Playing tag now a no-no at some US schools

[Tab]

:eyes:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two Massachusetts primary schools this week joined a growing list of US schools that have banned the age-old game of tag for fear that children may get hurt and their parents will sue.

Officials at McCarthy Elementary School in Framingham in the northeastern state, told local media that children have been ordered to invent a new no-contact version of the game for safety reasons.

"If the hands come out to touch, then the supervisors ask them to stop," McCarthy principal Joan Vodoklys was quoted as saying in the Boston Herald on Friday. "What we require is that children do not touch each other."

Gaylene Heppe, the principal at Willett Elementary School also in Massachusetts, said she had approved the ban on the classic playground game out of fear that accidents could happen.

The ban at Willet covers other contact sports such as touch football, another non- or low-contact game standard at US primary and secondary schools only a few years ago.

Elementary schools in the states of Wyoming and Washington have also recently banned tag during recess, in fear that possible injuries could leave the schools legally liable.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061020/lf_afp/afplifestyleusschool_061020160352

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. dodgeball and some other games of a contact nature

have been banned for a while. So much for being a kid.

sP

[Duer 157099]

2. RUNNING is banned at many schools

And I don't mean just in the hallways.

The only running allowed is during gym class.

[Ian David]

3. Lazer-tag doesn't require touching.

What can possibly go wrong with a bunch of kids bringing fake guns to school?

[goddess40]

4. instead of doing something real about the bullying problem

they decide to punish everyone. It really makes me sick that the schools make these fake stabs at dealing with a real problem instead of doing what's right - but that would mean they would have to acknowledge the real problem.

[bluestateguy]

5. Stupid PC crap by professional education bureaucrats

Education bureaucrats are some of the most lawsuit paranoid people you will ever meet.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Which is it?

Political correctness or fear of lawsuits?

[Beelzebud]

6. Why let them play when we have pharmaceuticals to zombify them?

When I was young thats how we got all that energy out. We played.

Now you just dope them up on whatever designer drug "the system" tells you is "good for kids".

[Ian David]

7. You know the right-wingers are going to try and blame this on liberals

We need to do something to show them that Liberals are opposed to this crap.

Let's start a group: Liberals for The Preservation of Recess (The LPR).

[412]

12. Agreed. Voice our opinions against this

or it will be thrown back in our faces

[winter999]

8. PC to the extreme!

You know if you lock all kids in a plastic bubble, not only will the not fall down or touch each other, but there's no spread of germs!!!

I'd better shut up before I give someone ideas.

(guess I won't be seeing any rugby at school)

:wtf:

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

9. Good to see they're focusing on the important issues

I personally think we should wrap all children in a double layer of bubble wrap, then insert each child into giant lexan hamster ball with heavy padding inside. The hamster ball would be encased in a 10 foot thick concrete bunker. That way they will NEVER get hurt.


:eyes:


Better yet, let's take away all forms of physical activity. This has the double benefit of not only removing the cause of all injuries, but allowing the children to develop a thick layer of fat padding, to further protect them from injury.

[dflprincess]

11. This isn't so much about protecting kids, it;'s about protecting

school districts from parents who might sue if Junior is hurt on the playground. I remember a kid in grade school who fell off the monkey bars during recess and broke his arm (this is in the early '60s). Not only did we have monkey bars, they were embeded in a tar surface. The school nurse called his mom and off they went to the doctor and that was that. Nowdays, there are parents who'd stop at the lawyer's after the visit to the doctor.

[Wilber_Stool]

10. Remember the merrie-go-round?

Sounds like such an Innocent playground game. We would get three people to spin it and really get that sucker moving. Kids legs would flop off and knock the spinners down. Kids would fly off and scoot across the dirt of blacktop. The real trick was to get someone to puke. Now that was FUN.
We also had a steel May Pole with double hand grips on the end of long chains. The big kids would get some of us little ones on there and spin our feet off the ground. A couple of us fell off. Cool. It was great.
And when you got home your mother would ask what you did at school and you'd say "Nothin'."

[Ian David]

14. Merry-go-rounds... see-saws... You don't see many of those anymore

I miss them.

I'm not very sad to see Tetherball go away, though.

[Mythsaje]

13. When greedy parents, lawyers, and insurance companies intersect

this is what you get.

And people wonder why kids are getting fat? Maybe it's because the only recreation they're allowed these days is through the virtual reality of video games.

Play kickball in the empty lot in the neighborhood? Likely not. Someone might get hurt and sue the owner. Tag at school? Not anymore.

I know we're supposed to LOVE lawyers on the left, but...well...not so much.

Of course the left will be blamed for this crap.

But I know who's to blame. Everybody who makes money off the misfortune of others.

[Ian David]

15. Schools don't have enough teachers to supervise the kids during recess

No child left behind... my ass.

[Mythsaje]

18. We never did...

When I was in grade school the bullies damn near ran the playground. You could be minding your own business and a bully would walk up to you and start beating the hell out of you. When the teachers arrived, they'd punish BOTH participants--as if the victim had any say in the matter.

People wonder why I have an issue with authority.

[Ian David]

16. Okay, I have a technological solution to the tag "problem."

Some schools have banned tag during recess because it involves touching and/or running.

Some schools allow the running, but not the touching. Others have banned both running and touching games.

So, I suggest developing a "Safe Tag" device that can be configured to play a tag-like game that either does, or does not, allow running.

The device would be worn on the wrist during the game, like a watch.

If the device gets within one foot of someone also wearing the device, it would register a "tag."

The device can be configured to sound an alarm that puts them the wearer in "time-out," if they exceed a programed speed limit.

An example of how it would work at a fictional school called "Springfield Academy."

The teacher in charge of recess is responsible for dispensing the "Tag Watches," based upon how many players they are able to supervise.

The teacher, in this case, feels comfortable supervising six tag players. So, the teacher gives out six Tag Watches at the beginning of recess.

Six kids are playing tag. One person is designated as being "it."

The school district in question decibels "running" as anything over three miles-per-hour.

All the students participating walk briskly away from the person who is "it," who also may pursue them at a pace no faster than 3 MPH.

The Tag Watch has an inter tia sensor, and it displays the student's speed, accurate to two decimal places.

If the people who are playing exceed 3 MPH, their tag-device sounds an alarm for five seconds. The player must "freeze" until the alarm stops.

The Springfield Academy also has a policy that says any student who exceeds the speed limit more than five times in one day, during a game of tag, they will be banned from playing for one week.

If a student wearing the Tag Watch exceeds this speed limit more than five times, the alarm will sound continuously, until it is disarmed by a special code from the teacher.

Meanwhile, if the person who is "it," gets within one foot of one of the other players, they are designated as "tagged," without the need to actually touch them.

In addition for use in games of tag, these can also be used as "Speed Watches," and given to all students during recess, to make sure nobody is exceeding the playground speed limit.

While this may sound invasive, it also opens the possibility of playing all sorts of imaginative new games based upon the ability to accurately track your speed.

For example, instead of "races", where one person has to be the first to pass a finish line, students can hold "rallies," where they have to navigate a course of landmarks at the most precise speed possible.