School Bans "Tag"

[Andrew Green]

Officials at an elementary school south of Boston 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.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/18/no.tag.ap/index.html

 

[terryl965]

What is next evryone should only walk during an sporting event

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Officials at an elementary school south of Boston 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.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/18/no.tag.ap/index.html

That is just really sad. My kids love to play tag, touch football, etc.

 

[exile]

What is next evryone should only walk during an sporting event

Why Terry---haven't you forgotten that people who walk are much more likely to sprain their ankles than people who sit still? If the school were really serious about preventing accidents, they'd have the kids sit at their desks all recess...

...but wait! That still leaves the problem that in order to get to school, the kids have to go out their front door, and who knows what will happen then?? A really responsible school district would forbid kids to go to school---accidents do happen on the way there and back...

Someone, please tell me that the original news item at the start of this thread was a hoax... someone? Anyone?

 

[crushing]

Infrickincredible!! Such is a litigious society.

It's like Fahrenheit 451, but instead of books and firemen (firepersons), it's games and lawyers.

 

[Andrew Green]

No hoax... sadly...

Give it another 20 years and kids will go to school in giant protective bubbles the way things are going.

Prevent short term booboo's at the expense of overweight, insecure fragile adults that will dominate the country in 15-20 years.

 

[Flying Crane]

Ah yes, children are so very fragile. A rapid movement of air is likely to damage them irreparably. If only we could keep them in airtight containers...

 

[CoryKS]

Meanwhile, school officials continue to seek ways to reduce childhood obesity. Has anyone's head ever actually exploded from cognitive dissonance?

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Meanwhile, school officials continue to seek ways to reduce childhood obesity. Has anyone's head ever actually exploded from cognitive dissonance?

Damn, ya beat me too it!

A lot of studies have also shown play unstructured by adults is very important to a child's development.

Jeff

 

[exile]

There's just no way to parody something like this... it's like a `news' story out of The Onion, except it's real. Nothing you can say can top the facts themselves...

 

[SFC JeffJ]

There's just no way to parody something like this... it's like a `news' story out of The Onion, except it's real. Nothing you can say can top the facts themselves...

Yeah, it was just reported on the local news here as well.

 

[Makalakumu]

Lawsuits. This is what it comes down to. We need to reform our system or we are going to lose everything that we hold dear. Martial arts won't be immune to this. Already, insurance companies are putting limits on contact and requiring certain gear.

What do we do?

 

[zDom]

Lawsuits. This is what it comes down to. We need to reform our system or we are going to lose everything that we hold dear. Martial arts won't be immune to this. Already, insurance companies are putting limits on contact and requiring certain gear.

What do we do?

Beat up a lawyer. Er.. but then they would sue us.. so um...

ahhhh....

I got nuthin'. Sorry. :shrug:

 

[MA-Caver]

This is really sad and really a serious problem. To ban typical playtime activities like Tag and touch football what is the child to do with that energy yearning to be burnt off inside them? Make them sit and do nothing?
Oh well they'll more cases of overly hyper kids for the drug-pushers at the pharmacutical companies to push their ritalin on... without a thought as to why these kids are hyper in the first place... no tag, no red-rover, no touch football no playing around and lets take away those jungle-gyms and monkey bars too while we're at it. Lets get rid of the balls too... they might bop a child on the head one too many time and cause mild brain damage, or cause a child to trip and fall over something in an effort to catch it or kick it.
In fact lets get rid of recesses altogether because it isn't helping a child taking the chance of getting hurt by taking them for 20-30 minutes of the day out of the classroom where they can continue learning.

Stupid GREEDY lawyers and overly protective parents and pissed in the pants scared teachers are what brought this about.

SIGH!

 

[Drac]

Many , many years ago when I was in Elementary school they banned recesses because a young man in his haste to get out into the fresh air and sunshine tripped on the steps and hurt himself...So instead of enforcing the walk don't run policy they banned recess..Stupidity know no time lines...

 

[exile]

Meanwhile, school officials continue to seek ways to reduce childhood obesity.

If you combine Cory's observation here with MA-Caver's last post, you get a perfectly plausible situation where a school faces multiple lawsuits from parents outraged over the dangers to their children of allowing games of tag during recess if they do allow such activities, and faces multiple lawsuits from parents outraged over the dangers to their children's health due to obesity which the school is contributing to, if they don't. There may not be an explosion due to cognitive dissonance, but to the head-on impact of rival teams of lawyers tearing toward huge pro bono fees at warp speed.

Here's what's really strange: if you talk to people as individuals about this sort of thing, most of them will probably have a fairly reasonable take on it and agree that our addiction to litigation has led us to completely idiotic impasses like this one. So how come our society, as a collectivity, has allowed this bizarre lawsuit-crazy culture to emerge?

 

[Drac]

I'm surprized that no one has leaked this to the mainstream media..I'm sure the Governor of California would have thoughts on the subject..Talk about bad publicity...

 

[Kacey]

The same thing happened some years back with dodge ball - it was determined to be detrimental to students' emotional development... I guess now I know what scarred me for life - too many years of dodge ball in PE!

 

[Lisa]

So what is "safe" now? When I think of the stuff I did as a kid...jeesh surprised I survived.

 

[Drac]

So what is "safe" now? When I think of the stuff I did as a kid...jeesh surprised I survived.

I know what you mean..We climbed tall trees and hug upside down hammering nails into it to built tree houses...