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.