Children not allowerd to play pretend Army games with imaginary guns in the school playground (UK)

[The Straight Story]

A FATHER is outraged over school rules banning his son from playing imaginary gun games and has branded the primary a “nanny school”.

Teachers at Worcesters school, in Goat Lane, Enfield, have told children they are not to play pretend Army games with imaginary guns in the school playground.

Mark Ayres, 38, of Magpie Close, Enfield, whose seven-year-old son goes to Worcesters, said: “This is just completely over the top. I mean we all grew up playing cops and robbers and, in fact, it’s probably safer than kids running around chasing each other. My son likes playing little Army games – all kids do.

...

Karen Jaeggi, headteacher of Worcesters, said that playtime needed to be monitored.

“We actively discourage children from playing violent games or games involving imaginary weapons in the playground by explaining to them what it represents,” she said.

“Some children can be easily frightened by violent play, which is often influenced by computer games, and we feel that such games can have a harmful effect on young minds.”

http://www.northlondon-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=7462&headline=Banned:%20Imaginary%20guns%20and%20Maltesers%20not%20allowed%20at%20%E2%80%98nanny%E2%80%99%20primary%20school

[NBachers]

1. "Stop using your imagination! NOW!!!"

[bowens43]

2. good. we shouldn't be promoting violence in schools.

[CreekDog]

3. guns are not toys

and pretending to kill each other is something we should teach is wrong.

this isn't very complicated.

we teach children to tie their shoes, to speak, write and obey the rules, why can't we teach them that pretend-killing is not okay?

progress.

[TheMadMonk]

5. Because pretend dying serves a useful purpose.

Kids of my era and before gamed out all sorts of scenarios in the playground, including death and mourning behaviours. We figured out incomprehensible adult behaviour by playing at the things we saw grownups doing. We drew ludicrously wrong conclusions, we made mistakes and we bloody well learned.

Now it's behavioural science and criminology. Zero tollerance and helicopter parenting.

[CreekDog]

6. and what is your age?

and has society learned anything in regards since that time?

i grew up in the aftermath of the Vietnam era, and was denied toy guns and taught folk songs and non violence. the threat of nuclear war made me hate war and i was against the first Gulf War.

things change. i'm a product of hippies from San Francisco and an educational system that wanted peace and decried violence and nuclear weapons. i didn't have guns and for the most part, didn't want them or need them.

a generation before, my opinion and experience would have been in the minority, but in my city, at my age, it was the norm among my friends who were raised similarly.

not to mention that a generation before, bigotry was the norm, bullying too.

did those things teach us anything? sure they did, but they were bad things and i'm glad to see them less and less tolerated. we will all be better for that. and life will still teach it's lessons.

we don't need our kids to know how to play kill and play die for them to be well rounded and well educated adults.

[TheMadMonk]

8. Pushing 50. Just old enough to remember childhood diseases and complications.

Just old enough to nearly loose MY eyesight to measles.

Death and violence are now Hollywood commodities. They've become unreal.

[deek]

11. i agree eom

.

[unreadierLizard]

4. Seriously?

I played those pretend Army games all the time as a kid.

I turned out okay.

This is just stupid, honestly. Let kids have some fun...if you try to tell them what to think ala 1984, they'll just end up doing the exact opposite to defy you.

[Throd]

7. We all played "army" back in the 70's. And then we all went on to be serial killers.

OK, so imaginary guns are now taboo. Having been a little boy in the past, I know that me and my friends would have rolled our eyes at such nanny bullshit, and then would set the imaginary clock back to 1100 AD to go at each other with imaginary swords and crossbows.

[Eleanors38]

9. The standard old stink of prohibitionism. nt

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I remember Noam Chomsky once saying that he grew up with children playing cowboys and Indians - when

Last edited Fri Mar 8, 2013, 01:05 AM - Edit history (1)

he thinks about it that would be like children playing Aryans and Jews.

Granted children playing soldier or cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers - and pretending they are killing each other was so common - it is hard to imagine it being frowned on by many people these days. I suppose if children pretended they were having sex or pretended they were engaging in gang rape - pretty much everyone would be appalled. I'm really not sure why children pretending they are killings is considered less shocking than children pretending they are raping. But it is and probably has been for a long time and in many if not most cultures.