Oracle Online

The proposed ban on tag in these schools is strange and seemingly remote. Schools in three other states, however, already have existing bans on playground tag. According to MSNBC news, the growing trend of limiting these children’s games is due to concern over possible “injuries, inappropriate touching, and lawsuits.”

Most people, save those who have lifelong physical scars or debilitating mental trauma from an unfortunate tag accident, might consider the ban to be an unnecessary, absurd move for school administrators. Tag is one of the cheapest, easy to learn, simple, and energetic games kids can play. Concepts like “free zones” and “blackout forever” are almost integral to the development of mature adults.

To save money for the endless amounts of Band-Aids© that tag apparently creates a significant need for, researchers could drop studies and projects that seek to determine whether this generation of children is overweight and by how much. If it is generally understood that obesity is a significant problem for kids nationwide, it is more productive to study ways to get kids movingčnot prohibiting them from running, for example, in an open and supervised place like a playground.

The day the Pillsbury Doughboy was fired from his job as icon and lovable endorser of Pillsbury biscuits was the day our nation should have woken up to the dangerous impact of frivolous lawsuits. When lawsuits against adorable, round-bellied eight-inch-tall fictional characters are legitimate in the American judicial system, maybe schools do have a right to worry that a parent may sue over an unfair tag move or a stressful tag game that unduly affected their child.

We can see the causal relationship between medical malpractice lawsuits and exorbitant health care costs, so it is hard to ignore the impact of ludicrous legal actions against educational institutions. Schools should not cave under the constant threat of these lawsuits to the effect that they ban timeless games like tag. If the public education system is so unprotected by the law that it is vulnerable to the whims of irresponsible parents and their lawyers, maybe we should allow these schools to collapse in order to teach parents and communities that useless legal measures ruin their kids’ schools, and worse, their education and health.

Tag does not hurt the nation’s children, unless it has evolved since 1991 and has become a more elaborate game involving tazers, switchblades and hatchets. I would expect that a ban on tag would be met most appropriately with a lawsuit, claiming that the removal of the game on playgrounds would deprive students of exercise, positive childhood experiences--and the right to play.