I don’t ever plan on moving from this area. I have friends here. I like the community. Hanover now feels like home. But if I ever did plan on packing up, I would never consider moving to Attleboro, Mass.
The city less than an hour from Boston made it onto my naughty list this week when school officials announced that they had made strides at making their school safer.
They didn’t enact some new gun-control policy. Or install metal detectors. They banned tag.
Yes, tag. The game, not the hideous body spray. Banning that would actually probably have more of a public benefit than banning the game. But that would make sense.
This ban really only affects one elementary school. Principal Gaylene Heppe apparently thinks the children at Willett Elementary School will ultimately turn to a life of crime if they accidentally get pushed too hard during a game of tag.
People should have seen this coming. This same area looked into banning dodgeball several years ago when a bunch of other school districts across the country overreacted to the perceived social ills taught by that great game.
But dodgeball and tag don’t hurt people. Over litigious parents with an over inflated sense of importance and scardey-cat principals hurt people.
In fact, dodgeball should serve as a perfect example of why games like this should be encouraged, not shunned.
They turned dodgeball into a movie – one of the best movies in recent memory I might add. Vince Vaughn starred in that movie. Vince Vaughn recently enjoyed the company of one Miss Jennifer Aniston.
Dodgeball helps guys get chicks. Just think who a champion tag player could find on his arm.
Boys in Attleboro will now have to know that their chances of landing on the front page of the tabloids are greatly diminished thanks to Principal Heppe’s paranoia. I hope she can live knowing that she may have crushed the hopes and dreams of a future movie star just so she could say she was the principal who officially eliminated fun at recess.
The worst part for me is that some parents actually agree with the decision. One mother said she has “witnessed enough near collisions” during games of tag. There is no truth to the rumor that she sends her child to school ensconced in bubble wrap.
Naturally, school district officials backpedaled as soon as normal, reasonable people got wind of the news. They claim a ban on tag has existed for years, part of an effort to encourage “good, sound, supervised play,” according to the superintendent.
Well, lady, that’s just expecting too much, Sometimes kids need more than supervised play. Sometimes, they need to just run around for a while aimlessly playing a game that adults just don’t get. Sometimes, kids need to learn that growing up involves overcoming things that might not seem fair at the moment, like losing a game of tag or getting nailed in the gut during a round of dodgeball.
I don’t expect her to get it though. She says they also have a rule that bans throwing balls against the wall.
I guess because we don’t want the walls to have hurt feelings either.