Secrets of the City

While bullying of any variety is unnecessary, virtually banning touching won’t last as kids will take it to extremes and make it a joke. Or at least that was my experience when sexual harrassment was the big buzz topic in middle school. We made it such a joke that it took a back burner in a short amount of time.

NO TOUCHING!

(I hope at least some of you watched arrested development)

PCers, welcome to your own new world.

Johnny has two mommy’s so don’t touch him!

There are so many fun games that involve a little bit of touching, this is overdoing it. Red Rover, touch football, Say Say O Playmate, Cats in the Cradle, all involve some touching are are part of growing up.

The Rat would have been on of those kids who would just place an index finger on his buddy’s shoulder while glaring at the teacher.

I see a lot of “I’m not touching you!” games going on soon.

woe unto the “grey duck”

Serves the little bustards right, if they can’t play nice, they don’t get to play at all. Back to the textile mills and workhouses with ‘em I say.

*bustard- a very large bird from Europe.

Strib also had this last week, and noted that there was another elementary school that has already had this policy for years, and the the kids have apparently adapted just fine:

Franks said she understands that, but doesn’t think the policy is all that unusual. She said nearby Burroughs Elementary has had a similar policy in place for years. Burroughs Principal Tim Cadotte said he hasn’t had an incident during his nearly 10 years in charge of the school. He said with its “no rough play” rule being in place for so long, “our kids, they get it.”

And, once again, this policy seems to have been put in place at th

Whoops. cut myself off. What I was saying was that this was apparently put in place after numerous complaints from parents:

Franks said she took action after receiving numerous complaints from students and parents about children being touched aggressively. She said she has received mostly positive feedback from parents.

I didn’t start aggressive touching until at least 10th Grade.

How can the kids play touch football?

Whoever ran with the ball would just scor one touchdown after another.

um…flag football?

How would the front line block for the runners or the QB?

Looks like football is out.

All for the better, they’ll say.

Speaking of “bad touch,” the Saints are coming out with a “Larry Craig Bobblefoot Night” soon.

heh.

A no-touching rule would make baseball even more pointless. Without tagging, half of the bases have no reason to exist.

no hoops, either. although kids these days don’t set picks, play defense, or box-out, so maybe that’s still ok.

You guys are really over thinking this. These are grade schoolers, at recess, which in my experience is largely unorganized, and grossly under supervised. They don’t have time to organize football or hoops. Hell, most of these kids probably can’t even dribble the ball, let alone make a shot that even reaches the rim. The football and hoops can come during gym class, when there’s a better teacher/supervisor ratio to monitor the play.

I’m surprized they didn’t just ban recess altogether.

They are allowed to touch in music class.

alie, if they had, when would teachers smoke and complain about their kids?

Serves the little bustards right, if they can’t play nice, they don’t get to play at all. Back to the textile mills and workhouses with ‘em I say.

Lunch! FTW!

I have a really dumb question… what does FTW stand for?

@wayne – I hope you just forgot to use your sarcasm tag.

FTW = For The Win!

that’s what I thought. Thank you kind sir.

@MB – When I first saw FTW on the web I thought ‘Fuck The World’ How does that apply?

If they are allowed to touch in music class, they will be making beautiful music together.

@mnblrmkr

I played touch football all the time in elementary school. There was a game going every day on the playground. We made our own rules and people tended to follow them.

It was quite touching how nice we were to each other during those football games. But it wasn’t so touching that it became fondling.

That’s what I thought at first too. Oh the things I learn on these interwebs. Amazing.

When I was a kid we had two huge concrete tubes on our playground. I heard that kids would sometimes kiss in there. tee hee.

when there’s a better teacher/supervisor ratio to monitor the play.

thank you for summarizing everything that’s wrong with america, public schools, just…everything

</sarcasm>

You really want the kids let out the door for recess with NO ONE watching them cubbie?

When we played dodgeball in gym class, the teacher had enough difficulty keeping the bigger, stronger kids from deliberately throwing at other peoples heads as strong as they could (I even remember one kid getting knocked out cold from a ball to the face). Imagine what would happen on the playground.

Imagine what would happen on the playground
I imagine whirrled peas.

You guys are really over thinking this. These are grade schoolers, at recess, which in my experience is largely unorganized, and grossly under supervised. They don’t have time to organize football or hoops. Hell, most of these kids probably can’t even dribble the ball, let alone make a shot that even reaches the rim. The football and hoops can come during gym class, when there’s a better teacher/supervisor ratio to monitor the play.

umm, we played organized football and basketball pretty much every day in elementary school recess.

either way it doesn’t change the fact that this is an embarrassingly lazy and myopic solution and further demonstrates to our kids that broad, poorly thought out policies should take the place of creative problem solving wherever convinient.

either way it doesn’t change the fact that this is an embarrassingly lazy and myopic solution and further demonstrates to our kids that broad, poorly thought out policies should take the place of creative problem solving wherever convinient.

Well said.

poorly thought out policies should take the place of creative problem solving wherever convinient.

But that’s the very essence of bureaucracy, is it not? These people not only are not paid to think, they don’t want to get paid to think.

But that’s the very essence of bureaucracy, is it not?
Nah, that’s the very essence of public officials smarting from litigiousness. Put forth an ironclad policy and make your organization mostly lawsuit proof. Bureaucracies are methods of organizing people and tasks so that you do not have to micro-manage them.

Here we go…

Nah, that’s the very essence of public officials smarting from litigiousness
Bad touch!

It’s about what I expect from our generation. I mean, look at the toys we were raised with.

umm, we played organized football and basketball pretty much every day in elementary school recess.

Maybe my experience was different than everyone else, but by the time we would have organized into teams, recess bell would have rung before we even started the game.

I won’t deny that the policy makes things easier for the people placed in charge of recess: No longer will the person have to figure out, is that just a bunch of friends roughhousing with each other, or is that a bunch of kids bullying someone else. A determination made even harder when you consider the ever shifting friendships and alliances that occur in grade school.

None of this changes the fact that this policy was put in place after numerous complaints from parents, and has apparently received few complaints.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents quoted in the Strib article griping about the policy are the parents of the playground bullies.

after a bully stepped on my balls during recess in elementary school, I decided to just read books and not participate.

When I was a kid we had two huge concrete tubes on our playground. I heard that kids would sometimes kiss in there. tee hee.

Which reminds me of another f’d up story from my schooling…

In third grade the school actually paid for a psychologist to come in and talk to my entire grade because some of the “popular” kids (and a couple of kids who never got the memo that they weren’t part of that clique) were having “dating ceremonies”. Basically, they were having weddings under playground equipment that involved invitations to their closest friends. Everyone would sit in a circle and the boy and girl would exchange weird vows and then exchange gifts and then they were dating.

The psychologist tried to reason with my classmates and letters were sent home to parents but I think there were some parents who were like, “it’s harmless fun”.

In conclusion, kids who touch each other in elementary school grow up to be sluts.

Stay tuned for more stories including Fishbowl, the game we were forced to play in health class that still traumatizes me (some of you have already heard it).

I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents quoted in the Strib article griping about the policy are the parents of the playground bullies.

i think you’re missing the point a bit here… no one is saying bullying should be allowed. what people are saying is that those incidents should be addressed on a singular basis.

what the school administrators are effectively saying is ‘hey – we just can’t figure this whole bullying thing out, so ya know what, let’s just eliminate physicality of any kind, regardless of its proven developmental importance. let’s just take the easiest road from point A to point B and make sure our asses are covered’

Zero tolerance, and similar blanket policies are about the same as legal sentencing mandatory minimums: popular in the public eye while removing human judgement from the equation. In an age of increased workplace automation, why not automate school discipline. You could save thousands on administrators….

by the time we would have organized into teams, recess bell would have rung before we even started the game.

Your school mates musta been a group of ditherers.

Pick the captains. The captains pick the teams. Let’s go, here.

You could get in 3 innings of softball.

what the school administrators are effectively saying is ‘hey – we just can’t figure this whole bullying thing out, so ya know what, let’s just eliminate physicality of any kind,

I’m told that one of the main issues with bullying is it mostly happens when the teachers/monitors aren’t around to see it happen. I have no idea how this rule addresses that issue.

I can’t recall the last time there were so many exclamation points on the front page of MNspeak!

You would be surprised. Bullying happens right under their noses: dodgeballs to the face, instead of a tag, a hard shove or a tackle. It’s really not that difficult, even for little kids, to disguise sucker punches in rough play.

First we take away gym class and now we eliminate a good three-quarters of outside recess activities and do we still get to complain that our kids are fat, socially retarded dolts who feel like the world owes them something.

after a bully stepped on my balls during recess in elementary school, I decided to just read books and not participate.
»» Submitted by wayno at 4:41 PM on May 21

Well, that explains everything.

In third grade, I remember we used to run around and kick each other as hard as we could. If you kicked a guy really, really hard, it meant you liked him.

Where I went to middle school, they just drew a line down the middle of the playground. One side for boys, one for girls. We weren’t allowed to talk to each other over the line either. Gym teachers armed with whistles patrolled the perimeter. We played kickball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, and foursquare. And the girls made up little dance routines.
Of course, in those days, the girls weren’t allowed to wear pants to school either, so the times, they have a- changed.

If you kicked a guy really, really hard, it meant you liked him
We were so afraid of girls in the first grade, especially Pam who loved to kick nuts.

I’m surprized they didn’t just ban recess altogether.

Many schools have. I was told at one (I sub in Robbinsdale and Minneapolis) that they stopped having recess because “it wasn’t safe.”

And I have yet to teach at a school that has as much recess as we did in gradeschool: 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon, and 35 minutes after lunch.

That’s how much recess we got, too, Pete. That 35 minutes in January/February was effing brutal.