Game of tag banned!

Great Debates
41

Well, you should try and work on that because you have as much to offer the real world as you do these message boards. And I’m not trying to suck up :slight_smile: I just have a soft spot for nice people who don’t get recognized as such in the real world.

Dr Lao,

I would imagine there is a great deal of truth in the litigation angle. If parents are willing to threaten a lawsuit because their kids aren’t allowed to re-take a test that they have failed, they sure as hell would sue over a broken arm. When I was in school, the parents wouldn’t have even considered suing in those circumstances but things sure have changed.

42

It’s stuff like tag being banned that cement my decision to either homeschool or send my kids to private school.

No WAY am I sticking them in public schools! Never!

43

Well, I hope you’re not planning on teaching them skills like reading comprehension, because the article plainly states that tag wasn’t banned. Kids are still allowed to play tag with adult supervision.

I don’t know what the kids were doing at recess without adult supervision anyway. It was never like that at my school, and I haven’t had recess in almost 20 years.

44

I’m pretty sure there is adult supervision during recess, in that there are teachers on recess duty. But there are probably not enough teachers to individually supervise every kid. So when they say tag is banned without adult supervision, what they most likely mean (unless for some reason there are no teachers outside during recess) is that there must be an adult not observing the kids in general, but supervising the game of tag in particular! In other words, the kids don’t get to be independant, they can’t decide how to play, and there is an adult insinuating themself into all the kids games. I really feel sorry for kids today. Adults just won’t leave them alone, and allow them to learn.

Do we want overweight kids, who have extremely low self esteem because they are constantly treated as babies, who are furious because they are not allowed to be kids, who try to make up for low self esteem by pretending as though they are each legendary and know everything better than adults, are assaulted with the incomprehensibly stupid ideas of an adult world that simultaneously takes all responsibility from kids and makes itself so dumb that any kid can take a very temporarily beneficial advantage, and who act as though they are more important than adults to counteract the knowledge that adults are making arbitrary and harmful decisions for them that they have no control over?

What kind of parents do you think these kids will eventually become? They’ll probably be bitter and want to deny everyone childhood, and at the same time will feel entitled to everything, so they’ll probably sue at the slightest provocation! Hey wait… this has already happened.

45

Now I’m curious. For you folks who think what the principal did was wrong, what kind of injuries should children sustain before tag should be outlawed?

It’d also be nice if you broke it (if you’ll excuse the pun) down between injuries for participants and nonparticipants.

46

Let’s ask that same question a few other ways.

“How many injuries should children sustain before something is done about softball?”

“How many injuries should children sustain before something is done about skating?”

“How many injuries should children sustain before something is done about football?”

“Have you stopped beating your wife?”

47

actually Sam with at least the softball/football examples (and often the skating one), those are generally (if organized) conducted under supervision of an adult. which of course is the issue here.

The school is responsible for the safety & well being of the kids while school is in session, hence the observation that with certain activities, they require adult supervision.

Seems reasonable to me.

48

There were two concussion, a couple of broken bones, and numerous bruises, scrapes, and cuts? Frankly I don’t see a serious problem here.

Of course I still think dodge ball, tether ball, and other play ground activities are a lot of fun.

Marc

49

Wring: I was responding specifically to the question, “what kind of injuries should children sustain before tag should be outlawed?”, which is exactly a “have you stopped beating your wife?” kind of question.

When I was a kid, a teacher ALWAYS had to be outside to supervise during recess. That’s plenty good enough for tag. If you’re going to demand that a teacher be specifically assigned just to watch over a game of tag, you might as well just ban it, 'cause it ain’t gonna happen.

And while we’re at it, we might as well ban every schoolyard activity that doesn’t have its own personal supervisor, because kids play rough.

50

Exactly. Every school has teachers outside during recess, but there are not enough teachers to personally supervise every single activity that is going on. And it is not necessary. Placing each kid under constant personal supervision is a terrible thing. It destroys creativity and fun. Adults insinuate themselves into every aspect of kids’ lives, under the guise of protection, but they are really doing an incredible amount of harm.

Anyone who has ever played tag should immediately know that supervision will not work. Tag is a game with almost no rules. Kids scatter everywhere, having fun. The playing field has no boundaries, just as the young minds of the kids have no boundaries. I can just imagine a tired third grade teacher telling all the kids to stay in a specified area so she can supervise. OK kids, you can play tag, just stay on this side of the basketball court and I’ll tell you who is it. I’m sure the kids will just love it. You know, thinking can be dangerous, so why don’t we just stomp out these kids’ minds once and for all?

51

Oddly enough, my experiences with Marital Aritists have been mostly the opposite.

My instructor taught me, as well as the rest of the classes that I had seen, as well as the classes that I helped teach, that Martial Arts, always made sure that nobody walked away with “I can kill anybody! Go me” thoughts in their head.

And those that started with that thought usually didn’t make it very far.

And you know what? Life is one big conflict. It’s not physical, but it’s there. Life isn’t easy, and things aren’t just handed to you (or at least me).

Mayhaps the usage of the word “kill” was a bit strong. She’s only six, it will be awhile before she has the strength and speed necessary for that sort of thing.

So I will content myself with teaching her how to be safe, and make right choices. And making sure she knows how to defend herself in the best way possible in the instance that those fail.

52

Perhaps I grew up in a very weird, oversupervised manner - but we were frequently given physical boundaries for tag or other games (“Don’t leave the playground,” “If you’re going to play tag, stay on the sawdust,” “Don’t leave the jungle gym,” “Do not take one step out of the front yard or else.”) And it did work.

Reasonable supervision isn’t that hard, and isn’t that much of an imposition, and will certainly not kill all games of tag.

53

From 6th to 8th grade, the boys in my class played one game, and one game only at morning recess and lunch - Animal Soccer.

The rules were simple - you must kick the ball into the goal to score. That was the only rule. (We used a ball around 3 inches in diameter).

And everybody played - from the Cool Kid to the Four-Eyed Fat Boy. There were cuts and scrapes, and the occasional sprain or nasty bloody nose. It probably didn’t help that we were playing on asphalt.
I earned my grade-school nickname from the game - Truck (my signature move was, on defense, to barrel into the scrum fighting over the ball and knock the scrum away from our goal.)

And where were our teachers during this violent display of male aggression? Likely in the teacher’s lounge, thankful that we were doing this instead of getting into fights, breaking things, or picking on the 5th graders - those annoying little runts.

A quick inventory reveals around 13 scars on my body, all but one received before the age of 14, and none due to surgery or the like. And I got no scars from the 3 or 4 times I fell through the ice while skating, or got held down too long while roughhousing in the pool, or sprained an ankle jumping off low cliffs over the creeks near home.
Any one of the incidents that caused those scars could have resulted in a much more serious injury, but none did.

And that doesn’t mean I was lucky - it means I was normal. This nation just doesn’t know jack shit about statistics, and it really has screwed us up. Every person who campaigns for mandatory bike helmet laws, or closely supervised play, or seat belt laws or the like seems to forget that their parents were around to bear them despite the fact that their parents never heard of a bike helmet, never even saw an adult during most of their summer days, and learned to drive in cars in which lap belts were optional equipment.

And the world really isn’t more dangerous now. There are simply more of us, so the miniscule odds of something bad happening means that more people get the bad luck. But that doesn’t mean that, individually, it is more likely that you or I, or those kids playing, are going to get seriously hurt.

And before you ask, yes, I wear a bike helmet, and I keep an eye on my neices when I babysit, and I buckle my seat belt. But by doing all those things, I haven’t appreciably improved my or my neices odds of avoiding serious injury - because the odds were overwhelmingly that no one was going to get injured in the first place.

I’m kind of rambling, but I hope you get my point. People, even kids, get hurt and even get killed. But I submit that the damage done to everyone by this panicky attitude towards risk is much greater than all the broken arms and black eyes that actually happen.

Sua

54

What do you mean by “and it did work”? Do you mean you still haven’t left the jungle gym?

Your example about not leaving the front yard makes me think you are talking about your parents. But your parents can obviously be expected to supervise their own kid. It is an entirely different matter to expect teachers to personally supervise every activity going on when they are greatly outnumbered. You can’t tell the entire student population not to leave the jungle gym (at least I hope you can’t).

If you define reasonable supervision as having a personal adult supervisor for EVERY activity going on during recess, then I have no idea how you can say it “isn’t that hard.” There just aren’t enough teachers. What if several groups of kids all want their own games of tag? Do you force all of them onto “the sawdust” and put a fence around them? What about the other activities that “require” individual adult supervision? Do you tell those kids they just have to stand around because the teacher is busy supervising tag? Of course many activities will be killed. Isn’t it better for kids to play tag than to stand around trying to steal money to buy sodas from the school vending machines? Maybe we should fence all the kids into a small area near the vending machine and let them play tag there!

Like Sua, I had recess injuries. Cuts, bruises, a fingernail ripped completely off, two teeth knocked out (actually there was an adult supervising when that happened). I suspect many people had similar injuries. Are kids today so fragile that the same things which simply built character in past kids will destoy current kids? Is it healthy to treat kids as though they are overwhelmingly fragile, should not take any risk whatsoever, and are actually incapable of playing a simple game of tag without an adult supervising them personally? I was a very small child, but quick, and recess, injuries and all, is one of my favorite memories. Everyone had a place in the games. Kids are not as mean as you think they are, although telling them they are mean will probably lead them in that direction.

Childhood games are just not that dangerous. Their benefits outweigh their tiny danger factor by an incredible margin. Personal adult supervision of each and every activity is impossible (unless you kill the activities), useless (the already small danger factor will be reduced by an even more tiny amount), and harmful (the kids will lose their independence and the games will cease to be kids’ games). Adults do not have to, and indeed should NOT, insinuate themselves into every aspect of kids’ lives. If mind control is ever developed, I have no doubt adults would want to control every thought of their little fragile possessions… I mean, their kids.

55

Sua,

You weren’t rambling at all. We all have our “battle scars” :slight_smile:

56

This reminds me of a game we used to play all the time at my last command. (I’m currently enlisted in the US Marine Corps) It’s called Trash Ball.

Two tall plastic garbage cans stand on opposite sides of a field. The object is to put a soccer ball, or ball of similiar size, in the can. As in Sua’s game, no other rules applied. Sometimes, we’d liven it up with more than one ball. Now I realize that it was young, athletic Marines playing this, and not children, but it’s very similiar in chaotic nature to the things I enjoyed when I was a boy. People ran full-speed across the field and collided, shins were kicked, faces hit the mud, etc.

I don’t even think I could estimate the number of soccer balls I’ve taken to the groin over the years. :wink:

It stings just to think about it.

57

As I thought, tag actually was banned completely during recess. It would only be allowed under the strict supervision of, not just an adult, but a physical education teacher. Does anyone really think the school has such a huge surplus of physical education teachers that they can spare one whenever some kids want to play tag?

Maybe this school is headed towards a “hands-off” policy, under which you can get suspended or kicked out of school because you touched another student for ANY reason.

Adults are becoming exceedingly hateful towards kids these days. It makes me sick hearing about these things, all under the transparent guise of “protection.” Yeah, this is protection in the same way that you are “protecting” someone by wearing a mask when you mug them, so that you won’t have to kill them because they know your identity.

Message to public schools: stop detroying our nation’s youth.

Maybe this is the kind of thing that makes people think vouchers are a good idea. Personally, I think vouchers will cause all kinds of problems, but if they cause the public school system to get shaken up, and they get rid of some of their stupid, harmful, and sometimes evil rules it may all be worth it.

58

Some of my favorite games were:

Capture the flag. Awesome game, especially since right next to our school was a forest and we could play there. Everyone always hid their flag in a tree. Is there anything like finding the flag and making it all the way back to your base?

Rocks. The field is divided into two sides, and each side has a small circle where the rocks are. You have to make it to the circle on the other side without getting tagged, then pick up one rock. While in the circle you are safe. Then you have to make it back to your side without getting tagged. The field at my school froze during the winter, and we played this on the ice (that is when I got knocked over by someone who slid into me, and I lost two teeth when my face hit the ice).

Midnight: Played on a basketball court with a lot of people. Everyone lines up on one end of the court, except one person on the court. They say “mignight” and everyone has to run to the other side without getting tagged. If you get tagged you have to stay where you are, but you can now help tag people.

59

My 7th grade gym teacher taught us how to play Japs and Marines (this was in non-PC 1965). Japs wore t-shirts, Marines were skins.

The rules were that the Japs could operate over the entire gym floor, but the Marines had to stay on one side within a line that was 10 feet from the wall.

That’s it.

It looked like a gang fight. Actually, several gang fights at once. Great fun. Nobody died.

As far as prohibiting tag…fine. Go ahead. Remove everything that might possibly let your little Jason or Jessica know where he or she stands in the world, how his or her development is going, or how it feels to be confronted or overcome difficulty. That way, they won’t be prepared very well for life after school, and my son will have a better chance to out-compete them in the real world.

Schmucks.

60

We used to play “Smear the Queer”. Not PC, of course, but “queer” didn’t mean anything to us. It was just a word that rhymed with “smear”. If we were caught playing it on school grounds we were made to stop, but that didn’t stop us from playing it at home. And we’d rotate being “it”. The ball stung sometimes, but no one was injured.

We’d also have “dirt clod fights”. We’d split into two teams and find dirt clods to throw at each other. The One Big Rule was “no rocks”.

The time I broke my arm in sixth grade, I was playing on the uneven bars.

My biggest “self esteem” issue was when I was in elementary school. We all had to take part in the President’s Physical Fitness program. If you did a certain number of situps, pushups, etc. in a set amount of time, you got a nice patch. We didn’t “train” for it; we just had to take the test. Many kids, including me, did not win the coveted patch. A lot of feelings were hurt because of a mandatory test that we were given no preparation for.

IMO, tag is a part of growing up. To have it restricted is a theft of childhood.

Are kids being more rough now? Or do parents not understand the concept of playing? A little of both, perhaps?

Are parents irresponsible now? When I was a kid, I had to come inside when the streetlights came on. Now, parents let their kids play noisily in the courtyard until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Hell, I had to be in bed by 8:30 or 9:00!

I say let kids be kids. My feelings were hurt on occasion when playing with other kids, but not as bad as when adults imposed the President’s Physical Fitness things on me. Sure I’d get scraped up while playing, but I healed. It’s better to play and be scuffed than to not have played at all.