Regarding: Schools outlawing normal human behavior, this one has got to be the best. Or worst. You know what I mean. Sent from a father of three named Timothy:
Last nbbzzfaisn
fall, my 4th grader’s class banned playing football at recess after one child fell down and hurt his arm. You might say that that isn’t too outrageous of a response, except for one fact — the boy wasn’t actually injured by playing football. He was injured after he tripped over a tree root while showing the other kids his touchdown dance. Because football motivated the dance, it was banned.
 Maybe we should ban JOY, while we’re at it, since it could lead to dancing… — Lenore
As a child I broke my arm playing football during recess. And I had such fun doing it, I decided to break some fingers a few years later. How can we deprive our children of such important chances to miss an afternoon of class.
Okay, it’s absolutely crazy that they’ve outlawed football because of celebrating. But go back one step — the original commenter said it “wouldn’t be too outrageous” if they banned football because the kid got hurt playing football.
Well, I think that’s pretty outrageous, myself. Granted it’s not as over the top ridiculous as banning it because of what happened afterward, but it’s still based on the premise “ban something because sometimes kids get hurt doing it.” That is simply NOT a good reason to ban something, if it’s not an inherently dangerous, violent, or otherwise harmful activity. Not only is it not a good enough reason to ban it, it teaches kids the lesson that “anything you might get hurt doing is too dangerous to do.” Great, that’s a terrific way to run a society. I wonder what we’ll do in 20 years for police, firemen, construction workers, utility linemen, heck you can get hurt delivering the mail!
I don’t get it. Surely the logical response was to ban trees.
Ha!
There are few guarantees in life…but to think that we can prevent all childhood hurts and ills, is just ridiculous.
I mean, my gosh, let’s just put our kids in a bubble and be done with it.
Until someone gets hurt inside the bubble.
Why not outlaw recess why we’re at it?
Oh, wait…that’s already been cut in lots of places….
“Why not outlaw recess why we’re at it?
Oh, wait…that’s already been cut in lots of places”
Yeah, and then people wonder why the kids act up more in class and can’t sit still….Brilliant I say! /sarcasm
Although this has nothing to do with why I pulled my kids out of school and now homeschool them, it certainly confirms my belief that they are better off away from this craziness! And yes, banning the trees probably would make more sense, but don’t say that too loudly, I am sure they are next!
Clearly it was the fault of the tree (because it’s not like a person can be expected to actually be responsible for keeping themselves upright), we should immediately ban all vegetation!
In all seriousness, if a person trips over through their own carelessness that is their problem – nobody else’s. The expectation that the entire universe should have padded corners because people are too lazy to use their eyes is utterly ridiculous. Short of being in a coma, it isn’t unreasonable to expect a person to take responsibility for their own safety.
When I was in school there were many kids in casts. None of them died from it. The only time I even thought about it was when a friend showed me the radial deformation from the break (which was quite noticeable when comparing arms) after the cast came off.
Yohoo! Now let´s ban gravitation! Anybody has seen the animation film Wall-e? It sort of rings a bell, doesn´t it?
By the way, in my country homeschooling is not a choice. Actually, I could go to jail for not taking my children to school. And our Supreme Court has in fact decided that I can´t even object to whatever immorality they teach them there… But that´s another story *sigh*
“Short of being in a coma, it isn’t unreasonable to expect a person to take responsibility for their own safety.”
And, to realize that even when people exercise a reasonable degree of caution and responsibility, sometimes people get hurt. As someone else pointed out, this isn’t Wall-E world we’re living in, and accidents happen. There is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent 100% of accidents, and the effort to prevent even 99% of them just causes other, very serious, problems. We have to learn to live with that balance between sensible precaution, and the expectation that somehow we should be able to prevent everything bad that could ever happen.
can you say bubble?
I think so many people want to live in a bubble.. life is life… let’s get over it and move on please!
I can only imagine what people think of farm life!
Really just impressed that Timothy’s kids get recess.
Unbelievable.
I know. We just need to ban reproduction period. Surely having children is the problem – it’s inherently dangerous! Zero population growth! It’s the answer! (*mutter*)
Why is it so hard for people to accept the fact that KIDS WILL GET HURT??? There is nothing we can do to make sure it never happens, short of putting them in a bubble wrap suit and tossing them in one of those gerbil balls. But gosh, I’m sure some parents out there would be ok with that!
My girlfriend is a 4th grade teacher and we actually just had a debate about this topic the other night. She said something interesting that I think I should share here:
“These days a lot of kid don’t know how to ‘play’.”
She was telling me that when she monitors recess at her school, whenever the kids are allowed to play games someone usually winds up hurt because they have never learned the real difference between good and bad game actions. The game Tag becomes a game of Push every easily because the kids didn’t grow up playing tag (they play Grand Theft Auto on playstation) and thus they lack restraint.
I agree that banning football because a kid tripped while not actually playing is mind boggling dumb. I am not saying that game should be banned, but perhaps with the new generation, they should be monitored just to be sure there isn’t the one kid that thinks tackling is an appropriate form of touch football. Maybe the monitor could also be there to give the kids cones to use as endzones so that that are not just running at the trees.
this reminds me of the movie Footloose…no dancing. If we outlawed everything that our children got hurt doing…there’d be NOTHING left!
http://justagirlintheworld.com/designers-do-you-pursue-local-business/
To this day, she feels that the children who made the accusations regarding Fells Acres were not lying. The controversial issue in the Fells Acres case was not whether the young children lied or not, but whether the adults interviewing the young children used appropriate interviewing techniques to arrive at the truth. As many children gave contradictory answers in their interviews, the issue was not IF they told the truth, but WHEN. This reflects back on the interviewing capabilities of the adults, not on the young children.