A tip of the hat to Catelli for bringing this to my attention. "This" is utter, rank stupidity, the kind of story you'd more likely expect to find in the Onion.
Balls have been banned at Errol Beatty Public School, on account of "a few serious incidents" Unless it's a Nerf ball or a sponge ball, it's not permitted on the playground. We're told the parents' council at the school supports this.
Well, of course they do. These are probably the same parents who demand their progeny get A grades just for showing up at school each day. Heaven forfend their little darlings might be hit by a ball.
Let me give you a little rundown of various and sundry incidents that (I swear) I experienced during my public school career, I won't even mention the kissing tag. Oops, I just did.
- Our school grounds sloped off fairly steeply along their western flank. During winter, that slope featured five or six iced 'runs', carefully crafted. The small kids would slide down on their butts; the braver and bigger of us would careen down standing up. Sometimes we'd go arse over tip. Blood could and did make its appearance. Fairly regularly, actually.
- The same school sported a little brick wall in an alcove, purpose unknown. It was about three feet high and eighteen inches wide and the purpose we used it for in grade three was "balance beam fights". I was actually really good at these: even back then, my hands were by far the strongest parts of me. I'd walk up to my opponent, get a grip on his shoulders, and wrench until he'd slip off down and to the right. I was winner and grand champeen in my grade until one day one of the grade sixes decided to try his hand. There was no nicety to his fighting style: he simply strode up to me and kicked me in the nuts. I went down as if...as if I'd been kicked in the nuts. (Sorry, similes fail me here: if you're a man, you understand.)
- That was not the first time I was kicked there, either. I suffered that indignity several times between grades two and six. Talk about playing with balls...on one memorable occasion they weren't kicked but squeezed. If you haven't experienced that...it's worse.
- Our whole class, pretty much, got into a colossal snowball fight one February. These days, you can be suspended for throwing a snowball, even if it doesn't hit anyone. Back then...the teachers played too.
- Does anybody remember murderball? Otherwise known as 'dodgeball', the express purpose of this game is to hit somebody with a ball, and of course avoid being hit yourself. To hit the shifty and agile--or just to hit that jerk who got you with the spitball last week--it was necessary to peg that ball with as much force as you could muster. We played this in phys. ed. many, many times...under teacher supervision, but occasionally the teacher would participate.
I could go on, but I hope you get the point. When I was growing up, kids did things on the playground that could get them seriously hurt if they were unlucky. With a few glaring exceptions, they almost never were. One kid at Cub camp fell off the first rung of a treehouse ladder, landed badly, and thereafter lived life in a wheelchair. And I'd rather not dwell on the incident in grade five when my classmate's head whammed a metal playground support.
- But by and large, we got through childhood with nothing worse than cuts and scrapes and bumps and bruises. You have to understand: I was a sheltered kid. I didn't take part in most of the more adventurous activities. For instance, I've never climbed a tree. I've never climbed a tree because I knew that as a matter of course I would fall out of the tree and break something, possibly my neck.
- But play with balls? I remember playing road hockey with my cousin Terri on the streets of Parry Sound. We were using an Indian rubber ball. Don't play hockey with an Indian rubber ball. I played goal, and I sustained a gouge in my knee that really had to be seen to be believed. (That was what finally crystallized left and right in my head: my left knee was the one I hurt.)
- Were the adults in my life concerned when I came home with blood pouring down my face? Of course they were. But I don't think it crossed the mind of many parents back then to cushion their little darlings from every knock. You hurt yourself, you picked yourself up and moved on, and maybe did whatever it was you'd been doing a little more carefully next time. That was it.
- The powers that be at Errol Beatty Public School should be ashamed of themselves. I'll leave the last word to Konstantina Alexiou, a Grade 8 student: "Next they'll say you can't run because kids fall or you can't wear (shoe) laces because kids trip,”
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