Sanitizing the Playground and the Gospel: Day 1

I remember thinking, as a new elementary teacher, that the paradigm shift was not going to turn out well. Sadly, my baby boomer generation is responsible, though I did my best to distance my parenting from this new practice:

Instead of school and parents uniting to discipline the child, it became school vs parents. Parents became quick to criticize the teacher and bail out their child.

I don't see that we have returned.

Discipline division spilled over into rights, and rights translated into rules that tried to foresee and prevent every conceivable scenario that could lead to a lawsuit.

Enter the school playground, where play was sanitized into safety and control.

Swanson Primary School in New Zealand participated in a study that eliminated rules on the playground, allowing kids to climb trees and ride bikes and make up games. The results are in:

Administrators saw a decline in rates of bullying, injury and vandalism, as well as an increase in students' ability to concentrate during class.

Principal Bruce McLachlan sees a more chaotic playground, of course, but has discovered that when you let kids do what they like on the playground, they look for adventure on their own terms and do not go and purposefully hurt themselves.

They discover, in part, the baby boomer childhood that had long hours of inventive play and risk-taking.

When the discipline division between teachers and parents caught steam, it opened the door for fear and control. Everything became calculated and sides moved to protect and preserve.

And what has grown in schools? Bullying and blame.

Swanson Primary School moved to stop sanitizing the playground and I'm not talking about germs here. McLachlan continues:

The kids were motivated, busy and engaged. In my experience, the time children get into trouble is when they are not busy, motivated and engaged. It's during that time they bully other kids, graffiti or wreck things around the school.

Sanitizing is exerting control that is motivated by fear and division. Whatever we sanitize begins to lose its bearings. In the instance of the playground, children will naturally create adventure and relationship. God's reservoir of love and creativity and acceptance that he placed in childhood will be the driving force.

Can we return childhood to children and work together as their adults? Time will tell. If this sounds like a great idea, prepare to swim upstream.

Study: Swanson Primary School.

Tomorrow: Sanitizing the gospel.

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