Posted on 09/13/2009 1:58:52 AM PDT by kingattax
WHEN SCHOOLS hire coaches to teach children how to play, it shows just how much we’ve destroyed childhood.
The Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton is paying $23,500 to the national nonprofit Playworks to engage children in old-school activities like jump rope, hula hoops, four square, capture the flag, circle dodgeball, and kickball, according to a Globe story this week. Playworks says its mission is to help children, particularly in low-income urban districts, learn the principles of “fair play and positive conflict resolution’’ through “basic’’ playground games.
My issue is not with the Playworks folks or the schools that hire them. It is the fact that we adults have dumbed down creativity to unprecedented levels. We all conspire in this, from test-score politicians to helicopter parents building up their child’s college resume with rigid, adult-run sports and music programs. Whoever thought we’d need a national crusade for kickball?
“It is an extraordinarily sad commentary on our society that we have to give kids adults to teach them how to play,’’ said Boston College psychologist Peter Gray, who this year published an article in the American Journal of Play exploring how play and humor were critical to the development of hunter-gatherer societies.
“All cultures until modern times played in age-mixed groups, where younger kids learned skills from older kids and older kids learned to be nurturing and caring,’’ Gray said. “This is how kids educated themselves. This is how kids learned to assert themselves while not antagonizing other people.’’
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Derrick Jackson makes sense.
Satan must be trying to trick us into thinking Hell has frozen over.
Another reason I’m glad we homeschooled! My girls had lots of play time with kids of all ages, almost all kid-organized and led, and a variety of sports and activities. As far as I know, they never did the knife-throwing thing......
I'm not sure if I approve of this. These games sound extremely dangerous. They involve moving various body parts simultaneously and interaction.
Oh the joys of Home schooling.
You would let a child own a jackknife? OMG! I’m calling homeland security, and the ATF!
Splits! When every kid had a jackknife and knew how to sharpen it. Can you imagine today? Boogles, doesn’t it?
I’ve promised to get my GD a good pocketknife when she is 8 y/o. She already knows how to fold it safely and is beginning to learn how to sharpen a blade.
In a few short decades we have wussified America. Gone are the days when the boys used to bring their .22 long rifle to school for target practice in the school basement; Left it in the coat room, box of ammo in their pocket.
And don’t get me started on whittling! And carving your initials ...well ...just about everywhere! And finding a boy had carved your name on a tree ... was just about the best.
I’ll take you on for a game of Splits ... I used to beat the boys in the neighborhood so badly, they’d go home crying. BAWAHAHAHA!
Is splits the same as mumblety-peg? You had to toss the knife in various ways so that it stuck into the ground — off the back of your fist, between two fingers, from beside your nose, etc. If the blade failed to stick in the ground you lost.
Similar. In “our” version, you threw the knife at your opponent’s foot; in some versions, you throw it at your own foot/feet.
I’m sure there are as many different games as there are regions.
Is Capture the Flag still legal. Don't you have to grab and hold other people (long enough to pronounce "caught-caught-caught")? I thought even just touching was a no-no these days.
ML/NJ
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