Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Other Principals Will Steal This Principal's Lunch Money

An elementary school in Attleboro, Massachusetts has banned "tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game" during recess. Next week, they will bolt the merry-go-round in place and lay the slides flat on the ground.

Liability issues are cited but that was always part of the thrill. My recess touch football experience ran the gamut from grass stains of epic length to having my braces partially removed by a football to the mouth. (My orthodontist - the next stop after the playground - simply removed them, saying it was about time for that particular collection of metal to come out anyway, to be replaced by an even more medieval contraption.)

Dodgeball, on the other hand, has nothing to recommend it, at least from the perspective of a scrawny kid who could throw neither with power nor accuracy.

Frequent commenter JWT notes that the story has been picked up by CNN and observes:
School districts on our side of the pond could not let the Norwegian sit-ivists stand alone in ridiculous over-regulation of kids. Chess may be outlawed, because the bishops wear those pointy hats.

Do not adjust your monitor - JJV has not taken control of my keyboard.

3 comments:

jjv said...

Oh, but to be the last man standing in "murder ball" and catch the thing bringing all your teamates in is the greatest!

Not a frequent occurrence for me but glorious!

Dave S. said...

There was no chance of me ever covering myself in glory in that fashion. Gym class was pretty glory-free for me, frankly.

jjv said...

I will say this, if I had said that soon after Massachusetts courts forced same-sex "marriage" on the State kids couldn't play tag people would have thought I was nuts. Insanity breeds insanity.

I have to say Kinky Friedman's slogan "Against the wussification of Texas" comes to mind.

I am very glad John Adams is not around to see the state of the Commonwealth. And forget about Paul Revere. "Hey,you on the horse, not so fast and stop the shouting."