Kids today: is there any hope
In a post called bullying, I noted that kids today aren’t treated like kids were treated in my day. Here are couple more examples of how folks treat kids today and why it’s, well, stupid. Firsts up is this AP story:
A high school student was suspended for five days after singing a spoof of “On Top of Ol’ Smokey” that includes lyrics about shooting a teacher.
Beth Ann Cox, 16, a junior at Peachtree Ridge High School, said she had been humming the song during German class but denied singing loudly or directing the lyrics at her teacher, Phil Carroll.
OMG! Cue hysteria. Gangsta rap? Death Metal? Nope:
The song includes the lyrics: “On top of Ol’ Smokey, all covered with blood, I shot my poor teacher with a .44 slug.”
When I was a pup, I recall singing that very song with other kids. We were told to knock it off if we were being disruptive but no one ever got suspended for it. Oh, and when we sang it, we were 6 not 16. I’m trying to figure out why the press felt the need to tell us that she had been humming the song during German class but denied singing loudly or directing the lyrics at her teacher. That seems unimportant. What’s important is that for singing a stupid kid’s song that has been around forever Administrators pulled Cox out of class later Friday and asked why she had threatened her teacher. She was suspended Monday. Have we lost our minds? And here’s a better one:
Climbing, swinging and sliding was once a rite of passage during recess, a time for adventure, to see how high, how far and how fast we could go as a kid.
Today, kids find themselves grounded, victims of a culture of fear and injury litigation.
A growing number of school districts are going so far as to ban the game of tag and are even posting signs that read “no running on the playground.”
Is there real danger on the modern playground?
Safety advocates say yes and want to eliminate it.
Their first target: swing sets.
They’ve convinced Portland Public Schools to remove all swings from elementary schools playgrounds.
That’s right, boys and girls, the world can be a dangerous place. So, it is better to shield kids from any possible danger to themselves. So, at recess, do the kids just stand around? I fear for the future. I fear we’re raising a nation of pansies.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
When I was in elementary school (only 11 years ago!), we used to play cops and robbers which included running, climbing, and pretending to kill each other. It sounds like today we’d be suspended for threatening our classmates. Or maybe that should be threatening our “comrades”.
Also, if you’ve been to a new playground recently, they’re all made with this soft springy stuff covering the ground. When I was a kid we had asphalt. Kids get hurt, they break things. Why can’t we let them? Pain is a great teacher.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:47 am
I wonder if it’s the fun they hate, or if it’s that they see a kid’s swing as a symbol of Americana, which they hate, or both. Nothing will piss off a leftist moonbat more than knowing someone is having fun without them.
When I was a wee lad, we all used to sing “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school, we have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule….” It went on and on. Oh, and no one ever physically tortured a teacher, or burned any property.
No one gave a crap, as long as you didn’t hurt anyone or break anything valuable. If a teacher got insulted, it was up to that teacher to DEAL WITH IT RIGHT THEN THERE, which they often did, but not because of a stupid song.
I’ve often said that much of my childhood – most of it – would have been considered grounds for state intervention by today’s standards (our mom would buy us ammo and hand it over to us preteens so we could go out on our own around the outskirts of town with our rifles, for one thing). But that’s the whole point isn’t it? Finding excuses, any excuses, for more state intervention. That is the point, for you leftists out there, and you know it.
I want my children (MY children, not OUR children) protected alright– protected from the moonbat Left and their pathological insanity.
May 12th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Just another example of the Nanny state working hard to groom their future disciples from an early age. If a kid grows up being prohibited from running and playing and doing things that are intrinsic to childhood, it won’t be such a shock when they’re deprived of their intrinsic rights in adulthood.
Solution: Homeschool.