New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
news.nationalpost.com
New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
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Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#2This reminds me of this article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-pare...
We might finally have some reversion from this awful "safety" obsessed parenting trend.
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#3This is my favorite quote from the article: “I’ve been the principal who’s stood there and said ‘Oy, kid! Get off your bike! You’ve got to walk your bike!’ Then I’d go away and think ‘Why the hell did I say that?’”
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#4I usually live an Asia and often tell local people that the great play equipment available to children there would be disallowed in parts of the west (eg. my native Australia) due to health and safety concerns, generally as a result of mandatory insurance and greedy insurance companies.
No longer are swings and see-saws available! Instead, you get a padded piece of artificial plas-floor with a carefully rounded (so when your kid falls on it, they won't bleed - just pass out), mid-height (so you can't claim you didn't see it, but it's not high enough to fall off) not-thing (so you can claim it was custom designed for safety) in funkified ultra-hue (so it's easy to see and you can't claim it was a dangerous obstruction when your kid falls over it and knocks their teeth out).
As a result, we are failing to teach our children to cope with the real world.
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#5> “Of course a child is not allowed to kill another child,” Mr. McLachlan said. “One of the rules I said facetiously is kids aren’t allowed to hurt other people. But in fact they are. … If you hurt somebody in a game where you are playing hard, or a boxing match or a stone-throwing competition, for me it’s absolutely fine — as long as the other person was willing to get hurt.”
This is a very interesting article but is the administrator being serious when he talked about boxing matches? My American English parses that to mean throwing punches actual physical contact between fists and the body. Surely that is a bad idea?
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#6I can't see how the the same thing won't happen though - one kid suffers some form of awful permanent damage (or death) and then the rules and safer equipment come back.
It seems like the wager the west has generally accepted is that we aren't willing to accept the the gains from 'risky' play compared with the small chance of tragedy.
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#7I usually live an Asia and often tell local people that the great play equipment available to children there would be disallowed in parts of the west (eg. my native Australia) due to health and safety concerns, generally as a result of mandatory insurance and greedy insurance companies. No longer are swings and see-saws available! Instead, you get a padded piece of artificial plas-floor with a carefully rounded (so w…
I'm from Australia as well. I lived in Canada for a while and we use to joke that when there was snow there'd be signs saying you can't play in the snow.
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#8> “Of course a child is not allowed to kill another child,” Mr. McLachlan said. “One of the rules I said facetiously is kids aren’t allowed to hurt other people. But in fact they are. … If you hurt somebody in a game where you are playing hard, or a boxing match or a stone-throwing competition, for me it’s absolutely fine — as long as the other person was willing to get hurt.” This is a very interesting article but i…
We had boxing matches in High School.
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#9I can't see how the the same thing won't happen though - one kid suffers some form of awful permanent damage (or death) and then the rules and safer equipment come back. It seems like the wager the west has generally accepted is that we aren't willing to accept the the gains from 'risky' play compared with the small chance of tragedy.
The problem in the west is law suits. If New Zeland judges throw out any attempts from parents suing the schools, the fun times can continue.
All these rules didn't exist when I was a kid in the '80s... http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/165499/21_things_80s_kids...
Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules
#10> “Of course a child is not allowed to kill another child,” Mr. McLachlan said. “One of the rules I said facetiously is kids aren’t allowed to hurt other people. But in fact they are. … If you hurt somebody in a game where you are playing hard, or a boxing match or a stone-throwing competition, for me it’s absolutely fine — as long as the other person was willing to get hurt.” This is a very interesting article but i…
We had boxing matches in High School.
Any permanent injuries? This stuff is quite dangerous unless performed with disciplined caution.
I would not want to observe kids boxing (ouside a boxing sports club). Hit the throat. Bad day.