October 19, 2006

U.S. school bans tag fearing lawsuits. T.O. school banned talking during lunch.
  • The second ammendment has nothing to say about any school activities other than gunning down pupils and staff, which it supports.
  • Idiots.
  • I cannot wait until my rough-and-tumble spawn take over the wussy-infected world. *tags Skrik and runs*
  • Fondly recalls the parochial school days when Sister Mary Beatrice Bitch forced me to drag a misbehaver to the principal's office by his ear after she had slapped him good and plenty with her thick wooden ruler. Not to mention dodge ball... Ahh, the days!
  • I wonder... if more people had access to health care, would they be as quick to turn to the courts after an injury?
  • As I remember, we weren't allowed to speak during lunch in the fourth grade. And we had to eat everything on our plates, even though we weren't allowed to choose what went on that plate. Lots of stuffing yucky stuff into the empty milk carton ensued. Granted, that year I had the meanest teacher in the whole world (she told me once she despised me!), so that might have been her policy, not the school's.
  • I approve of making children suffer in school so that they may grow up to despise authority. It is necessary for the revolution.
  • My parental units were recently surprised to hear that I got the strap in school, and that I never, ever told them. Old Man Renault said "If I'd known that had happened, I would have been there first thing, and give those fucks the strap myself." Exactly.
  • I wonder... if more people had access to health care, would they be as quick to turn to the courts after an injury? Interesting question nickdanger!!!
  • Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable. OK, as a victim of some pretty severe unspuervised-recess-violence myself, I find the glaring question to be, why are kids ever unsupervised at recess?!? After my parents took me out of that school, every other one I attended had at least one adult on the playground at all times, usually with some kind of aide who could watch for anyone sneaking off by themselves if there wasn't a fence. I can kind of understand the quiet lunch thing, if it hadn't been for the snotty letter sent home. It's nigh on impossible for a lunchroom monitor to keep normal lunchroom noise from becoming excessive screaming if that's what the particular kids he/she's in charge of are inclined to do. But I'd use the silence thing as a temporary punishment - silent lunch for a week, to be reinstated if the screaming gets too bad again.
  • In the US, getting injured and being able to blame it on a government or corporate entity is equivalent to winning the lottery.
  • In the US, getting injured and being able to blame it on a government or corporate entity is equivalent to winning the lottery. This may be so, but things are getting pretty bad in Merry Odle Englande too. My college has now decided that kitchen tables (kitchen tables!) are too dangerous to co-exist with 20-something graduate students. You know, like if the stove caught fire we'd be too flummoxed by the fact that we were in the same room as a table to escape. And that's not even the dumbest thing they've done recently. The Master of our college (a certified Electrical Engineer and a Professor of Electrical Engineering) was told off for changing an ordinary overhead lightbulb without proper training and certification. Appart from the whole electricution thing, there was also the fact that he was not 'ladder trained'. He stood on a chair. So the Americans, by no means, have a lock on insane liability reduction. Indeed some American states have it much better than the UK and Canada, becuase they have a legal doctrine of reasonable risk. With no such doctrine in British Common Law you simply can't disclaim liability when somebody does something stupid on or with your property.
  • Alas! I have known tables to be both obstreperous and obstinate, even turning their chairs loose to lure the trusting innocent into stepping upon them.
  • While we are at it, let's ban words that may offend older workers, such as "vibrant", "dynamic", and "self-starter". Not to mention "fit" and "energetic".
  • I was attacked by a fucking table. I refuse to have them in the house. ACK!! THere's ONE RIGHT HERE AAAAAAAH
  • I have a 6" long scar on my right leg from a fucking table attack. (Drives the chicks crazy!)
  • wow, when I read the fpp I didn't understand what the word 'tag' was referring to in this context, because it was not even remotely CONCEIVABLE that it could refer to the game of tag. what is this world coming to???? I am so glad I am not having children because I would be in even more of a constant state of pissed-offed-ness than I already am. besides, I only ever wanted a kid so I can have that bumper sticker that says "my kid beat up yr honor student" har!
  • Hey, Dreadnought, can I have your table, then? Living in T.O., of course, I won't be able to talk at it, but maybe I can injure people by tagging them with it.
  • True story: I was injured playing tag in grade 4. I was "it" and was chasing my friend Rob. I was closing in on him when he suddenly cut right so I made a wild swipe at him with the back of my right hand, hitting the steel button on the cuff of his Levi's jean jacket. It opened up a cut about 1/2" long on the first knuckle of my index finger. It bled profusely and I was sent to the school nurse where it took two ice packs and almost an hour to stop the bleeding. I still bear the horrific disfiguring scar, and, of course, the lingering emotional trauma. If this ban prevents just one shoolyard tragedy like mine, then it will all be worth it. Hey, Cap'n...is there a statute of limitations on this stuff? Can I still sue the Hamilton Board of Education?
  • You might want to sue them for not taking you to get stitches... injuries are part of childhood, ER visits build character, I oughta know :D
  • Sorry, r88 -- limitations are usually two years, depending on a few things, like when you first became aware of the injury and your right to sue, if you would have had a litigation guardian, blah blah blah. Basically, for the cut itself, you could have gone two years after turning 18, at the latest. The emotional trauma coule be different, if the trauma only produced itself lately. Not sure what a half-inch cut on a knuckle is worth on the Meat Chart anyway. And hands and feet always bleed way out of proportion to the injury. And chicks dig scars...
  • ER visits build character I can only imagine how boring my son would be if he hadn't broken both of his arms (separate incidences) in such a way that required surgery and pins. I wonder if he'll have enough charisma to run for president if I break his legs?
  • Damn. Back when I was a wee lad, we used to stream out onto the playground and play innocent games like Crack the Whip and Red Rover. See, no dangerous games like Tag for us, we had games that involved full-body tackling and severe whiplash instead.
  • According to this version of the story, the move is part of a rule against "hitting and inappropriate touching". Tag involves touching, and touching is bad.
  • At both recess and lunch, let the kids masturbate for peace. Unless done really well it is a fairly silent activity, and only results in the occasional wrist injury.
  • We used to play Bulldog and Red Rover on a crowded playground during recess. Had we played tag it would have involved crashing into non-combatants and other forms of ten-year-old mayhem. To be honest, I think banning those games would have been entirely reasonable given where (and how) we played them.
  • To be fair, our school did ban the rolling of ginourmous five, six foot snowballs by crowds of fifty kids or so, after that one was crushed and sent to the hospital. But he was a dumbass for trying to pull the snowball, and getting caught underneath. Early lessons in Darwin.
  • It's about time they banned TAG. That stuff smells terrible.
  • Monkeyfilter: It is necessary for the revolution.
  • I approve of making children suffer in school so that they may grow up to despise authority. Did that work in the UK, or have I been watching too much Pink Floyd?
  • Pink Floyd was making shit up. I have a relative who went through UK schools and he says they didn't even have a meat grinder!
  • We had a meat-grinder. She used to teach rugby.
  • *nods knowingly Yes, it's all well and fine until somebody pokes an eye out.
  • Yes, it's all well and fine until somebody pokes an eye out. People stop using that phrase at my high school after one of the students lost an eye while horsing about during play practice. But it didn't stop the drama teacher from having sword fights in plays. The audience just wished he had actually gone over stage fight safety with the actors - it was a very small theatre.
  • "Thank you, thank you, parents and community members! Next year, catch Western Central School Drama Club's production of 'Nelson at Trafalgar!'"
  • By this logic, after Watergate, the vote should have been taken away from the American people and the next administration handpicked by a group that would not have been governed by it. It's the same principle. Oh, like what happened in 2000. I guess schools saw that and said, "Hey, that'd work for us, too."