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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > June > 29 > Entry
Not it! Playground games banned!
USA Today reports the trend toward banning simple playground games is expanding as more schools fear kids will get hurt.
This is an insane trend, probably driven by lawsuits much like the removal of high diving boards that I wrote about earlier this week.
When will the pendulum finally begin to swing back away from the rampant over protection and suffocating lawyering that is taking all the fun out of childhood?
Let me make it clear that I am in favor of sensible precautions. We made fun of kids for wearing bicycle helmets when I was a kid and I glad that trend has reversed, just to choose one example. And there are dangers out there, like pedophiles and fast-moving cars, for which kids need to learn some basics about how to protect themselves.
But how far should it go? Do four-year-olds really need self defense classes? Should kids be forbidden from even RUNNING at school?
How can reasonable people help return sensibility to places where fear has taken us over the edge?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: School Violence
Comments
By Mary
June 29, 2006 8:21 PM | Link to this
Scott, try to get over it. Running has not been banned for children at school simply because of fear, but because accidents cost a lot of money and serious injuries or death, some kids are bullies, some people sue and runaway juries hand them the public purse, neither kids nor supervisors consistently use common sense, and there are too few supervisors on the playground (I know we have discussed this before.) To my mind, there are much bigger issues than this that do not make sense. Children can run outside of school. Children are also not allowed to run around swimming pools and only one child is allowed on the diving board at one time. Maybe they should be allowed to take naps in the classroom - a fad in Japan I read about recently. Afterall, kids are also sleep deprived.