Schools ban popular childhood games

Important learning experience short-circuited

Kids call "Not it!" when they gather to play tag, and some may never be "it" as a growing number of Valley schools ban the game at recess. Tag joins the list of childhood games such as dodgeball and tackle football no longer allowed at schools across the country because of too many injuries and squabbles. "Tagging turns into shoving, and someone's crying, 'He pushed me!' " said Cindy Denton, principal at Thew Elementary School in Tempe, where chasing games are prohibited except in gym class under adult supervision

Last year, schools in Boston; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and Spokane, Wash., banned tag, joining schools in Wichita, Kan.; San Jose; and Beaverton, Ore., that had done so. Half of the 17 schools surveyed in the Washington Elementary School District in Phoenix allow tag. At one, Acacia Elementary, children can play tag, but they can't touch each other. They stomp on each other's shadows instead. The bans are for safety and civility, though some worry that kids may not get enough exercise or enjoy a childhood rite of passage.

Acacia Principal Christine Hollingsworth started a "no-touch" policy four years ago. "There's a need for kids to be active, but we were seeing an increase in the number of kids being pushed down and hurt," she said. The only exception to the "no-touch" policy is that the older boys are allowed to play two-hand touch football with adult supervision on the far side of the playground. Since starting the policy, injuries have dropped dramatically, and Hollingsworth no longer is called on to settle fights that had escalated from an unintentional too-hard tag.

Kids often get hurt playing tag, said Sharon Roland, the nurse at Jack L. Kuban School in southwest Phoenix and vice president of the School Nurses Organization of Arizona. They split their chins, scrape their noses and graze their knees, the expected injuries of childhood. But they also knock out teeth and fracture bones.

E'Lisa Harrison's son, Grant, was 8 when he was pushed and fell during a game of tag at Kyrene de la Estrella Elementary School in Phoenix. It was an accident, but Grant spent weeks with a cast on his arm, missing out on a season of baseball. Kids still play tag at his school but no roughness is allowed.

Kim Yamamoto's son, Cameron, 11, also broke his arm on the playground when he was in fourth grade, though he was playing Red Rover, not tag, at Challenge Charter School in Glendale. Students there can play football, soccer and other contact sports only in gym class. Yamamoto said she thinks it's a shame. "I remember the skinned knees and bumps and bruises from playground activities. I would not have given up any to experience the fun we had at school," she said. "We need to remember that these are kids who need fun in their day. If we control every aspect of the time on campus, are we limiting the student's access to being kids and exploring their world?"

With 700 students at Acacia, Principal Hollingsworth knows someone is bound to get hurt. But, as the kids proved, there are ways of playing classic games without putting their hands on each other. Hollingsworth hasn't had any complaints from parents. Nor has Denton, the principal at Thew. There are plenty of other things for kids to do on the playground - four square, swinging, climbing, soccer and basketball - to burn energy.

At recess Monday at Acacia, fourth-grader Raeanna Wilkinson stood on the basketball court surrounded by girls. She's "it." The rules, she explains, are that you can't touch anyone and you can't argue if someone says they got you. "Scatter," Raeanna says, and the girls run. "Shadow tag" is like regular tag, but instead of touching players to get them out, whoever is "it" stomps on their shadow. In another version, whoever is "it" stomps on a shadow and yells, "Frozen!" Frozen players must stay still until someone sets them free by running through their shadow.

Ten minutes into the game, the girls shed their jackets and sweat shirts. Yulissa Urias, 9, said, "In regular tag, people push, and you fall down and you get hurt." Now no one gets hurt, said Diane Hernandez, 9. And the game is more challenging because the angle of the sun can make it hard to get to people's shadows when they're running, even if you are close enough to tag them.

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RACIST JOURNALISM EDUCATION DEFEATED

Race will not be used as a criteria for enrollment in more than two dozen urban journalism programs nationwide under settlement of a lawsuit filed for a white high school student who was rejected. Dow Jones News Fund, which sponsors the programs, and other principals agreed to the settlement in return for the legal challenge being withdrawn by the Center for Individual Rights, both parties said Wednesday. The center filed the class-action lawsuit in September on behalf of Emily Smith, 16. She said she was accepted last spring to the Urban Journalism Workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University, but one week later was rejected after program sponsors learned she was white.

The settlement requires VCU and other programs sponsored by Dow Jones to select students "without regard to race." The programs also agree to publicly acknowledge they will offer no preferential treatment or discriminate against any prospect "on the basis of race or ethnicity." Neither VCU, Dow Jones nor any of the principals admitted any wrongdoing. VCU agreed to pay $25,000 to Emily and her attorneys and admit her to the program next summer. "We're very happy with it," said Emily's mother, Jane Smith. She added she had "little concern" about Emily's reception at VCU. Emily is a junior at Monacan High School in suburban Chesterfield County.

Terence Pell, president of the nonprofit Center for Individual Rights, said the challenge was based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have established that colleges cannot operate programs which exclude members of any ethnicity or race. The public interest law firm litigates "reverse discrimination" cases and similar actions. "It's OK to target underrepresented people. You just can't do this based on race," Pell said in an interview.

Since 1984, VCU's College of Mass Communications has conducted the two-week summer journalism program during which students attend classes, live on campus and produce a newspaper. The program is intended to encourage minority students to pursue journalism careers. Pamela D. Lepley, a VCU spokeswoman, said the program would not change. "The program will continue and race-neutral criteria will be used by VCU in the selection of participants," said Ray Kozakewicz, spokesman for Media General Inc., which publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch and is a sponsor of the VCU program.

The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Web site lists 27 programs in Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. In a statement, Dow Jones said: "The settlement is consistent with the longtime intent and practice of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund to encourage young people of all races, cultures and physical abilities to be successful journalists."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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