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New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

news.nationalpost.com

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Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#21

Post by spiritplumber »

sigzero wrote: post #8
jevinskie wrote: post #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 i…

We had boxing matches in High School.

We did too. Our principal used to be a boxer, and had a "if boys must fight, i want to see a fair fight and i'm reffing it", so it was a thing right after school.

He wouldn't allow girls to duke it out though.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#23

Post by girvo »

Man... I'm only 23, and I grew up in New Zealand. This is really cool, but I think the parents are the main factor that needs to be dealt with regarding this general idea.

When I was 8, my dad and I built a wood + iron motorised go-kart, and then I drove it all around ours (and the next-door neighbours) property. I crashed hard, broke my arm... and it was awesome. I'm still into high-octane risk-taking fun (I'm currently working getting my solo jump license yay), but I do it as safely as possible.

I think learning risk-management is a key thing that kids are missing. I was lucky to have parents that pushed me out of my comfort zone into doing cool stuff (I trained in Taekwondo for 12 years, including 6 months in Busan, South Korea, and got my 16 year old ass kicked for the entire 6 months) -- my brothers also have grown up well adjusted to dealing with risk and excitement and danger. But others I know in my generation and below are afraid of risk, afraid of danger, and I think that's a shame...

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#24

Post by bashinator »

smtddr wrote: post #9
siliconc0w wrote: post #6

I 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...

The problem in the US isn't lawsuits, it's lack of decent health care. The lawsuits are a forseeable outcome of parents who could be financially devastated if their child has a bad injury.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#25

Post by bane »

jevinskie wrote: post #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 i…

Yeah sure, you didn't grow up boxing and wrestling with your friends?

Hell, we used to have stick fights and beat each other with sticks, or play full contact football without any gear.

We used to also climb all over parking structures, up and down trees, construction sites, ditches, rain water drains.

One thing you learn from punching around with your buddies is the unwritten agreement of fairness. You only punch or slap as hard as you want to get punched or slapped. The golden rule works both ways!

I thought I grew up in a pretty overly coddled time. Are things really this bad?

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#26

Post by bane »

bitwize wrote: post #14

When I was in elementary school, much of the playground was built out of old car, truck, and tractor tires. There were conventional swings and slides, but there was also a tractor-tire tower to defend, a couple of car-tire geodesic-sphere-like structures, and other such wonders but the jewel was TireTown, a fortress built out of tires with tire bridges connecting to two smaller structures. TireTown was easily two met…

Yeah, I grew up with something like that too. It was a huge wooden and steel fort. Mostly two, but even three "kid" stories tall. If you fell it was into hard mulch.

All manner of unstable bridges, and tunnels and swings and things. Every so often they'd bring the kids out to paint designs on the fort. My favorite were the ones kids painted in the very adult inaccessible tunnel system made out of reused palette wood. It was rare to come home from a day of playing on it without a splinter of a bruise or something.

The most awesome piece of a 4 story steel rocket ship. It was incredibly tall and once you got up in the top you could rally some friends together to coordinate shaking it and make some of the other kids cry from fear it would topple over. There was also a huge geodesic dome made out of steel piping (and a couple other various lattice like steel tube structures) that were pretty easy to climb wrong and get hurt on. A couple of the structures were maybe 10-12' tall and made of recycled telephone poles, so you leave the playground with a little tar or whatever they treat the wood with. If you climbed to the top, there was usually a comfortable platform or something to rest on.

Any day of the week in summer you could go and there would be hundreds of kids climbing and fighting and fantasizing and falling all over that structure.

Today the playground has a small slide and a small set of very safe and boring, very generic, equipment. I've driven by it quite a few times and have yet to see even a single child on it.

edit oh and I almost forgot. In one neighborhood, our playground was literally made out of molded concrete. It looked almost exactly like this set.

http://www.synthetrix.com/mpe/swisschs.jpg

And it was awesome. Since it was so durable, you didn't feel bad scratching it with rocks or throwing rocks at it. It was rough surfaced too so you didn't want to be too tough with it. And if you fell, it was right onto concrete surface. All the interesting geometries and surfaces made kicking balls, or dropping balls and frisbees and things into the concrete tubes loads of fun.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#27

Post by bane »

bigfoot13442 wrote: post #20
mirsadm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Canadian parent here. You are absolutely right and it's ridiculous. Kids are extremely sheltered these days and it's ruining them. I find the problem is that there always needs to be someone to blame. Well, sometimes kids just do things that get them hurt. It's part of growing up. If you don't know what it feels like to fly down a ice covered hill on a piece of plastic, hit a jump, and run smack into another kid, you…

American here, I've been run over by guys on skis more than once at the local sledding hill growing up. My favorite sled was literally a rolled up piece of stiff plastic...fastest thing on the hill and I routinely had other kids wanting a ride.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#28

Post by nickonline »

bashinator wrote: post #24
smtddr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The problem in the US isn't lawsuits, it's lack of decent health care. The lawsuits are a forseeable outcome of parents who could be financially devastated if their child has a bad injury.

Wow, you're absolutely correct.

I always assumed that in the US it was because of the litigious nature and never stopped to consider the fact that if your kid breaks their arm it's $10k for the parents to fix it. Thinking about it from the healthcare point of view is amazing.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#29

Post by smtddr »

bashinator wrote: post #24
smtddr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The problem in the US isn't lawsuits, it's lack of decent health care. The lawsuits are a forseeable outcome of parents who could be financially devastated if their child has a bad injury.

Ok, what was different in the '80s?

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#30

Post by pyromine »

Interestingly enough I've been on a bit of a kick today researching Sudbury schools that are entirely kid run, and from what I can tell every initiative that gives students more freedom seems to be beneficial.

The problem is giving students freedom is often thought of as synonymous to allowing more violent behavior to take place. When rules are put in place to protect victims that is understandable, but most rules instead decide that students should not be allowed to voluntarily choose to do things adults think are unsafe. Honestly, I hope we can break that belief.

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