The game of tag banned

[David]

SANTA MONICA ? A Santa Monica elementary school has banned the game of tag, once synonymous with youth and innocence, because they say it creates self-esteem issues among weaker and slower children.


"We had some children who were not playing 'it' appropriately. How do you differentiate between those that are playing correctly and those that aren't?" asked Franklin Elementary School Principal Pat Samarge.

In the school's weekly newsletter, Samarge told parents that without adult supervision, the game would be banned. The principal said children playing tag suffered both physical and emotional injuries.

"Little kids were coming in and saying 'I don't like it.' [The] children weren't feeling good about it," Samarge said.

Dr. Judy Young, executive director of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, disagreed with Samarge, saying that games like tag "are organized to have a winner and a loser," which is simply a part of life.

"Self-esteem should not be imbedded in whether you win or lose a game," Young said.

Tamara Silver, a parent of a fifth-grader at Franklin Elementary School, said the school sent her two letters informing her of the new rules. The second letter cited safety concerns, not issues of self-image, to justify the tag ban.

"I want my child to know that he can have some freedom," Silver said. "I want my child to know he can play. I want my child to know that he can fall down and skin his knee."

foxnews

[Keith_Hixson]

I suppose the next thing will be to make sure that all students get the same grades and scores on their SAT's and IQ tests.

What a crock!

Keith

[Seascamp]

Tis the sign of ?progress? I reckon. I recall that in Kindergarten we were taught to play nice and don?t bite. After that, it was king of the hill, tag, cowboys and injuns, killin sneaky japers that laid in ambush in the back yard. Then it was kick ball, harassing them soft boys that didn?t play baseball very well; later to be discovered as girls, BB guns, bird huntin, cat harassing, dog loving, fishing, catching lizards and toads and all that was before the real big day, Saturday. I don?t think I owned a pair of jeans without holes in both knees and Keds that weren?t all trashed out.

These days I guess it all begins with don?t bite and don?t play. Poor kiddos, how boring it must be to be packed in cotton and have some ?Guru? fussing about their
self-image and plying them with warm fuzzies all the time. Alas, the real world is most often cold prickles. I wonder what the Guru has to say about all that. Nothing I suppose, oh well.

Fair seas, Bill

[Drywall]

When our two boys were in grade school they got in a snowball fight at the bus stop with the neighbor boy. I got a call from the neighbors mother when I got home that night saying that "Matt (our kid) threw a snowball at Leroy." I was really kind of at a loss for words. I said it's winter, they're kids, whats the big deal. Course she got real upset with me. That night I asked the the boys if they had snowball fights at school. "Oh no, we can't do that cause we'd get in trouble." How about king of the hill on the snow piles in the parking lot, same answer. That was darn near 20 years ago. And they wounder why the kids get fidgety in class.
Doesn't take a genuis to figure it out.

[SuperScout]

How dare you folks question the absolute sensitivity of the Village Elders? Don't your remember that it takes a Village to raise your child, poor misguided, low-self-esteem little woozie that he is? Snowball fights? How dare you! Don't you know that many places in America, we don't even have snow, so to avoid the discrimination, we're going to ban snowball fights. And that's also why we need to take away all your guns, so you can't go have fun with your child, teaching him or her the value of marksmanship, sportmanship, and gun safety. Now, all of you complainers, report to the Warm and Fuzzy Dormitory, gather in a circle and let's have a couple of rounds of Kumbaya.

[Sgt_Tropo]

when parents don't have enough concerns or "time" to get involved in their local PTA or school board discussions. you end up with "some else" making the decisions on how your kids will be raised and educated.
It may take a "village" to provide all the required ingredients to raise a child today, such as school teachers, doctors, policemen, etc., but it seems that the most crucial element is missing today - concerned and involved parents !!
If you don't like what's going on at the schools, get involved ! Let the school board and PTA hear from you. Let the teachers and principals hear from you, on a regular basis, not just to complain, but to also encourage them.
Of course, if all else fails, you might even consider the "final solution" - home schooling or changing schools (gasp !).
Hey, gang, I've been there; done that, so don't think I'm simply blowing smoke. t's time to get back to the basics of putting our kids first. Take a day of your vacation or "sick leave" to attend the school board sessions and take an ACTIVE role. Get up from the TV and attend the PTA meetings. If your too lazy to do these things, then stop complaining when someone else sets the rules.
I'll get off my soapbox now.

Peace, Brothers, but remember to take control of your life !

[Seascamp]

Ah damn Col., not that again. Do ya mind if I bring my deck knife and play mumbly peg while I pretend to sing. OK?

[SuperScout]

Good advice, my Space City Brother! To add credence to your post, kindly be advised that I served as a "permanent substitute" teacher, from early March to the end of the school year in a nearby school district. Part of the problem is that the schools have no long-term solution to Little Johnny the perpetual troublemaker; first they send him to "lunch/d-hall" until he acquires 5 trips there, then they might send him to In School Suspension (ISS) for a few days, then back to the regular classroom. Guess what boys and girls: Little Johnny ain't changed his behavior, bad attitude, or have his parents given a fig about what's going on. It takes a family to raise a child, and the police, school teachers and others are just supporting cast members, not surrogate parents.

If you get involved, demand accountability of your system, an item that has been absent for decades, which is why the schools are currently intellectually and morally bankrupt.

[Timothy R. Kuhr]

(Our local rag). News Item: literary passages used on a standard N.Y. state H.S. exam were edited to meet strict "sensitivity review guidelines".

President A. Lincoln,

Dear Mr. President,
We are planning to use your Gettysburg Address in our English and history exams for graduating seniors. We have edited the speech in accordance with our sensitivity guidelines and made the following changes with explanations.
The title: We don't need to tell you that Gettysburg was a huge battle with 45,000 dead, but the name is too reminiscent of gratuitous violence and bloodshed. We try to keep references to war at a minimun. The title would be less offensive if, instead of Gettysburg, it incorporated the name of a more suitable nearby town.
"Four score and seven years ago"...we don't like to use the word "score" because it implies the existence of winners and losers, and , while we have our share of losers, we try not to remind them of that.
"our fathers brought forth..." Gender specific and sexist to boot.
"Conceived in liberty..." Could be taken as a reference to sex and birth.
"dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..." Sexist, sexist, sexist! Moreover, rather than equality, we prefer to dwell on diversity.
"far above our poor power to add or detract..." There you go, undermining the student's self-esteem.
"The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here..." Frankly, the teaching of American History is not what it should be and some of our students probably believe that Gettysburg is where G. Washington forced the Nazis to surrender. Best not to dwell on it.
"and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth..." This is a noble thought, but we have a real problem with it. Alot of our students immigrated from third world dictatorships, failed Stalinist states, and fanatical theocracies. We do not want them to be devalued by suggesting that American democracy is somehow better than the culture they left behind.
Here, for your approval, is our revised sensitive version:
The Biglerville Address by Abraham Lincoln.
We have a really cool country and we should keep it that way.

Sincerely,
The N.Y, Board of Regents


I cut this down some 'cause it was so long and I type like cr@p.
I think all the high points are here, though. Obviously(?) it's not a real letter, but you gotta wonder sometimes...

[judyvillecco]

I have heard it all! Next they'll be banning cops and robbers and then well maybe girls and boys. What next skateboards!