posted
Yeah, when I was growin gup, it was only guys who played kickball and basketball - and the more athletic/coordinated guys at that. The chase games were more girl dominated, though they also included the more impatient guys who didn't want to sit around and wait for a spot playing basketball or wait for their turn playing kickball.
...or the early bloomers who wanted to spend more time with the girls.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I was thinking the same thing, mack. From where I come from, there were two variations. One was two sides, and each side was throwing balls at the same time. You got hit, you were out. You catch the ball, the tosser was out.
The other version was basically all the competitors in the middle between two sets of tossers. That one was tricky, since the ball could come from different directions!
posted
Yeah, we played the first version you mentioned, Bok.
Where I grew up, both boys and girls played kickball (no basketball court) and four square. Though, I did go to small elementary schools, so the mixing of the genders might've been due to low numbers. *shrug*
Did anyone else play TV tag?
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I'd say kickball was 80/20 guys to girls. Some of the more athletic girls played kickball with the guys, but they were the minority. Those girls were also the most likely to be either on the varsity soccer or softball teams in high school.
Edit: Holy cow.. yeah, we played TV tag... though don't ask me to explain it anymore. That was a looong time ago.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
When I lived in Malaysia all we did during recess was football (soccer) and touch football. I definately sustained my share of cuts and bruises but I definately think it showed me the virtues of an active lifestyle.
The last thing little kids need is more of their high active lifestyle chipped at. Kids are going to be stuck bascially doing the same things they did in the classroom during recess. Probability studies turn into D&D games at recess (oh wait thats not that bad)
But seriously kids NEED to get out and stretch and have some fun outside of the classroom, its just wrong to try and coddle them this way. Not that you can defer to children for everything but could you even find one kid who wishes they didnt play during recess and instead did only non active activities?
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We played TV tag, too, although I remember no details. Our favorite, though, was State Tag, on the painted map of the U.S. (that, I can explain the rules for. )
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
We had recess and p.e. every day. And for the younger kids, recess had (in addition to the dangerous jungle gyms and curly slides) a little cement track to race the tricycles they also had sitting around. Just imagine if someone had sued for his child's little toes getting run over.
posted
TV tag was just like freeze tag, but instead of unfreezing people with "Hot Chocolate!" you had to say the name of a TV show that hadn't been said yet.
If tag is bad, I imagine one of the things we did in...2nd grade I think, where certain girls tried to stamp on your feet and vice-versa would be right out.
---
I posted not that long ago about a story where I ended up losing about a half inch of my finger because someone slammed a door on it at a Cub Scout meeting and someone reacting to that (not on Hatrack) by asking me "Did you sue anyone over that?" I am not suprised by the school feeling that they needed to do this to protect themselves from lawsuits. I lament it though.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
A lot of you seem to be blaming the schools or the teachers, as if we want to take away the kids' childhoods. While I agree that banning tag is stupid, the blame belongs on the people who have contributed to the litigiousness of our society. I don't think you have any sense of how often schools get sued. It's not uncommon for teachers to be sued individually as well. The colleague and friend who introduced me to Cor was sued personally because she was the nearest teacher when a student horsing around on a railing after school fell and broke his arm. The kid fell a total of four feet, and his rich parents sued her because she should have seen him playing and stopped him. Some of you may remember the parent who was threatening to sue me three and a half years ago. Many people see unfortunate occurrences as an opportunity, to buy a new car or payoff the mortgage or retire early. So go easy on the school: they don't have an option that is "right," and they're picking the one that at least doesn't take away the money they need for materials, staff, and overhead.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
That's right! I remember now! (Although we didn't play that you could unfreeze people with Hot Chocolate in Freeze Tag.) I always hated that game because I was only allowed to watch Mr. Rogers and sometimes a PBS National Geographic special, so I didn't know many tv show names.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:This is idiotic and short-sighted, but considering the stories I hear from my mother and other teachers I know, the real problem is parents; parents who had their childhood so structured that they make absurd demands of schools [EDIT: for their children]. There's one example in particular that just completely floors me, every time I think of it.
Bingo.
Or more accurately, the real problem is fear. Many parents are afraid of things to a degree that harms their kids more than it protects them.
quote:Okay. So, I take it that these are the following qualities which are important & relevant for tag and chase games:
1) liked by kids 2) burns calories 3) harmless 4) has a tradition
More important than any of these is this: What message do we send kids if their school tells them that tag is too dangerous to play? If I were the student, I would conclude that my school is crazy, has no idea about what is or is not dangerous, and has zero concern for my happiness. Later, when the same school system tells me "Drugs are too dangerous to use" I probably would NOT be inclined to take their word for what is safe and what is not.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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You're right, Ic, in that the school is not really to blame here.
Granted, something as silly as this should have been fought. What would they do if parents wanted paper banned because it causes paper cuts? Or if parents wanted all science experiments banned because of the risks involved?
A line needs to be drawn somewhere, and a harmless game like tag is far past where the line should have been drawn.
Personally, I feel that a frivolous lawsuit like this would (at least should) be thrown out of court. I'd love to see a judge go even further and say that the people who brought the frivolous lawsuit would have to pay for the school's legal fees, as well. Maybe it would cut down on the nonsense lawsuits schools live in fear of.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:My elementry school banned pogs and cards of any kind.
quote:My elementary school banned that breath spray, Binaca or whatever.
Mine banned both of those and also midriff shirts, tank tops with straps less than two inches, wallet chains, and open-toed or -heeled shoes. Oh, and cinnamon toothpicks.
And as it turned out the boys who were the main purveyors of cinnamon toothpicks were involved in the bombs that were planted at my Jr. HS. I wonder what the relationship was...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: Okay. So, I take it that these are the following qualities which are important & relevant for tag and chase games:
1) liked by kids 2) burns calories 3) harmless 4) has a tradition
More important than any of these is this: What message do we send kids if their school tells them that tag is too dangerous to play? If I were the student, I would conclude that my school is crazy, has no idea about what is or is not dangerous, and has zero concern for my happiness. Later, when the same school system tells me "Drugs are too dangerous to use" I probably would NOT be inclined to take their word for what is safe and what is not.
I understand that you are trying to make a point, Tresopax. Note, though, that I was not doing the same by asking the question. I was -- yes, really and truly -- trying to understand why people (some or all) were upset at losing these particular games.
Now, if you want to object to placing such restrictions on recess activity, that is surely your perogative. My list isn't relevant in the way that you have used it as a springboard for a separate discussion, though, [at least not without confounding several issues].
I do understand now that it isn't (for many, it seems) so much an attachment to these particular games as the broader issue of when and where to be restricting kids' activities. That makes more sense as an emotional issue for me, so I'm glad to have asked the question.
My feeling, as a teacher, is that the game of tag, which everyone feels is a benign game, perhaps got out of control.
How?
"Tagging" becomes pushing down. "Touch" football, same thing.
Those trading cards? They were banned because kids got out of control with those, too, stealing them, trading during class, threatening each other.
SOmetimes, I am sorry to say, it is actually the kids who are misbehaving, and it is not the school's fault, the society's fault, or the school's fault. It is the fault of development, and the fact that kisd without any boundaries tend to act like a group of wild kittens on catnip.
Tag is not banned at our school, but recess is in a parking lot. If too many kids came into the nurse with pavement burn, I am sure tag would be banned.
And I am not sure why childhood has to be a time when you get hurt just to prove you are a child.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Elizabeth, I can understand the concern. But if kids are regularly pushing each other too roughly, maybe they're not being adequately supervised, because, as I said, I have always found that removing the kid doing the pushing calms the game right back down, and eventually kids learn to play more gently.
I actually have no problems with any of the things banned at my school. The administrators had legitimate reasons for all of them. But banning a game like tag seems like a last-resort thing to me. Now, if they had tried other solutions and they did not work, then I am wrong and I have no problem with them keeping kids safe any way they have to. But I think that banning something like tag should be a last resort, not an automatic "oh, this is too rough, let's ban it for good" response.
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posted
Well, aside from that, kids DO get hurt as part of childhood. Kids fall out of trees. They fall off their bikes. They hurt themselves learning to roller skate. I don't think that means we shouldn't let kids do any of these things.
posted
Mac...yeah, in a circle. I don't remember ever playing it any other way.
And, as far as who played what, Flying Cow, everybody played everything. Except nobody every played football in elementary school. I don't even recall there being any footballs around. And, when I was in elementary school, soccer hadn't yet started to be a "thing" here in the States, so we didn't play that, either. But, kickball, dodgeball, volleyball, tetherball, basketball...both girls and boys played, and as far as I can recall, we always played together.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
My nerdy friends and I used to play a game that we were sent out into space and shrunk to check out a miniature planet, except that the miniature planet had normal-sized killer insects which were huge and gigantic in comparison to our miniaturized selves. We had very elaborate storylines.
posted
I agree, Icarus, that there is a great deal of blame on those members of our society who are extremely litigous (sp?). In fact, I'd say that at least 3/4 of the blame (a convservative estimate) lies with those people.
I just wish there were also more people willing to dig in their heels and say, "I don't care if this ruins me, I'm not going to stand for this horse crap." I think if there were (it's just a hope, really) perhaps more people would be more continually aware of how big a problem such a sue-happy society is, instead of only when a new story comes out, they get (briefly) outraged, and then go on with their lives.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Elizabeth, if "tagging" becomes "pushing", then the ones doing the pushing should be taken aside, or held out of recess - or have some other punishment. The whole group shouldn't be punished for the actions of a few.
If that were the case, the fight between Miami and FIU would be cause for banning football entirely - which would be pretty knee-jerk.
It always seems strange to me the reaction to ban a mostly benign activity because of the actions of the few who take things too far, or who abuse the system. The offenders should be targetted, not the activity.
littlemissattitude, I guess we were just more naturally segregated. It's not that girls weren't allowed to play certain sports - they just weren't interested. Basketball was a very competitive thing at recess, mostly played by older boys - though the rare girl did play, and usually ended up a starter on the varsity girls basketball squad by high school.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:I just wish there were also more people willing to dig in their heels and say, "I don't care if this ruins me, I'm not going to stand for this horse crap."
That's really hard to say when you've got a family that depends on your paycheck. I know you know that, but it needed to be stated. it's not like the right for kids at their school to play tag is a moral issue for most administrators.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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The thing is that these "sue happy" parents have got to be out there somewhere, but I have yet to meet one. Maybe I'm sheltered.
This thread is helping me realize that I need to make a bigger effort to get to those parent council meetings.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Man, I asked my kids about recess and confirmed what I already thought - my children don't have recess at school. They have physical education which is structured and usually takes place in the gym. I asked Emily "So you don't get to go to the playground and just play at all?" and she said "Oh yeah we do - at least once a week! On Fridays we get to go to the playground instead of the gym."
So it looks like tag is a non-issue at my school, because they don't even get unstructured play time, well except on Fridays.
No wonder my kids love to play outside when they get home, they've been cooped up indoors all day.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:From where I come from, there were two variations. One was two sides, and each side was throwing balls at the same time. You got hit, you were out. You catch the ball, the tosser was out.
When I went to New York a few months ago I was informed by my buddies that there's a park in Brooklyn that has dodgeball games like this on Sundays. The same park has free concerts and other activities going on all day Sunday. It was rainy when we went and I had an unbelievably good time.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Okay. So, I take it that these are the following qualities which are important & relevant for tag and chase games:
1) liked by kids 2) burns calories 3) harmless 4) has a tradition
Regardless of whether all of these accrue to tag and other games of cha[s]e as always played, they don't seem to pick out just these activities, no? (Just asking, not making a point.)
Another thing that makes this outrageous is that it's a GOOD THING for kids to get hurt--just a little--from time to time.
If kids never fall and go "ouch! Gee, I should slow down/ be more careful/ not jump off the top of the monkey bars" then they won't have a chance to learn that sometimes being alive hurts, and you have to be careful. But don't be so careful that you miss out on all the fun.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
"Elizabeth, if "tagging" becomes "pushing", then the ones doing the pushing should be taken aside, or held out of recess - or have some other punishment. The whole group shouldn't be punished for the actions of a few."
You are assuming that it is one or two kids who are being rough. You are assuming that the game has not BECOME pushing. You are assuming that all kids can play this type of game without getting out of control.
What I am asking for is more details about this situation. I do not think it is because we are a lawsuit-happy society, though that may be part of it. I sense there might be more to the story.
And yes, kids get hurt. So do adults. But the feeling I am getting from many of the responses here is that we should let them do things that get them hurt. My son;s best friend fell out of our tree and broke his arm. There is no more tree climbing in our yard.
A student of mine lost his brother to a whirlpool this summer, because kids were swimming in an off limits section of the river.
My job as an adult is to stop kids from doing dangerous things. If I saw a game of tag getting out of control(and I could bet it would be more than one or two kids out of control), I would end the game.
posted
Tag is one of very few games that is easy for the kids to organize on their own and doesn't require any planning.
All you have to do to start a game of tag is tag someone and yell, "You're it!" Is there any other game that is that simple to play?
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:My son;s best friend fell out of our tree and broke his arm. There is no more tree climbing in our yard.
From my perspective, breaking an arm isn't really that big a deal. If that's all there is, that at one point this kid fell out and broke his arm, if it's not that you have trees that are dangerous to climb, I disgree with that decision.
I think that your job as a parent isn't to stop kids from doing dangerous things. That's both impossible and horribly limiting. Kids need to and will do dangerous things. It's one of the big ways they learn.
Your job is to try to keep them away from the things that are too dangerous. Or that's at least my opinion.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
MrSquicky, The way I see it, your job is not to tell me what my job as a parent is.
And the famous quote from the best friend to his doctor was:
"Today is my lucky day! I broke my arm to save my neck!"
(The fall was worth it for that alone, I must say.)
We had freedom to roam as kids. We roamed near fast flowing rivers. We climbed in old barns, on rooftops, up the sides of buildings. And because I did those things, my kids, under my watch, will not.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
If the game has *become* pushing, then it was let go for far too long. When I was teaching, a classroom didn't *become* pushing - though I saw several that developed into that over the course of the year.
*All* kids can't play any game without getting out of control - those that have control problems, though, should be either a) more closely monitored (even to the point of a personal aide), or b) not put into unstructured play situations. There are always students who have a hard time keeping in control, and those students need special attention.
Everything always starts with one or two students. The game of tag is simple enough - until one person decides to push someone to the ground. If they see that's okay, they'll do it again. And then maybe another student will do it. And perhaps another. If left unchecked, it can get out of hand.
But at the outset, unless you are at a school for students with emotional control problems or an alternative school for students removed from a standard classroom setting, the majority of kids are not violent.
As much as teachers must pay close attention to classroom management, recess monitors must pay close attention to playground management. Those students who break the rules or play too roughly must be dealt with - otherwise, if their behavior is not addressed, it becomes accepted, and then the norm.
Still, this is not a reason to ban a benign activity. You can set parameters, sure. For instance, the school might say that pushing will not be allowed, and if students push they will stay inside for recess for a week - or even have to sit against a wall for recess for a week. Or maybe a day for first offenses, and a week for second, and so on.
It's the negative behavior that must be addressed, not a benign game that's become the outlet for the negative behavior.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:My son's best friend fell out of our tree and broke his arm. There is no more tree climbing in our yard.
Far be it from me to tell someone else how to run their household, but I'm very glad my parents didn't have a similar policy. It seems awfully restrictive. I think minor and even semi-major bumps and bruises are an integral and valuable part of growing up.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I got smacked in the head with a golf club by my little brother when I was four. I had to be rushed to the hospital gushing blood. My parents didn't ban golf. I'm glad. My brother's now a decent golfer, and I'm a semi-okay one.
posted
Mack, we played dodgeball in a circle too. It involved a bunch of people in the middle trying to avoid the people on the outside circle hitting them. I didn't know that people played it any other way until recently. In high school we'd play the variation with people on either side, but it wasn't called dodgeball.
Anyone play Toilet Tag? When you got tagged you had to squat and put your hand out like a flusher. Then someone hit your hand and you were back in the game.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I wonder about people who want to protect their kids from any and all possibility from harm (not saying that's you - Elizabeth, just speaking about other people that seem to have that mentality) For example, when I was talking about how much fun I had at my daughter's gymnastics meet pulling for her, a classmate of mine at college told me she couldn't believe I let my child participate in such a "dangerous" sport. Didn't I know kids got hurt tumbling?
I said, yep, I knew it. This year she's had sprained ankles, tons of bruises, blisters and "rips" on her hands, and scariest of all - a whiplash injury from falling off the uneven bars and her neck whipping back and contacting the mat. The woman was horrified. How could I let my kid continue in something so dangerous?
I told her that she seemed to have a mindset that I would not be able to change or convince otherwise, but that my husband and I both believed it was worth the risk for all the positives and that we weren't the types that believed in wrapping our kids in bubble wrap and leaving them home where they were safe.
If I ever felt her life were threatened, then sure I'd intervene. But I'm not going to stop her from experiencing the joy of accomplishment and working hard toward a goal and the lessons that competitive sports will teach her just because she may get banged up along the way. In fact the proudest I've been of her this year hasn't been when she's won medals, but the times she's fallen in competition and picked herself up off the mat and continued, even through pain. Last Saturday she slipped off the bars and fell, hard. She got up and finished, then walked off the mat and burst into tears, clutching her elbow - she landed on the elbow, with a hard impact (ouch, it makes mine twinge just thinking about it) but she held those tears until she finished her competitive routine. That's a lesson - perseverance through adversity - that can't be learned any other way than just doing it.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Climbing trees was one of my two favorite activities as a kid.
The other was burn ball*.
:-\
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
*Burn ball was a game we played against a wall with a tennis ball or, if we were lucky, a raquetball. The ball was thrown against the wall, and then caught after bouncing off. If you attempted to catch the ball, touched it, and dropped it, you had to run and tag the wall. In the time it took you to reach the wall, you were fair game: anybody could grab the ball and peg you with it. If you got pegged on three seperate occasions, then you had to stand against the wall, facing it, while--depending on the rules you had agreed to, sometimes it was the first three kids who called it, and sometimes it was every other kid in the game--got to take a shot at you. I played that game pretty much every day after school for six years. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
We called burn ball, but we called it walley ball. Also, there was nothing that happened if you got hit three times, except that you got hit three times.
That was a *great* game.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
This is a little bit different, but I was a camp counselor for what feels like ever... We played (when I was a camper) and taught (and still played with the kids) our campers all these games and other ones like blob tag, indian pin, capture the flag, frisbee golf, all SORTS of games that involve throwing objects, chasing people, touching people, singling someone out. To think - the inconsiderate parents that sent their kids actually PAID for it!!!
I guess all that good I thought I was doing having a fun time and teaching the next generations how to play with each other was really a disservice. Wonder why I don’t feel bad about it?
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Yup... I actually broke my foot playing that during a captain's practice for softball in high school. Still love the game and didn't even think about suing anyone.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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