A school in Toronto has banned "hard" balls because they might hurt the kiddies. Kids are great and precious and all, but if I had a nickel for every friend I had in grade school that fell off the monkey bars and broke something, I'd surely have enough for a bag of Cheezits.
Children are faced with much bigger challenges now than a "hard" ball. Middle schoolers are getting pregnant, drug experimentation runs rampant, and violence is everywhere. While we desperately want to, we can't protect the youngsters from everything. There are things that they will need to learn on their own.
For instance: paying attention during gym class is important, standing up to a bully is more effective that tattling, and some times, you lose. Happens to the best of us.
So this decision to ban "hard ball" sports is a complete over-reaction. We rode to school without seat belts, brought peanut butter sandwiches into the building without worry, and played on the 12-foot-tall play structures over concrete without worry.
There's something about childhood that doesn't seem complete without a physical "learning experience" It's tough enough to get kids to put down the Wii controler. Why make it harder?
Children are faced with much bigger challenges now than a "hard" ball. Middle schoolers are getting pregnant, drug experimentation runs rampant, and violence is everywhere. While we desperately want to, we can't protect the youngsters from everything. There are things that they will need to learn on their own.
For instance: paying attention during gym class is important, standing up to a bully is more effective that tattling, and some times, you lose. Happens to the best of us.
So this decision to ban "hard ball" sports is a complete over-reaction. We rode to school without seat belts, brought peanut butter sandwiches into the building without worry, and played on the 12-foot-tall play structures over concrete without worry.
There's something about childhood that doesn't seem complete without a physical "learning experience" It's tough enough to get kids to put down the Wii controler. Why make it harder?
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