NationStates Jolt Archive

by banning "unsupervised contact sports". Morons. Let's just ban all physical activity, pump them full of drugs, and then wonder why they're fat, lazy, and maladjusted as adults.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20061018/ap_on_fe_st/playground_tag_ban_1

Not it! Mass. elementary school tag

1 hour, 23 minutes ago

ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out!


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 and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

I just saw this on CNN. My response? WTF?!?!?

Oh, and I live in Attleboro.

Seems like a byproduct of our bloated legal system as opposed to intent to cause obesity.

WTF.

Now I know how people become geezers at 37 ;)

I can easily see the schools point of view here. No unsupervised contact sports=no(less) law suits.


Oh, and the thread title and OP greatly overstate this in my opinion.

W.T.F.

theyll play it anyway, the only game banned at my primary school wall playing Bulldog on the tarmac playground and some kid broke his arm. Thats it. ever.

Yay for UK schools!!

I can easily see the schools point of view here. No unsupervised contact sports=no(less) law suits.


Oh, and the thread title and OP greatly overstate this in my opinion.

Right. Let's not allow kids to play physical games during the best time of the day for it because someone "might" get hurt and sue. Let's let them sit around w/ all that energy getting more and more wired up, then diagnose them w/ ADHD and pump them full of psychotropic drugs to keep them calm.

Leave it to a school official in the Northeast to label tag as a "contact sport."

They did that in my elementary schools a long time ago. It didn't hit CNN though.

Should be subtitled "When Good Intentions Attack!" I guess we have become that litigious a society, when the first thought is, "Can we get sued over this?" O tempora! O mores! (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Cic.+Catil.+1.1)

They banned pretty much all activity in a school district near where I live. Stupid as hell. I guess this is what you get when you have the state controlling more and more of our lives- it starts to warp people and their minds.

They banned pretty much all activity in a school district near where I live. Stupid as hell. I guess this is what you get when you have the state controlling more and more of our lives- it starts to warp people and their minds.
That's a bizarre conclusion to reach. The schools get sued by idiot parents who want to blame everybody else when their kids get a scrape on the knee, so you blame the SCHOOLS for taking the very reasonable step of banning activities tha will get them sued by said idiot parents?

If anybody is to blame for this kind of BS, it's the morons who go around trying to use lawsuits to solve all of their problems. They abuse a system that is meant to be used responsibly, and they end up fucking up life for the rest of us.

I can see why Rugby is not so popular over in the US.

They never saw British Bulldog.

That's a bizarre conclusion to reach. The schools get sued by idiot parents who want to blame everybody else when their kids get a scrape on the knee, so you blame the SCHOOLS for taking the very reasonable step of banning activities tha will get them sued by said idiot parents?

If anybody is to blame for this kind of BS, it's the morons who go around trying to use lawsuits to solve all of their problems. They abuse a system that is meant to be used responsibly, and they end up fucking up life for the rest of us.

I agree with Greill, feelings of demand for compensation for random accidents can be traced to rises in government control over new aspects of our lives. It seems like another social problem resulting from a nanny state. What really irks me though, is that people demand policy change for isolated incidents.

I dont know how you can label this reasonable. This is almost a justification to home school within itself. This will affect our nations obesity rates and test scores at the same time, things we really cant risk right now.

I can easily see the schools point of view here. No unsupervised contact sports=no(less) law suits.


Oh, and the thread title and OP greatly overstate this in my opinion.

'mmmmhm. As if it'll stop kids.

As long as they back up their decision with plenty of supervision on the playground I wouldnt mind too much

by banning "unsupervised contact sports". Morons. Let's just ban all physical activity, pump them full of drugs, and then wonder why they're fat, lazy, and maladjusted as adults.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20061018/ap_on_fe_st/playground_tag_ban_1

Not it! Mass. elementary school tag

1 hour, 23 minutes ago

ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out!


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 and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.Funny. My school never had that problem. We had supervisors on duty during recess.

Want to know why this crap happens?

Greedy Parent: MY CHILD STUBBED HIS TOE I'M SUEING YOU FOR 100,000!!!!

Greedy Parent 2: MY CHILD SPILLED PAINT ON THEIR CLOTHES I WANT 60,000!!!

Greedy SOB Parent 3: MY CHILD WAS LAST IN LINE AT LUNCH I WANT 100,000 FOR EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!!!

SUE SUE SUE mentality.

Couldn't the parents just get their idiot kids to stab themselves with pencils and sue the school for that? Come on. The only way to avoid school-related "accidents" is to get rid of school. The only way to prevent car accidents is to ban cars. We can either ban everything or we can just sue over important stuff, as in things worth suing over without looking like a jackass.

Right. Let's not allow kids to play physical games during the best time of the day for it because someone "might" get hurt and sue. Let's let them sit around w/ all that energy getting more and more wired up, then diagnose them w/ ADHD and pump them full of psychotropic drugs to keep them calm.

Methylphenidate isn't a goddamn psychotropic drug. Do I have to go over this again?

The lawsuit culture is only part of a much bigger problem - the blame culture. It's particularly bad in America, but we've had some problems with it in the UK too.

See, if a child falls and breaks his arm, a sensible parent would be reassuring and calm. A slightly less sensible (but still caring) parent would panic a bit and fuss over the child. But increasingly, the reaction is "Who is responsible for this? Who allowed my poor baby to get hurt?" Some people seem completely unable to accept that some things just happen by accident. And God forbid anyone suggest that it was their fault.

wow. whats next? tossing kids in detention just because they are not spaced far enough apart?

Methylphenidate isn't a goddamn psychotropic drug. Do I have to go over this again?

Try again.

"Internationally, methylphenidate is listed in Schedule II of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances"

http://www.methylphenidate.net/

Try again.

"Internationally, methylphenidate is listed in Schedule II of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances"

http://www.methylphenidate.net/

I was confusing "psychotropic" with a similar word.

WTF.

Now I know how people become geezers at 37 ;)

I'm only 34, dammit! :p

I'm glad I'm not a kid in school today. Why not ban all playground equiptment because you might fall off? No pencils or pens in the classroom because you might stab yourself and no sheets of paper because you may cut yourself on the corners. Why not pad the walls and floor because kids can trip over themselves fall. Let paranoia run wild!!!!!

What's unreasonable about banning unsupervised physical activities? It's not saying "Let's don't play dodgeball," it's saying "Don't play dodgeball when an adult isn't watching." Sheesh.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum...

Family seeks answers in boy's death (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100606dnmetgymdeath.d36a965.html)

I can't wait for someone on General to make a remark about a fat kid winning the Darwin Awards.

I just saw this on CNN. My response? WTF?!?!?

Oh, and I live in Attleboro.

Mine is "Dee dee dee!"

To the Board, obviously.

What's unreasonable about banning unsupervised physical activities?

You would think the playground was supervised as a general rule. If it is not, then that is the problem right there. If instead, they are trying to prevent the children from playing games that are neither functioned or facilitated by adults, then they are commiting a grave offense against the childrens health, both physical and psychological.

What's unreasonable about banning unsupervised physical activities? It's not saying "Let's don't play dodgeball," it's saying "Don't play dodgeball when an adult isn't watching." Sheesh.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum...

Family seeks answers in boy's death (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100606dnmetgymdeath.d36a965.html)

I can't wait for someone on General to make a remark about a fat kid winning the Darwin Awards.

Pushing kids like that is not acceptable if they don't have the strength to complete the excersise. This however is recess, you can sit on your ass if you want, no one forces you to play anything. Parents have to realize that kids are going to get hurt. It is part of life. You can't shelter them and stop them from playing outside because you are afraid of a little blood. What, those parents never skinned their knee as a kid? Never got a bruise or a cut?

The obvious solution is to sue the school anyways, for like, setting up the kid to be a fat ass.

In an ideal world, the school wouldn't have to be worried about being sued for stupid shit like that. Since that isn't going to happen in Mer'ca, the school should go into every decision knowing it is going to get sued no matter the outcome. Then maybe, just maybe, the principals will start thinking with their heads instead of their lawyers.

Seems like a byproduct of our bloated legal system as opposed to intent to cause obesity.

Cute! A bloated and ineffectual bureaucracy that creates bloated ineffectual people. Lovely.