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In contrast to the modern trend of helicopter parenting and safety-first playgrounds, one school in New Zealand has decided to completely do away with rules during recess playtime to great effect. They aren't alone in this reversal, some of which can be justified by a study showing that children who injured themselves by falling from heights grow up to be less fearful of heights than those who weren't hurt.
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New Zealand School Tries Recess With No Rules
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday June 13 2014, @10:49AM
I am too lazy to look up the references, but there have been various studies that show overly-safe playgrounds to be detrimental. Children who have "unsafe" playgrounds injure themselves - across all activities - less often and less severely.
Pain is an excellent teacher, built into us by nature for a reason. Bruises and skinned knees are part of childhood, as children learn what they can do and what not, what works and what doesn't. Pad all sharp corners, and children are denied an important, indeed critical, learning experience.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13 2014, @10:59AM
It's school. The only learning experience the kids need is to learn to OBEY the RULES. They'll go straight to jail when they grow up if they don't learn to OBEY the RULES.
(Score: 2) by clone141166 on Friday June 13 2014, @01:10PM
Actually, having adults who just blindly follow rules without question would probably be a terrible outcome for society. Learning to distinguish between rules that are necessary and worth following, and rules that are immoral and/or illogical, is a far more important lesson. Otherwise we would still have horrible laws like apartheid.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday June 13 2014, @03:03PM
> Actually, having adults who just blindly follow rules without question would probably be a terrible outcome for society.
Fortunately (for the people who make THE RULES) this isn't a problem. You see, the people who make THE RULES don't exist in what you and I call society, they have their own Society (with a capital "S") comprised of exclusive schools and country clubs and gated communities and corporate retreats and so on, where they can enjoy their wealth and privelege unhampered by measly proletariat concerns like THE RULES or THE LAW or even COMMON BLOODY DECENCY. As long as the drab ordinary folk follow THE RULES and continue to strive and breed and labour for the benefit of their masters, then all is well with the world.
Of course, these two realms are entirely separate, and so we can by no means expect the gradual syphoning of all wealth and leisure from one into the other and subsequent breakdown of society into a polluted panopticon police state to eventually lead to the collapse of Society in any way at all. That couldn't ever happen. No.
TL;DR - Rules are for the poor. Let them eat cake.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Friday June 13 2014, @03:15PM
> Actually, having adults who just blindly follow rules without question would probably be a terrible outcome for society.
While I generally agree with you, I'd like to point out that Japan has done reasonably well for itself in the last 70 years, despite having a very regimented and conformist society.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13 2014, @05:11PM
Japan's public debt [wikipedia.org]
The Lost Decade(s) [wikipedia.org]
Amakudari (revolving door politics) [wikipedia.org]
NEETs [wikipedia.org], Freeters [wikipedia.org], and Hikkikomori [wikipedia.org]
Do some research.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Friday June 13 2014, @07:16PM
Yeah, but take a look at what they looked like after the second world war. They rebuilt the entire country from nothing to become one of the most technologically advanced nations, they have an unemployment rate far lower than the US or Europe, and despite the problems you reference above, they are a high functioning society.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13 2014, @08:58PM
> they have an unemployment rate far lower than the US or Europe,
Unemployment is a weird number for a bunch of different reasons, one of the biggest is that doesn't count people who have "given up" looking.
Better to look at total employment, [wikipedia.org] and Japan is doing well at 71% but that still is just 11th (USA is 16th).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13 2014, @10:02PM
It's a bit uglier than that, as that number doesn't account for underemployment (hence why I mentioned Freeters [wikipedia.org]). Basically, Japan have the 3rd largest economy, but the benefits accrue to a very small part of the population, and a very large part of the population (mostly under-30s) are effectively being supported, in whole or in part, by their wealthier parents (who accrued their relative fortunes in the 80s boom). Opportunities are relatively limited, advancement is extremely difficult, the game is rigged, and the previously-mentioned conformist society only serves to keep people from questioning a clearly failed system (though this is very, very slowly changing).