"Safety" -- or Attentiveness and Learning?
Monday, March 31, 2014
Michael Enright who, like me, is old enough to remember when it didn't seem
like we were trying to rear our kids in sterilized rubber rooms, asks if playgrounds can be too safe.
Bruce McLachlan, the principal of Swanson School [in Auckland, New Zealand], was concerned that his 500 students were being restricted by too many playground safety rules. His kids weren't allowed to ride their scooters in the playground or climb trees or rough-house because they might get hurt.All of this makes sense to me, especially the decline in injuries: (a) teachers could focus on watching the kids, vice enforcing stupid rules; (b) students had to become more actively engaged in ensuring their own safety; and (c) the latter was helped by the fact that the kids weren't bored out of their minds. Enright also correctly notes that our current fads in child care pose a risk far greater than the occasional injury, when "We ... constantly reinforc[e] in their exploding minds that danger is everywhere and they must protect themselves no matter what."
So Principal McLachlan threw out the rule book. He did away with all so-called safety measures; he let the kids do pretty much what they wanted. What he discovered was startling.
In the first place there were no major injuries. In fact injuries declined.
There was a decrease in bullying and vandalism.
Children were so busy and physically active at recess that they returned to the classroom motivated, not agitated... [minor format edits]
I have been astounded at how widespread and crippling the precautionary mentality is among adults today, but had not really considered the idea that we are transmitting it to our children.
-- CAV
P.S. This column also reminds me of something that seemed odd about an episode of the popular Sid the Science Kid. In that episode, which purports to teach kids about soil, the main characters frolicked about on a rubberized playground -- no soil, anywhere -- before going inside to look at samples in a lab. How exotic!
Updates
Today: Corrected two typos.
4 comments:
Hi Gus:
I've been working as a substitute teacher for a couple of weeks. And what you have posted is what I have been feeling. Not only has public, I mean, government schooling, been taken over by irrational "safety" concerns. I was told as a recess monitor not to have the kids run around on the jungle gym?!?!?! Isn't that the point of recess, to run around?
But ridiculous pedagogy has taken root as well. Public school students aren't being taught penmanship. Thus their writing resembles toddler or kindergarten level writing. Also, the new math methods are incomprehensible. Keep in mind this is not a poor school district. I question whether the students are really learning anything. Courses seem to be disconnected. Please do your research in selecting a school for your daughter. Can you afford private schooling?
Bookish Babe
BB,
Currently, we can't afford private education, but should be able to by the time she will be going to school.
I do appreciate you writing in, though. My education was entirely at private schools, but my wife went to a magnet school, where she somehow got a decent education. Between that and her generally not being that interested in politics, the result is that she is not as easy to sell on the idea of private education.
Thanks for the help.
Gus
Yo, Gus, you write, "In that episode, which purports to teach kids about soil, the main characters frolicked about on a rubberized playground -- no soil, anywhere -- before going inside to look at samples in a lab. How exotic!"
Humph and harrumph. I learned about soil the old-fashioned way: The older kids made me eat dirt. Another benefit to public schooling!
"My education was entirely at private schools, but my wife went to a magnet school, where she somehow got a decent education."
On a serious note, I got a very good education in public school myself, but that's mostly because I learned to read starting when I was two and was encouraged to read all I wanted. (I got a library card for the adult section of the city library when I was nine, for instance, which allowed me access to all the chemistry and astronomy books I always pestered my father to check out for me.) But it's not entirely due to that: One of the saving graces of American public education that's being progressively destroyed pretty much on principle ever since the Department of Education was created is that it used to be heavily decentralized, which allowed a great deal of independence in teachers to flourish.
"[I]t used to be heavily decentralized, which allowed a great deal of independence in teachers to flourish."
That is, a relative handful of central planners are presuming to know better than legions of people trained to do the work, and many of whom have a wealth of experience.
That's bad enough on its own, but it becomes one hell of a problem when the "planners" have poor guidance to begin with.
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