'Snowflake' school bans students from touching snow

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From the article, it seems like the headmaster is concerned about the school being sued.
 
Yeah, from the article I get the impression that they are just not giving the kids an opportunity to have snowball fights during school hours. This looks like something that would primarily affect recess; no recess outside on snow days.

Being in the south eastern USA where snow is less common and associated with an inability to use the roads our policy has been that when it shows kids don’t go to school and people generally don’t go to work.
 
JonNC said:
That’s pretty much the general policy in schools I’ve taught at. At least no snowballs.
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Right, I get you can’t support throwing objects. But did your schools take prevention so far as you can’t touch it?

And what’s wrong with some of the kids having wet pants the first period, cause they rolled around or made a snow angel
 
Leave it to Faux News to make school policy, reasonable policy, sound like some sinister plot.
 
The headmaster, himself, admitted snowballs don’t blind people, it’s the rocks and grit that do. So snowballs shouldn’t be banned, throwing stones and grit concealed in snowballs should be. A large bureaucracy should be constructed to regulate and license tossers and throwers such that they receive formal training in the shaping of snowballs and determining when dangerous foreign objects like stones and grit might unexpectedly make their way into snow that is being formed into balls.

It’s the liberal progressive way – building big bureaucracy for every inanity – especially the scary ones. This is far more important of an enterprise than educating kids. They needn’t be taught nor trusted to monitor and control themselves when there is some potential government department to be constructed for the monitoring and controlling of everything. The Department of Grit and Stone Safety! Why bother to educate when we can shield and protect?
 
TheLittleLady said:
Leave it to Faux News to make school policy, reasonable policy, sound like some sinister plot.
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It IS a sinister plot. You just haven’t noticed how sinister.

The school fears being sued for possible injuries. When was the last time a school was sued for not having properly educated a child? Or sued for turning out social activists who destroy businesses and properties? Perhaps we need a few well-placed lawsuits in that direction to focus schools on what their mandate actually is?
 
Theo520 said:
Right, I get you can’t support throwing objects. But did your schools take prevention so far as you can’t touch it?

And what’s wrong with some of the kids having wet pants the first period, cause they rolled around or made a snow angel
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I’m not speaking to the right or wrong, as I see both sides. I personally don’t care about the wet clothes. I teach 5th grade, after all :crazy_face:.
If I’m the principle, depending on the frequency of snow, I might schedule a time to play in the snow. 😀
But like I said, I understand the other view: injury prevention, liability issues, etc.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Leave it to Faux News to make school policy, reasonable policy, sound like some sinister plot.
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I live in an area where it snows reliably from November until March or April. Growing up we threw snowballs all the time and at each other. We understood how to pack them and why not to put foreign objects into them. We followed the informal rules – aim at bodies, not heads – because we basically cared for and about each other. The only snowball injury I ever heard of was after I’d been teaching for twenty years and safety precautions about everything and anything started making their appearance. This was a story, that one principal told, of one of his childhood friends being blinded in one eye by a piece of ice in a snowball. The story may have been a myth because it was being told conveniently to convince students of the dangers of snowballs.

As a child, one actual injury that stands out was a grade one classmate who did lose an eye when his brother poked him with a stick. It may or may not have been intentional, but that evidence from growing up seems to indicate that sticks are more dangerous than snowballs but that neither pose much of a danger at all unless the intention of the wielders is to cause harm. The more important question is why are seemingly more and more individuals intending to harm others, whether that means by rock-laced snowballs, sharp sticks, acid, trucks, bombs or guns?

That issue is always skirted – replaced by the meme: diversity is our strength. Perhaps when time and effort is put into reconciling and educating about differences it has the potential to be a strength, but not when the diversification is intense, ongoing and forced. Something is afoot, politically speaking.
 
How did people like me survive the 50’s and 60’s. We rode bicycles without helmets and pads, we swam in pools without flotation devices, we threw snowballs at each other, built snow forts, rode in cars without seat belts, and heaven knows how many other dangerous and potentially fatal activities all because the liberals didn’t yet devise a big government (read Big Brother) solution to everyday life.

How did us old folks ever survive???
 
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I’m the most free range parent I know (and I am in my 50s or 60s). I also understand how litigious our world has become, schools have to err on the side of caution.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
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joeybaggz:
How did us old folks ever survive???
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I don’t think it’s the potential for being sued is more moving for them than the injuries themself.
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Perhaps, but either way it is where responsibility for the injury is located by society that is the determining factor. The individual committing the act is not held responsible. It is the school, or the inherent danger of snowballs, or guns, or some other factor but not the individual. If it were, the school wouldn’t be so concerned about being sued nor its role as the formal cause of the injury.

It can only be sued if there is general agreement that the school is responsible for what the child does, which is the reason the school, ultimately, is so concerned about the injury. The principal even cited litigation as a big concern.

Institutions and governments have been handed all responsibility for the well-being of all citizens to the point that citizens have been deemed largely incapable of caring for themselves. That is the crux of the problem.
 
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My post was only a satirical question of how did kids raised in the 50’ and 60’s like myself, even survive without “Big Liberal Brother” regulating and orchestrating our every movement.

As to this situation, I can’t see how a school can be responsible for kids having fun and throwing snowballs. Unless of course it is a school sponsored event and some student is injured because of the carelessness of those adults who should be monitoring the situation. Heaven forbid the lawyers don’t get rich on the misfortune of everyone else!😏😏
 
Would you estimate that the proportion of “sensible kids from sensible families” to those who are not, are roughly the same as in your youth, or have things changed?

And if changed, then for the better or worse?
 
That’s the District policy for the entire district in my city in Iowa.; no snowballs. Unfortunately, I work as a recess paraeducator supervising recess and it IS true, about 85% of the time once a student touches the snow he/she can’t resist throwing some.

Sounds like fun, right? Problem is here in Iowa that can snow can turn to ice quickly especially overnight if the temperature drops, and that snow thrown with ice can cause an injury especially to the eyes.

I can understand the policy after working in the school for many years althought I’m also not surprised parents find this extreme and ridiculous. Our students though
can still play in the snow as long as they are builing something like a snowman or snow fort.
 
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