{"id":2487,"date":"2002-06-14T10:33:12","date_gmt":"2002-06-14T15:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2487"},"modified":"2002-06-14T10:33:12","modified_gmt":"2002-06-14T15:33:12","slug":"thank_heavens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/14\/thank_heavens.html","title":{"rendered":"Thank heavens"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was awfully worried that nearby Dry Creek Elementary might win the Nutty School Administrator Award of the Quarter for punishing kids playing “Army and Aliens”<\/a> during recess (since it involved the verboten <\/i>practice of “shooting” finger guns).<\/p>\n

I should have rested easy that my old home state of California would pick up the slack, as they have at Santa Monica’s Franklin Elementary, where the principal has banned tag<\/a> — but only during recess.<\/p>\n

The problem, it seems, is that being declared “It” can be very damaging to a child’s self-esteem, especially when it’s done in social, not controlled\/pedagogical fashion. Older, bigger kids often dominate the game, and thus impose the outcast-causing “It”\/”victim” status on smaller, younger, weaker kids (clearly reenacting the anthropological ostracization of the “Other”). <\/p>\n

Said younger, weaker kids, their self-esteem crushed, internalize this lesson of the strong being able to dominate the weak, and perpetuate this madness upon succeeding generations of children.<\/p>\n

War, domestic abuse, and the Paternalistic Theocracy ensue. Civilization collapses shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

By moving chase games into the realm of PE, with proper supervision by socially sensitive educators, the children can be taught … well, I guess they can be taught to not run faster than other children, to tag gently with only two fingers between the shoulder-blades (but not below the waist or on the head), and to bounce their ball in an eerily synchronized fashion when playing after school<\/p>\n

The other Horrific Justification for the restriction is that kids playing tag and other chase games sometimes don’t watch where they were going and, lacking sufficient recess supervision (or State-Approved Padding Apparatus and Shock Collars), occasionally run into other kids, causing (gasp) injuries.<\/p>\n

According to the article, over the last year there have been two concussions and a couple of broken bones (and untold psyche-shattering bruises, scrapes and bumps), ostensibly due to tag and other chase games.<\/p>\n

This will, of course, be resolved by playing tag solely in PE, since the kids will be restricted to walking, and will be enclosed in giant plexiglass bubbles, with 5-point restraints and air bags.<\/p>\n

Sheesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was awfully worried that nearby Dry Creek Elementary might win the Nutty School Administrator Award of the Quarter for punishing kids playing “Army and Aliens” during recess (since it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9865,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/18\/this_just_in_childhood_ju.html","url_meta":{"origin":2487,"position":0},"title":"This Just In: Childhood Judged Too Unsafe for Children","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 18-Oct-06 2:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Puh-leeze. 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...","rel":"","context":"In "School Daze"","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2845,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/12\/school_daze.html","url_meta":{"origin":2487,"position":1},"title":"School Daze","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Sep-02 11:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's The Friday Five....","rel":"","context":"In "Personal Q&A"","block_context":{"text":"Personal Q&A","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/personal-qa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3707,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/03\/its_all_about_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":2487,"position":2},"title":"It’s all about Me","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 3-Oct-02 8:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Say it ain't so! Could the past three decades of obsession with teaching kids self-esteem so that they can achieve more have been ... worthless? Maybe so, according to various...","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1337,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/22\/self_esteem.html","url_meta":{"origin":2487,"position":3},"title":"Self-esteem","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Jan-02 8:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Much fun has been made of the obsession in the Ed Biz over the past two or three decades to focus on self-esteem among kids -- the \"it's better to...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/23\/its_a_wonder_we.html","url_meta":{"origin":2487,"position":4},"title":"It’s a wonder we survived","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Nov-04 9:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet more evidence that we are in the Crazy Years: more legal attacks on dodge ball in schools. 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