Balls on the playground? November 16, 2011
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV202 , trackbackMatt Gurney at the National Post comments on Earl Beatty Public School in Toronto that has banned the use of balls in the playground. Apparently, the school board was reacting to several near misses and one incident in which a parent was struck in the head by a soccer ball and suffered a concussion. In response, the board has banned the use of soccer balls, footballs, volleyballs, basketballs and tennis balls. Only foamy, Nerf-style balls are allowed for play on the grounds. (I imagine that non-foam balls are still allowed for gym classes.)
(Looking&Learning/Flickr)
Gurney is sarcastic, calling the ban “brave”, and wondering rhetorically what other risks the board and parents will see fit to terminate next. Play involves risk, so the only way to eliminate risk is to ban play altogether.
I suspect that there is more going on here than Gurney lets on. A concussion can be a serious injury and calls for a serious response. Probably, many readers are aware of the ongoing issue of NHLer Sidney Crosby whose concussion has sidelined him since this January. With this in mind, the school board may have decided that a ban was the only action in their arsenal that acknowledged the seriousness of the incident on the playground.
Playground safety has become a minor controversy. On the face of it, it seems that playgrounds could not be made too safe. After all, no one wants the children to get injured, so any affordable safety measure seems warranted. However, as Edward Tenner has noted, there is a payoff to having safety risks on playgrounds: It teaches kids how to deal with risk and danger at a time when they are fairly resilient to falls and bruises. Encountering moderate safety risks helps children to acquire confidence in themselves that stands them in good stead later in life. Without such experience, they may grow up to be overly fearful of danger. This point does not imply that we should place children in mortal peril or anything like that (unlike at Hogwarts), but that there is a “sweet spot” of risk that can be considered healthy.
So, there are grounds to object to a ban on balls in the playground: It may reduce injuries in the short term but hamper development in the long term. As schools are intended to promote development, banning balls from the playground is counter-productive.
Of course, this point does not address the other aspect of the problem that the school faces, namely that of dealing appropriately with a serious injury to a parent. Without knowing more about the exact circumstances, it is difficult to say anything specific. In general, however, I would think it appropriate that the school should carry insurance to help compensate anyone who is injured in this sort of “freak” accident. A payout may or may not undo the damage, but it could demonstrate that the school cares and takes its responsibilities seriously, without detracting from the children’s education.
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