All I needed to know, I learned during recess
Unrealistic fear of playground peril has some schools outlawing games that define our youth
Admit it; you are proud of your battle scars.
Everyone’s got a glory tale from the third-grade playground or remains of old scrapes and cuts that they brandish at times to color certain childhood memories.
But according to some elementary school administrators, these barbaric “contact games,” as many schools in the U.S. call them, not only leave the field strewn with broken limbs but also bruised feelings and (gasp!) the traumatic experience of competition.
Did we all, as a generation, miss the part where our psyches were irreversibly damaged during games of tag and dodgeball?
UCLA is still pasted with signs inviting students to play games such as capture the flag and touch football with their buildings; last week, my floor played hide-and-seek with plenty of participants.
On a recent game of capture the flag, third-year economics student Michael Tran said, “Running around in the sprinklers – ... it was fun. It’s just life.”
“We use these games as icebreakers. When there is a big group, all the socializing and touching helps make people comfortable. The quiet ones start talking,” says Jessica Tung, a third-year biochemistry student.
So, if we, at age 20 or so, still need to engage in these games from time to time, how much more essential must they be for 7-year-olds with naturally shorter attention spans and shorter lists of possible distractions?
CBS News announced that just last month one elementary school south of Boston banned tag and all “chase games.”
Another school in the same state, not to be outdone, banned touching altogether. But since these bloody activities generally take place during recess, a Georgia school decided in a moment of brilliance to do away with that as well.
And what kid is going to turn out even remotely normal trapped at a desk for six hours straight without recess relief?
My best memories (actually, maybe my only memories) of early elementary school consist of recess, scrapes, tag games and other little-kid competition. I don’t care what anyone says, falling off of that metal slide on the playground is a rite of passage.
These games develop common sense and a feeling of independence in kids, not to mention the social skills that come with arguing over exactly where the out-of-bounds line is.
However simple it was screaming “Not it!” at the beginning of a game, at least it resembled a sort of self-imposed order.
If you remember correctly PE or any class activity that demanded student interaction, it never allowed for the complete freedom of choice that the playground did.
Long Tsan, a fifth-year social sciences student plays on an intramural dodgeball team.
“The last time I played (like that) was elementary school. In college, when I found this, it took me back. It is just teammates supporting each other,” he said.
The truly scary thought in this, however, is that we might be the last generation of the sandbox, the ones that slipped past this new bubble-wrap era.
Think forward to if these ridiculous regulations actually take hold in a majority of elementary schools in this country.
Thinking of anyone significantly older than 22 or younger than 17 can prove to be difficult on a college campus; the environment is not exactly known for its wide cross section of the human population.
However, when the news from the other side of the brick buildings is this alarming, I think it can provoke a reaction from even this audience.
April Yuan, a first-year undeclared student, stopped on her way down the hallway to say, “How can you not play tag? They are robbing (the children) of their childhood. Who agreed to this?”
This situation is also a result of those three little words that contain the power to melt away common sense as soon as they are uttered – “being held liable.” Schools are not only afraid of tortured souls but also of lawsuits.
I spent some time thinking about how this column could really relate to a college audience. As I took the elevator up to my room, it stopped on the third floor where at least 15 people were engaged in some sort of hiding game.
And, as I walked into the lounge on my own floor, I was greeted with gusts of yells and screams as a game of Frisbee tag whirled about me. Relate it to this audience? We are still very much kids here, no matter how hard we fight it.
E-mail Joshi at rjoshi@media.ucla.edu for counseling on post-tag syndrome. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.
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