. It’s probably a “hate crime” now.
#14…also good point. If it isn’t “wimpifying”, it’s “victimifying”, where kids are all taught that losing equates being a victim. Here in Mary-land, I’ve heard kids proudly say they’ll sue if they get hurt because my daddy’s a lawyer.
Yargh! this kind of story irritates the hell out of me. I was a small kid, a bully magnet, if you will, but I loved the rough games like tackle football (with no pads), smear the queer and dodgeball (we called it battle ball) because it put me on a level with the bullies and I was far less afraid of them. Let kids be kids, for crap’s sake.
No more:
dodge ball
hand ball
and now,,,,tag!
HOMESCHOOL - quick… call HSLDA …find a support group in your area and …organize athletic groups for:
dodge ball, hand ball, football, tag, and for the most fun….
start a riding club. Training with HORSES is the best all around training of all.
Oh brother. Why don’t we just forbid all outside activity and instead play video games during recess.
Thank God I’ll be homeschooling this fall and letting my kids be kids.
Is Cowboys & Indians or Cops & Robbers still allowed?
30, I played tag, dodgeball, kill the man with the ball, manhunt, tackle football, you name it. And I was one of the kids who was usually picked on. I found those games to be empowering. A great equalizer in the social hierarchy. I am saddened those games are disappearing for litigation based purposes.
But we don’t know what’s happening in McLean. I don’t, you don’t, and Mrs. Malkin probably doesn’t. If the game is becoming abusive or is leading to students being bullied, then the game needs a “time-out.”
Kids will be kids is fine. We can not allow bullies to be bullies.
surely they can’t call it “indians” anymore at a minimum …
/1st post! w00t! mm rocks!
It’s all fun and games until someone gets a bruise (or in lawyer lingo: Was unwillingly exposed to considerable physical trauma) and his parents sue.
Yes, but the names have been changed.
Cowboys and Indians is now known as Animal Abusers and Pit Bosses.
Cops and Robbers is now Oppressors and the Oppressed.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the
1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s!!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, and tuna from a can.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because. WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were OK.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Play-stations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound, CD’s or I-pods, no cell phones!, no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms…….
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
If YOU, are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
“With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks,” Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?”
As a new parent, I have recenly noticed a complete absence of kids playing outside in our neighborhood, which has very little traffic, large parks and almost no crime. Yet I know they exist because I see the school buses in the mornings. I know people have less kids today but when I was growing up in the dark ages the streets were filled with kids driving the adults crazy. What is going on here?
Fear of litigation is likely the biggest factor. A school/district can’t know which parents will sue over a simple playground accident, so they do their best to avoid situations in which a child could get hurt…
I love how school administrators enact these broad policies in the name of protecting students from injury and bullying, when in fact, in accomplishes nothing.
You know why? Cuz if that bully really wants to pick on someone, he’ll find the time and place to do it.
My high school had a “Zero Tolerance” policy towards harrassment. So when I got bullying and pushed around day in day out, do you think the Vice Principal really did anything about it? No. They just love to hide behind their little policies, then do nothing. My mother had to threaten the school with lawsuits and endless bombardment of paperwork before they chose to do anything about my situation. Typical bureaucratic public educators. They’re more afraid of lawsuits than they actually care about the welfare/education of our nation’s children.
And then you’ve got Food Nannies in public schools inspecting lunches to make sure a kid doesn’t have Oreos because those will lead to obesity.
Our kids will not know how to function in the real world thanks to these silly, stupid policies. The real world is hard. You get hurt - physically and sometimes mentally.
To deny that is to deny reality. Then people wonder why the entitlement mentality is so rampant? Why kids don’t know how to behave? Why kids expect the world to revolve around them and cater to their every need?
I was one of the kids picked on in school while playing these games. There was plenty of rough-housing. But you know, the games never needed a time out. The teachers needed to step up their game to make sure the bad kids got the time out. The parents of those kids needed to step up their game so they weren’t allowing their children to be that way in school. No, the game doesn’t need the time out. It’s not right to make all the kids suffer for the acts of some bad seeds. Just not right at all.
jsr~
It’s likely the (not unreasonable) fear that someone will snatch the kids off the street. Things have definitely changed since I was a kid…
Rusty do you hear yourself???
” If the game is becoming abusive or is leading to students being bullied, then the game needs a “time-out.” Kids will be kids is fine. We can not allow bullies to be bullies.”
Need you be so obtuse? You effectively propose to punish all kids for the act of bullies. Inject some common sense into your statement - sure we cannot allow bullies to be bullies, so give the bullies a time-out, not everyone else who did nothing wrong..
recess is still monitored by adults if that is happening rusty then the moron watching them should be fired.
Obtuse is his middle name.
or morons….
A combination of factors, including the topic at hand of PC run into insanity in our public schools. But add in that the computer age is firmly in the children’s generation with the PS3’s and World of Warcraft there is less incentive to go out and be an active child when you can spend hours and hours staring at the HDTV or the computer screen. Not that video games are bad, I happen to enjoy them very much. But I also have the willpower to limit myself on them and go to the gym everyday. Children don’t have that willpower in most cases, nor many adults for that matter.
My opinion of course, but appears to be a common enough theme to make a generalization.
Maybe we need to market a new line of t-shirts: DON’T TAG ME, BRO!
@nyc123me
I agree. Our public schools seem to love to punish everyone for the actions of a few. My high school did away with all of the “senior privaleges” such as being able to go to your car during luch, just because a small miniority of students used that opportunity to smoke cigarettes.
It’s just like with gun control laws. A few people screw up, so we have to treat everyone like crooks.
This kind of mentality will destroy our country.
Which one is it? Is the game being removed for litigious purposes or is it due to the misbehavior of a few bad apples? Since nobody knows why they are removing the game…we are left to speculate. And the last time I checked it perfectly acceptable for me to voice my opinion here.
Your majesty, can you now come down from your high horse?
If we keep eliminating the outlets for all that energy growing children have, is it any wonder when they snap?
Kids need to run. They need to play. They need to learn that one of the great lessons in life is that there is always someone faster, quicker, stronger and smarter. And it usually serves as a powerful incentive to get children to become faster, stronger or smarter. They need to learn how to deal with competition, and learn that their self esteem is not something given but earned. It is incredibly difficult growing up, made even more so when society continues to restrict their outlets for exploration and learning.
Frankly, all we are doing now is indoctrinating kids to be good nanny state subjects. If you have a problem, don’t work it out, the nanny will deal with it. Get in a bind, don’t try to fix it or correct your behavior to avoid the same situation in the future, the nanny will make it all better. We are teaching and rewarding dependence rather than independence.
As Dakine said - the wimpification of America.
We had ni**er piles.
This seems pretty standard. Public Schools are just tools of government control - breeding dependent robots, intent only on their sexual play, paranoia of anything that’s not ‘PC’, and their mood-altering medication.
Honestly, the Department of Education is ramping up it’s efforts of destroying the family through indoctrinating your children - it’s in the government’s best interest.
Not only is it now necessary to pull your kids out of public school, but it’s immoral to leave them there.
The adults have abdicated responsibility for the running of the country and it is now run by idiots.
Wow, I remember playing Murder Ball (dodge ball) when I was in elementary school and actually keeping score… I guess those days are over.
Has hopscotch been banned yet? Or is it still okay if played with knee and elbow pads and a helmet?
No, wait, I forgot about dangerous chaulk dust and defacement of school pavement — it has got to be already gone!
“If the game is becoming abusive or is leading to students being bullied, then the game needs a “time-out.””
I have yet to see a GAME become abusive. Its your abuse of langauge and liberal style “reasoning” that causes these issues.
The CORRECT analysis will show the correct SOLUTION. So I fixed your statement below:
“If
the game issome students are becoming abusive or is leading to students being bullied, thenthe game needsthose students needa “time-out.”to be disciplined.”Go after the bullies. Not the game. Do the job of supervising the children.
Get that softheaded blamecasting of inanimate objects (”the game”) out of here. PEOPLE should be held repsonsible for the consequence of their actions, and its misguided moronic muddleheaded mumbling like yours that enables all this politically correct idiocy to run amok.
When I was little, the others picked on me because I was small, thin & had pale skin. (Even the teachers! Nuns actually) To this day I am traumatized & refuse to wear shorts. Can I sue somebody to get my ego back becasue nobody stopped them?
my four HOMESCHOOLED kids LOVE tag!
btw: why aren’t the bullies punished for agressive behavior? seems like all get punished because of one or two bad apples. Shows how spineless public school administrators are at getting to the root cause and punishing those that need punishing…
I admit that I don’t know the specifics of this school, but that doesn’t mean I can’t discuss it… there have been plenty of examples of an overprotective society sucking the life out of childhood. It’s not completely crazy to suppose that the same shenanigans are going on here. I would argue that if there is a problem with a bully on the playground it is still not grounds to ban the game completely. How about just punishing the bully? I’m not so far removed from childhood. As far as I remember, tag is not an innately dangerous game.
“What hurts, instructs.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Welcome to “Eloi Elementary School,” where the teachers and administrators go the extra distance to overcome the survival instinct by eliminating all traces of competition in the classroom or on the playground.
Aside from being a great way to burn pent-up energy, particularly for boys (drivingjack’s #18 above is spot-on here), games like tag and dodgeball are also good for developing competitive ability - which plays a key role later in life when it comes to fundamentals like finding the best possible higher education opportunities, higher-paying employment and a more desirable mate.
My own experience was perhaps a bit like PaleoMedic’s above: in the first few grades of elementary school I was a classic sissy and “bully magnet.” It was only when I finally began to get better at things like dodgeball and ball-tag that I began to develop the physical confidence necessary to stand up to them.
Yeah, getting hit in the face with a ball, or getting shoved to the ground in “tag” can be painful experiences, but those are the ones that teach the most about life. If you cry and whine about how it’s “not fair” you grow up to be a weenie (a.k.a., “liberal”). If you take it as a signal that you need to learn how to pick yourself up and get back in the game, then you’re on the path to becoming a successful adult.
It’s interesting, because for a long time I’ve believed that you can learn a lot during recess about dealing with life’s challenges - and I’ve always wondered where today’s adult liberals were during recess, because so many of them certainly never internalized those essential lessons.
Well, hopscotch is out. Consider it lost.
Jacks are next. Those small metal objects are akin to caltrops. Kids could have serious foot or hand injuries, not to mention if someone bounces the ball too hard, it could put out an eye.
Tic Tac Toe is also going to be banned. The X’s and O’s are shapes…and it seems like we could be discriminating against other letters, or shapes if you view them as such. And we need to be more diverse in our school activities.
Banning childhood in 3….2….1…..
/sarc off
Instead of tag, our kids are going to be taught to sip latte’s at Starbucks for exercise.
Of course, the kids will get plenty of exercise running their mouths about Fox News Channel and Republicans.
Rusty said
The game is not to blame. Isn’t it hard to breathe with your head buried so deep in the sand, Rusty?
I agree with letting “kids being kids”, and we all know that sometimes kids get out of control, but I can’t agree with the approach of in essence punishing all of the kids for the actions of what I suspect are a small percentage of the kids.
Only those kids getting out of hand should be disciplined. Of course, what they call “discipline” in the schools today is pretty ineffective.
I think most of us would have rather gotten a paddle from the principal than to have to face our parents when we got home.
Let’s face it …
They will cease to be “kids” too soon in today’s world as it is, so don’t take away what childhood they do have a chance at enjoying.
Truly incredible. I somehow survived a childhood WITHOUT the following:
Bicycle helmets
Seat belts (nobody wore them in my family)
Emergency cellphones
How did I ever get by? I was even a “victim” of tag, dodgeball, baseball, Nerf football, soccer, and many other activities where someone loses. It’s a wonder I didn’t hang myself.
Common sense loses out again. #’s 17, 39, 41, 54 all said it well - take action on the “guilty” kids. Start with verbal warnings and move on to tougher actions as necesary, but don’t nix the whole activity and ruin the fun for all. Or maybe the school could shut down completely because there is SOME violence at SOME schools. Perhaps all SCHOOLS should shut down because there is aggressive activity at a SOME of them.
Of course the principal might just be a “lazy” nitwit.
#35 gandolphxx
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
When I went to school, the teachers still had a paddle, and used it. If I got in trouble at school, I got in twice as much trouble at home.
I didn’t, and still don’t, wear a helmet on my bicycle. But I do wear one on my Sportster.
In spite of that, I grew up and didn’t become an ax-murderer. I take responsibility for my own actions. I don’t expect the government, or anyone else, to take care of me. I’m in Church every Sunday, pray daily, and read my Bible daily.
I guess I have a big responsibility to try to instill those values in my two children in todays world.
Hold up here a minute.
When I was a kid, we played all kinds of games that resulted in many skinned knees. Dodgeball was played with a brutality not seen since the heyday of the Roman Coliseum.
Yet, since the advent of political correctness in the late 1980s, kids have been pumped up with self-esteem and taught non-aggression at all costs. Competition was banned. Any schoolyard game with a whiff of risk or danger to it was forbidden. Parents were discouraged from buying toy guns or “war toys.” What do we have to show for it? More school shootings than ever and kids luring out other kids to beat them up and exhibit their junior league snuff movies on YouTube.
The nuns in my school made us change the name to “kill the carrier”. We did still get to play it though.
Childhood is supposed to prepare you for adulthood. The playground is where you learn a lot of valuable lessons like teamwork, conflict resolution and how to win (and lose) graciously. It’s where you learn to get up after you’ve been knocked down.
In fact, the charge that homeschooling denies children this experience is IMO the one truly valid complaint that can be had against it. But if the schools are going to deny this vital part of an education as well then something is very, very wrong.
GEEEEZ, and we complain about our kids being overweight, or obese. It’s no wonder with our school system. When Lincoln was prez, and I was in school we played tag (someone was always IT). We played dodge ball, climbed MONKEY BARS and get this, we played baseball, and even kept score. That’s right, somebody won, somebody lost. Not one obese kid in my classes, a few chubby ones, but we ran that off them. It’s the time of WARM and FUZZY, let’s ban some more soda pop and potato chips. I feel better already!!!
The game of “tag” is not the problem. The problem lies with teachers who are on recess duty and don’t pay attention to the kids and how they are behaving. If tag is actually getting out of hand at the school, this is the probable cause. (I know - I was a teacher a public elementary school and watched teachers spend too much time chatting with each other or on cell phones to pay attention to the kids on the playground.)
Kids really need recess to run around and let off all that energy that is ready to bust out after sitting in their classrooms being force fed the answers to the state test.
LOL. Brings back menories of those ruthless shootouts. I still have bruises from some of those fireballs.
Do kids play kickball anymore? Or is that banned because if a kid is picked last for the team it will destroy their self-esteem?
Rusty, I too went to public school. As a child - especially in elementary school - I can remember countless incidents where the entire class was punished for the misbehavior of a few. For many recesses, I had to stand in line silently with the rest of the class because 3-4 kids couldn’t behave.
A few times we were held back from lunch because a small portion of the class couldn’t behave. The menality seemed to be “Punish the Group” and the attitude was “Well, you kids control your classmates and you won’t be punished.”
Even then, the injustice of it bothered me.
Those in positions of authority at schools have an obligation to target the individuals who are misbehaving and punish them accordingly - not the entire class or school. If they don’t have the nerve to pull Timmy out of recess for misbehaving, they shouldn’t be teaching.
The same applies here.
I have met the blogger Michelle linked as her source. He is a professor at Marquette and a reliable source of information. I am familiar enough with Marquette to say it is not only probably, it’s 99.9% likely that incident happened the way it did.
In the United States, considered too violent for the children to participate in:
Dodge Ball- could hit someone in the head, causing them to fall.
Jumping Rope- rope is a deadly weapon; children might get hanged.
Jacks- Little ball could put out an eye; jacks could be stepped on causing injury, or “accidentally” swallowed, causing asphixiation.
Over-the-line - The name of this game explains why no one is allowed to play it anymore. (For those of you who never heard of this, it is a type of baseball game.)
Tag - Too aggressive…it teaches domination, and intimidation.
Hopscotch - Not only is the name insensitive to those of Scottish descent, a child could twist and ankle, or even worse, this hap-hazard action could crush an endangered insect form.
Button, button, who’s got the Button? - This nefarious in-class game is known to cause youngsters to become blatant liars.
Hide and Seek - This game is not politically correct anymore…it makes FUN of the fact that Saddam Hussein lied about his WMD’s…shame, shame!
Meanwhile, in Iraq, children “play”…
Dodge Bullets - Duck and run.
Jump…nope! - Every time a car bomb goes off.
Jacks - Join a militia, and learn how to “jack a car.”
Over-the-Line - Step over the imaginary boundary of a rival Muslim faction, and guess what could happen?
Tag - Played with bullets, and RPG’s.
Hopscotch -They’ve never heard of this game…closest thing to it is negotiating an old Saddam Hussein mine field.
Button, button - They actually call this game “Sarin, Sarin, who’s got the Sarin?” This game is played in a deadly serious manner.
Hide and Seek - Played daily when members of opposing Sect are observed where they are not allowed to be.
It is past time for the SANE people in the U.S.A. to start a process to begin riding our public schools of educated idiots, who are more concerned about feelings and appearances, than they are about teaching and learning. What’s next? Outlaw reading books, because too many kids are getting paper cuts from the sharp edges of the pages?
Publicly funded education is becoming more and more like “publicly funded indocrination.” Can you image using the models of Al Gore, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, Rosie O’Donnell, Sean Penn, Medea Benjamin, and others to “educate” our children? Well, guess what…they’re here!
I couldn’t agree more…not enough here to form a honest opinion about this particular situation. I do however see an attempt to “PC” kids and make them other than what they should be “kids”…but in theis case ??????
One more step in the “feminization” of America.
At age 25 I still have a scar on my left knee from when I fell down as a kid and skinned it pretty bad. It wasn’t from playing barbaric games either, I misstepped while helping my brother with deliver the local bird cage liner. I guess we should ban paper routes…
In college I occasionally babysat for a family with three young boys. They had friends over once and were bored so I took them outside for a game of touch football. The boys mother later told me how upset the parents of the friends were that I had encouraged such behavior! Man, you would have thought I’d given them crack and then recommended a knife fight.
If you’re a wuss then don’t play! This sounds like another one where some wiener can’t take the heat so everyone has to stop. No Tag, no Dodgeball, no Touch Football. Good grief. I guess that leaves more time for global warming and conflict resolution classes.
[afterthought for #78]
…Of course, the parents would have been prefectly happy if I had let them stay inside all day playing video games. I am seriously baffled by this odd brand of coddling.
Parents no long control their children; and therefore, many children can not control themselves. In a competitive game like tag, there are winners and losers. Out out control children (spoiled brats) can not deal with losing, so they throw a tantrum.
I will agree that the school system is not helping our children learn much besides condom techniques, “so called” global warming, and such; the schools do not deserve all the blame. If enough parents were concerned enough about their children, they would pull them out of these state schools and use alternate methods of training. Home schooling or a private school of their choice would be a good start.
This is crazy. It used to be fun to be a kid but now geeze.
As for Rusty and his usual comments-at one time or another probably all of us were picked on, got knocked down while playing tag or another game, got made fun of, etc. It looks like you survived your childhood even though it was riddled with that terrible game of tag.
I guess it’s a good thing we couldn’t afford to move to Mclean. I hope that when my little boy gets to school, they’ll still have tag wherever he goes here in PWC.
I know…kids…little bubble-wrapped ninnies…
but the Thudguard sounds good to me at around, oh say, 2:30 on a Friday night….;)
It doesn’t seem to me that the school’s efforts to “protect” our kids are working. School administrators can be as PC as they want but, as recent evidence on the net/news media indicates, they havn’t actually succeeded in reducing bullying and/or violence.
Where in the hell are all of you living for all of this to be happening? If this were to happen in my town I would come unglued! I remember being scared of my teachers who had a paddle on the wall for anyone that got out of line! Where I live, we spank our kids in public and we get praise for it. Sounds to me like the teachers are not doing their jobs.
Momm1eog2girls,
where do you live and where do I sign up?
I got your tag wrong…my apologies
Some of us still are - but somehow we survive. Are we doing something wrong?
You know what! When I was a kid and I came home with a bloody nose, scrapped knee, broken bones, head injuries etc. I was very active in sports as a youth. My mom did not run to the school to scold the teachers or the principal, she did not contact the super intendant, she did not blame the other kids in the game. She patched me up and did her job as a parent and got me back out there to be a kid!!
WTH is going on with this political correctness that the libs have given birth to!
I am glad I was exposed to competition with these school yard games that fostered a health competitive edge. Even though usually the smallest kid in school I still did not hold back. I really hate to see this neutering of our children by the nanny state NEA and their minions. Yep, don’t want to have any winners or losers just a population of drones ready for their menial jobs in the future workers socialist paradise that was once America.
Isn’t this school concerned about obesity? First, they start to control what kids eat, then it’s what they do at recess. Why does the government feel they need to control every aspect of a kid’s life?
Kids need to learn from real life experiences such as playing tag, what foods they like, what the proper boundaries are. To either have so many boundaries that kids are never allowed to learn from life’s boo boos or none at all because personal responsibility is so passe should be a concern for all parents.
You cannot protect your children forever. What if they played organized sports such as football or soccer and got “tagged” or pushed by another player? Would they scream and cry and pitch a fit, or understand that it’s part of the sport?
Man, as a former teacher, this isn’t pleasant to acknowledge and I’m not happy to say the following: our kids are becoming the perfect liberal tools of the future- weenies, wimps, and crybabies.
Homeschooling is not such a bad idea given what this school is doing….
This is right up there with Jimmy hugging Hamas. I grew up in the tundra of MN, and playing football in December on the playground (on asphalt!) was just fine with me. Yup, I sucked and so did my friends, but we were out there everyday having fun. Snowballs in the face, King of the Mountain on snow piles, you name it, we did it. I was the kid that was more indoors than out, yet somehow I became a productive adult. Most of my childhood friends did too. I fear for the next group of kids. And this is coming from somebody who is closer to 30 than 40. If it’s obvious to me, it should be obvious to a lot more people.
gandolphxx ~ great post! I forwarded it on to friends and family. I will be homeschooling this fall as I believe it is the only option anymore. Thankfully so far in Texas we have been pretty safe from so much of this PC garbage, but it’s just a matter of time.
Boomer I could not agree more.
I was at my brothers house the other night. A trophy was on the table for basketball. My niece is in a league so I asked her if she won the division or the championship to get the trophy and she was like no uncle Dave we came in last place.
Trophies for last place?
Not when I was a kid.
#23…excellent point, parents who file lawsuits for minor injuries and incidents are a major part of the problem. My girlfriend works for a school district here in MN and they had to eliminate dodgeball to settle a lawsuit.
#95 these suits should be bounced to the curb by the judges the cases are brought in front of. Tells you how the judges feel huh.
When I was a kid back in the 70’s we did all the non-PC stuff like tag, dodge ball, smear-the-queer, play Army with realistic looking guns (not these pink nerf guns they sell now), etc.
Now all that stuff is discouraged or outlawed.
So my knee-jerk reaction is going to be when my two boys are elementary school age I’m going to teach them how to shoot. And if they have any interest, I’m going to get them their own firearms and get them into competition shooting. I’ll also get them into martial arts so they punch, kick, and break things and let them act like the boys they are and hopefully help them to grow up into real men.
And they’ll be the envy of their peers.
I find your suspension of disbelief regarding the many “misguided” actions of liberals disappointing. Then again, that’s life.
I take it you haven’t spent time on the other side of the aisle noticing the little and the large decisions that liberals make on behalf of the “kids.” As a teacher, I’ve seen behavior such as preteens kissing (and I’m not talking pecks on the cheek) tolerated, the lack of discipline, open disrespect by students, and open political commentary about an upcoming election by teachers as highly inappropriate.
Teachers and school administrators exist to educate and guide our children… not control their lives and decide what’s best without the input of kids and their parents.
Rusty, if you really want to give this the benefit of the doubt, that’s your choice… however, schools banning all sorts of “rough play” has been going on for years. This isn’t an isolated incident by any means.
They (wisely) banned us from using baseballs, softballs and footballs, but we did get to keep playing dodgeball.
It all depends on your definition of “it.”
When I was younger, I had one of those Big Wheels tricycles. I used to ride it as a scooter all the time. In our backyard, we had a patio with a brick-lined garden lining it. Riding it as a scooter, I crashed into the bricks, went flying over the handlebars, and landed on the sidewalk. Still have the scar on my elbow - and I’m lucky that’s all I had.
Another time, I slid down a neighbor’s metal slide and was cut from knee to hip on my thigh. Not deep enough to require stitches, but enough to require some good bandaging.
Funny how it never crossed my parents’ minds to sue either the maker of the Big Wheel or the neighbors. Think of how rich we’d be now… /sarcasm.
Next the school systems will be suing the dodgeball manufacturers (dogeballs, like guns, cause violence y’know) while at the same time placing more orders for Paxil to quell this non-sedate behavior.
If this keeps up we’re going to be a nation of wimps & weenies like much of Europe has become.
After the fascist government brainwashers turn our children into pacifist drones, what happens when the Islamofascists arrive on the schoolhouse steps seeking to shut them down and behead them for daring to educate women? Who do they expect to stand up and defend them from real aggression? Why do I know their final thoughts as they bleed to death will be, “But…but…we…were….nice…….to……..you………”?
Breeding sheep, we need more sheepdogs.
Hey, what about the kids who grew up in the 1980’s, listened to the wild 80’s music, the Cabbage Kid was supreme (unless you got the knockoff
), GI Joe, Barbie, the Smurfs, McDonald’s b-day parties, and Madonna were all the rage?
Us 80’s kids had it real bad too, okay?
PTA - Pansy Training Association
On April 15th, 2008 at 1:49 pm, 30 pcs of silver said:
I got your tag wrong…my apologies
I came off wrong. Sorry. Our schools out here don’t ban play time, don’t ban games they play during recess and don’t “baby” the kids that get hurt. If there is a kid that gets out of hand, then yes that kid needs to be punished. My daughter was playing tag at school and one of the kids pushed her down and told her she was it and my daughter told that kid that he best not push her down again or he would regret doing it. He apologized and they went off playing again. Our teachers get involved when kids get out of hand. My daughter knows that if someone pushes her down to give that kid a warning and if they do it again to beat the crap out of them. It has happened once and she got suspended for it. Our kids get cuts and scraps from rough play, but if there is a kid taking it to far then they need to be punished so it doesn’t ruin the game for the others.
Stay away from Tiger Schulman’s…
I was picked on and victimized a lot as a kid, which ultimately resulted in severe depression for me. I know from experience how cruel kids can be when given the opportunity. But I would never take from that experience the idea that you can solve the problem by limiting the activities available to children.
If a game is getting out of hand, don’t ban the game, just keep it from getting out of hand. If some kids are picking on others, discipline those kids. The big problem is not that modern kids are especially reckless, it’s that modern school personnel are increasingly unwilling to intervene in productive ways. Teachers and administrators have adopted a policy of punishing and/or restricting everyone rather than those who need it.
Need an example? I recall an incident in 4th grade where I got attacked by a bully for the sin of insisting that the proximity of my backpack to his on the playground was really pretty inconsequential. He knocked my down and kicked me in the stomach, a friend of mine came to my defense and punched him to get him off me. My friend and I got suspended, he only got reprimanded. Why? His parents were divorced, which clearly excuses his actions.
This is the type of administration in our schools these days. Don’t bother to figure out what caused misbehavior, just go the path of least resistance and punish everyone. It’s the same whether you suspend kids for defending themselves or ban a game because a few children aren’t playing nice. It represents an abdication of responsibility by educators.
The wussification of America continues. I remember when I was a kid, playing something, I don’t remember what and I ended up at the bottom of a huge pile of kids, could barely breathe and began to panic. I was screaming and hyperventilating, but I finally made it out of the pile. I didn’t run to the teacher and complain. That could be part of the problem too. Kids run to mommy every time someone looks crosswise at them. I was just glad I made it out of there! The last thing I wanted was to be a “tatttle tail”.
I think this garbage started about 15 years ago. I was over at a friend from high schools house and her then 8 y/o also had a trophy. I asked him if he had come in first too and he said no, second to the last. His father then explained that everyone got a trophy, it helps their self-esteem. I was shocked.
Brings back memories. I remember getting hit in the stomach with a dodge ball. Knocked the wind out of me. As I lay on the ground, suffering…my teacher looked down at me and said “get up” The game continued. No one sued.
As kids, my twin brother and I stuttered very badly and some bigger kids made fun of us. We got back at them during recess by “tagging” them real hard, or tackling instead of tagging. After a few bruises, they left us alone.It was a learning experience for us in that we wouldn’t fight anyone laughing at our speech inpediment, but would find some way to get back at them. We had some teachers that wouldn’t put up with their crap,if they knew about it, and so sometimes our problem would be solved by a teacher. Teachers today are really afraid to be too tough on kids who are unrully and decide the best way is just to ban the games.
It sure is scary stuff isn’t it? Watching socialism actually take hold in America, is not something I ever thought I’d see in my lifetime.
I guess I was quite wrong. It became so frightening & infuriating to me, that I parted with some of my own money & lots of my time, to start my own blog.
Maybe it’s inevitable, but I’m sure not going to go down without a fight, while these freaks try to indoctinate our kids. As always, thanks to Michelle for raising the most important issues in the fight against Fascist Liberalism. ~DL
“An empire is a despotism,” wrote Adams, “and an emperor is a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will.”
-John Adams
They can’t have competitive games like Tag or kickball.
Next thing you know, the kids will only be allowed to do Pilates and yoga.
Red Rover, Red Rover send 30 on over
… then I will tag her and prolly make fun of her!
Luv ya 30!
Rusty, one of the most important lessons a child could learn (and sorely lacking in liberal circles) is the need to stand up to bullies. My parents taught me, from the time I was first bullied in grade school, was that physical force was to be met with physical force. “If they hit you, you hit back, and don’t stop hitting until they stop.” It doesn’t matter if you don’t win the fight; most bullies are cowards, and will be reluctant to start a fight with you if they know you’re going to finish it.
My first brush with the effectiveness of this approach was the day Derrick Browell, my tormentor in those days, started pummelling me in 4th grade. He got it right in the face with my metal Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom lunchbox, with the thermos inside it. He ceased bothering me ever again. Even Sister Agnesa (God rest her gentle soul) privately confessed to my mom that though she had to punish us both, she was glad I stood up for myself, and put Derrick in his place.
In short, you stop allowing bullies to be bullies by not raising a bunch of victims. I get the impression most liberals didn’t learn this lesson growing up.
OK, so I was a bit nerdy as a youngster. Not terribly good at sports/coordination. I HATED dodgeball with a passion, didn’t like running during tag. I’m quite sure there were kids that felt the same way. Did my school make everyone stop an activity because not everyone liked it? Of course not. Did that welt during dodgeball or that “tag” completely ruin my life? Hell no! Why do my own kids now have to grow up in a bubble? We complain that kids are overweight, have no social skills, are too hyper and too medicated. Then the ONE thing that can solve all these problems - physical activity - is being outlawed every time we turn around. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY COUNTRY?
Unfortunately, rewards for mediocrity aren’t limited to sports. When I taught in middle school, I often assigned essays for both my regular and advanced history classes. I usually never had problems with my advanced class. However, I had a lot of problems with certain kids’ parents who got way too involved in their kids’ academics.
One day, when I was monitoring kids’ progress on an essay exam I noticed that one girl was copying off of another girl’s essay exam sheet. This was in my advanced class. The other girl was letting her do it. I said nothing, preferring to hold judgement. As I suspected, both essay exams looked (and sounded) the same when I graded them.
I held both girls after class one day and confronted them. I told them they were both getting F’s for the essay because I saw the cheating. One of the girls felt really bad about it, especially since her father worked in the same school and the same department. I’d already spoken with her father about it (since he worked in the same place I did) and he was okay with his daughter getting an F.
Not so the other girl. She basically told me, “you can’t give me an F. My mom won’t let you.” Later on, her mother called me and shouted at me, accusing me of lying and saying how her daughter could never possibly cheat. The mother then brought the matter to the principal and basically demanded that I give her a passing grade for the essay (since it was my word against the student’s in her mind).
The principal decided that the student should retake the test…which she did, and she got a C on it… not an acceptable grade for Advanced History.
So you see, the problem is so bad, that kids not only expect to get rewarded for mediocrity, but get away with it as well. If Mommy and Daddy can make that F go away, anything is possible.
Unfortunately, when you grow up, Mommy and Daddy won’t always be there for you. You have to learn to do things on your own.
Consequently, the student and her “Mommy Dearest” moved away from the area. I nev