No More Dodge ball and Hopscotch?
“Barb, tell Mr. King we want to go play dodge ball.”
My classmates seemed to think I was a teacher’s pet and could influence the teacher to let us out of class early for a game of dodge ball. We had hours and hours of fun in our school playground, and yes, quite often a request from me to explain how well we did in class that day, would result in the nice English teacher allowing us to play a quick game of dodgeball.
These are some very fond memories I have of my elementary school days. And, somehow, we survived recess, playground equipment, tag, and games like baseball, soccer, and hopscotch.
Why some traditional recess games are being banned from our schools, I cannot figure out. However, so they are. USA Today reported that they are being banned and “disappearing from school playgrounds because educators say they’re dangerous.”
“Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., banned tag at recess this year. Others, including a suburban Charleston, S.C., school, dumped contact sports such as soccer and touch football.
In other cities, including Wichita; San Jose, Calif.; Beaverton, Ore.; and Rancho Santa Fe., Calif., schools took similar actions earlier.
The bans were passed in the name of safety, but some children’s health advocates say limiting exercise and free play can inhibit a child’s development.
But several experts, including Donna Thompson of the National Program for Playground Safety, verify the trend. Dodge ball has been out at some schools for years, but banning games such as tag and soccer is a newer development.
“It’s happening more,” Thompson says. Educators worry about “kids running into one another” and getting hurt, she says. “
I have no idea how much more ‘hurt’ children today are getting compared to my elementary school days, but I swear, I don’t think we ever lost a classmate…
More on the story:
Just another sign of how paranoid our culture has become with lawsuits and such threatened over every little bump and bruise. I played dodgeball and soccer and all those games as a kid, and I’m still around. Sure, no one likes getting hurt, but you know what… it happens. And life goes on.
This generation of kids in elementary schools today is quickly becoming so pampered and protected that they’ll have no idea what to do when they get to the real world.
Shelby didn’t play any dodge ball until she got into the 8th grade I believe it was. I was surprised, cause I’d heard that the schools deemed it “unsafe”, and according to her, they used the same red bouncy ball that stung like hell when you got hit. As for hopscotch, or even jump rope, it is limited to a gym sport, I guess it varies on how paranoid the particular school and teacher is on whether the kids get to experience these things we once loved (in the case of dodgeball, I kinda dreaded it,but, it was fun). Nothing is as it was, kids today are made aware too much of how they could get hurt, that some stress over it. To me, if you stress about something, chances are, it will come to pass, but, this might just be me.