Friday, November 1, 2013

Tirade - Recess

A Washington state school district has recently made the decision to ban all hard balls from the playground during recess.  This includes footballs, baseballs, lacrosse balls and I assume soccer balls.  The reason given by the woman superintendent was that there were too many injuries caused by these items.  Now one has to ask how much risk can you take out of life for these types of individuals.  Do they imagine that out in the real world there is no risk at all?  One of the people involved with the decision said to a reporter that as far as she was concerned one skinned knee was one skinned knee too many.  Later in the day I heard a man interviewed who had a gym a block away from one of these schools and he said his kids' class was jammed.  They liked to climb ropes, throw balls - even dodge ball, the new horror of school life - and other fun things.  Is it any wonder he's doing well?  Come On People!

1 comment:

  1. We grew up at a different time. I got a BB gun at age ten. In Kansas ALL sports were played seasonally.I amazed a nephew by remembering the new learner mount..a twisty thing that works better on these tendons and bones. Moving to Texas my high school gym class had the underclassmen in the center while bombarded by dodge balls..which were softer unless a head shot. It was like being introduced to a jock strap. Every sport was played by everyone. A written test was also given to learn the rules and arcane signs from the umpires and how to read a catchers sign to the pitchers a relay back to the batter. Never played cricket but bought an old bat at a pawnshop for the last line in home defense..defence. I was lousy at basketball but knew how to draw afoul and learned how to make that shot. Nobody calls traveling anymore..guess to speed up the game.Absolutely stupid to take away the thrill of hitting a homer or catching a high fly.Sportmanship says a lot about a person. Golf is a good example.

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