Schools continue to ban dangerous games... like, you know... tag
By jarespond - Posted on June 27th, 2006
Tagged: Society
• Health
• Education
• Broad prosperity
• Shared responsibility
• Personal freedom
• Better future
A recent story by USA Today brings to mind a string of similar stories that have been released over the past decade or so, each with slightly different content, but leading to the same point. It all started around the time of the Columbine massacre, when teachers began to see the similarities between games like dodgeball and the acts of purchasing a gun, concealing it, crafting a plot, and attacking a school. I realize that the concept sounds absurd, but a number of public schools adopted this line of logic and banned dodgeball and other, similar games that are often played on "field day," such as the egg toss/waterballoon toss (it's like a grenade, apparently).
While not quite as absurd, the recent trend is to ban games that are too dangerous... such as tag. This is the focus of the USA Today article, and the concept rightly receives ridicule. In order to accept this premise, we must assume:
a) Tag poses dangers that are unreasonable/do not produce a favorable cost-benefit analysis. In other words, we have to assume that the danger of tag far outweighs the benefits.
b) Other games accepted by mainstream society are not as dangerous as tag. These include, for example, baseball, which involves throwing and hitting a hard ball in the direction of players, football, which involves brutal collisions, and soccer, which is sort of a mixture of the two "dangers." Because, you see, if other games were as dangerous as tag, then, in order to be consistent, all games would have to be banned.
c) The pain produced by a collision in tag, rather than teaching a child to be careful at the expense of a brief episode of topical pain, will be permanently problematic in that child's life.
I'm sure that there are other premises being proposed by the regulation, but I have tried to outline some of the more obvious ones for the sake of clarity and brevity.
In addition, given the current obesity epidemic in this country, it seems as though we would want children to enjoy their physical activity as much as possible so that they continue to participate in it. Because the cardiovascular benefits of tag can help to prevent obesity and a slew of related health issues, such as heart disease, people who opt to ban tag propose that a scrape on the knee is too high a cost to pay for improved quality of life for a child's future.
And America pussifies more.
--Mike
I'm all for protecting kids from harm, but I'm not for taking some of the fundamental kid games away. There is a balance between preventing kids from being bullied (and some of it will always be in schools) and not letting them have any fun.
Let's see. So no tag, no movies, no video games, no rock music. That is until you turn 18, then you get shipped off to Iraq to kill other people with bombs and guns. That is perfectly logical.
"And America pussifies more.
--Mike"
Ditto.
Geez what has become of our country
Dr. Benjamin Spock, that is what has become of our country.
--Mike
They banned Red Rover at my sister's school. I can see why on that one, but tag? My swimteam's games of water polo are more dangerous than a simple game of tag. Next they'll probably ban duck, duck, goose for bopping people on the head or sharks and minnows for violence.
Now this sort of absurd parenting-by-the-paranoid-village is truly scary. Anything remotely resembling anything for which anyone could conceivably sue anyone is a horrible unacceptable risk and must be banned. Eventually, at this rate, this will logically include banning almost all childhood games (they could get hurt running, evolve throwing balls into projectile violence, etc.), banning all sports (see above), banning hot coffee in restaurant drive-throughs (because some moron might be too stupid to take responsibility for his/her own clumsiness), and the repeal of the first amendment (because someone might say something that upsets someone else).
There has to be an understanding and a line between reasonable protection of our children, and absurbly extreme paranoia that everything is out to poison their minds -- preferably before we've removed all experiential life from our next generations and reduced them to increasingly obese, mindless, incapable zombies.
What'll they try and get rid of next? Duck, Duck, Goose for bopping people on the head? Happy Days, Brady Bunch, or other classic shows because they are too grown up for little kids? Sharks and minnows because it involves swimming fast? It's pathetic these days. They won't even allow us to play water polo at my school anymore. How dumb is that?
Taking freedom away from children is wrong. They know what free time means during recess. Gezzzz. they are violeting the constitution.
Maybe they'll ban diving boards from swimming pools for the possibility of accidentally slipping and falling on it. The city recently destroyed the park by my house by taking out all of the play equiptment except for two swings for babies.
Most schools promote thier general atheletic programs such as thier basketball team or football team. These activites are far more harmful than any tag game that may take place on a playground. Its just sad.