SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA- Several parents at Franklin Elementary School were concerned. They felt that the game of tag, popular during lunch recess at Franklin, was victimizing kids with its hurtful "you're it" mindset. Playground games, they argued, separate children into groups, discriminating against heavier or uncoordinated children. When confronted with this, Principal Pat Samarge decided to take action, banning not only the game of tag, but recess itself. Samarge's plan is for the youngsters to burn off that extra energy learning about disadvantaged groups in a special sensitivity training class.
While the parents were pleased to see the Principal act so quickly and decisively on the matter, the manner in which she announced the policy left much to be desired. Samarge reportedly inserted the item at the end of the morning's PA announcements: "Your recess has been cancelled indefinitely to protect the self-esteem of certain children, especially the fat kid who sits in the back of Mrs. Plirble's fifth grade class." [On a related note, the kid in question, one Melvin Whittle, has not been seen since shortly after the announcement.]
PAT member and parent Dianne Kirputnik told reporters that her concerns were based in solid research and logical reasoning. "I recently saw a study on playground activity and school violence in Colorado. Did you know that every single grade school feeding into Columbine High School had recess? Some schools even had two or three play times during the course of the day."
Several members of the school board have said that Kirputnik and company were in the process of filing a class action suit against the school, although neither party will confirm or deny this.
"And here's the most shocking part," continued Kirputnik, "The school board continued the practice even after the tragedy there, as if they didn't see a connection at all. I would characterize that as criminally negligent."
However, as Santa Monica superintendent John Deasey explains, the reasoning behind the decision goes beyond issues of self-esteem. "The real problem is that games like tag involve kids touching other kids, which is basically against school policy. We've spent millions of taxpayer dollars trying to keep teachers from touching kids, kids from touching teachers, kids from touching other kids, only to have it ruined by activity on the playground."
According to Deasey, these rules have been on the books of most American schools for decades. "In a certain way, you could say that tag has been illegal for a while now."
While it may be true that only a handful of students in a given class make fun of the "different" kids, school administrators felt that their relative normality raised an unacceptable potentiality for harm.
As school psychologist Dr. Phil Lombardo explains, it is important to teach kids sensitivity and "political politeness" early. "The key to sensitivity training for students is to get them feeling guilty about the good things in their lives, things they can't change if they wanted to. Have a mom and a dad? Two working legs? Do you lack a glandular disorder?"
Samarge says that the ban on recess, while it may seem extreme to outsiders, is part of a larger plan to create a nurturing environment for children to learn, one where no appreciable differences exist between children.
Some students slyly pointed out that grading students on their schoolwork also creates these differences. After taking the suggestion under consideration, Samarge and the school board decided to maintain the practice and "expel the smart-asses," creating what they felt was a win-win solution.