ONLY in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
From the Boston Glob(e):
Officials at the Willett Elementary School in Attleboro have banned playground tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chasing games over concerns about the risk of injury and liability for the school.
"It's a time when accidents can happen," Principal Gaylene Heppe said.
Heppe included the new rule as part of a standardized set of playground rules.
While no district-wide policies banning contact sports at recess appear to have been put in place locally, many principals are making up new rules in an atmosphere reflecting society's increasingly cautious and litigious nature.
Now I know that society is somewhat litigous, but...c'mon. Tag?? Touch football? Attleboro also wanted to do away with dodgeball a few years back but wound up implementing modified versions with softer dodgeballs and got rid of the elimination rules--all in the interest of making it fair to all the kids.
Whatever happened to just letting kids be kids?
When I was a kid, I used to get nailed in dodgeball all the time. I can still hear the *PTOIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG* of the ball hitting me. I had fun, though.
By my estimation, it means that Attleboro--and schools everywhere--should ban the following games based on their potential for lawsuits:
Kickball: we wouldn't want some poor kid tearing an ACL.
Catch (baseball): far too dangerous...some child could take a baseball in the face. It's only fun until someone loses an eye.
Catch (football): two words -- Marcia Brady. "Oh...my nose!"
Red Rover: the possible emotional scarring for the child that doesn't get "sent over" is worth banning this game from playgrounds everywhere.
Keep Away: why would we pick on our poor children like this?
Hide and Seek: this game encourages our children to engage in secrecy and not "show" themselves to the world, stifling creativity and personality.
Swings: the possibility for serious spinal injury should result in swing sets being removed and melted down to avoid injury.
Jungle Gym: a head injury waiting to happen.
It wasn't all that long ago that we let children experience what it was like to be children. They got hurt on occasion, but they also had fun and created lasting memories. I know I did. Pretty soon, children in schools will get time outside to stand around that's completely supervised and has little to no activity.
In prison, I hear they call that an "exercise yard."
Principal Heppe has it all wrong and, unfortunately, the school children of Attleboro, Massachusetts, are the ones who will suffer.
Olly olly oxen free, already.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com
