Ha, they talked about getting kids to play games with "less physical contact".
Umm..
What can be less physical than a poke?

My turn to rant...

Could everyone possibly oversimplify this a little more???  Does anyone live in this town?  If I take my little one to a playground in town, I generally find that the majority of kids good natured and the parents attentive if their kids are pushing, etc.  If I go to the next town over, I generally find that the kids are aggressive and that it makes thier parents proud that their kids don't take sh*t from anyone (like waiting their turn).  It's nice to see that they aren't raising any sissies and there's so much approval of that here

Reality check.  Different towns have different socio-ecomonic issues and therefore are not created equal in terms of their school aged populations.  The fact of the matter is that some towns are going to have a hard-ass population full of aggressive kids with parents who don't give a flying f*ck about what their kids do.  In towns like these, sports like tag or dodgeball become excuses to bully (Sorry Mr. Jones, I didn't mean to pile drive Willie into the ground and it has nothing to do with me and Joey beating him up twice last week.  Honest.).

Trust me, I believe in raising children that are self-sufficient, but there is a distinct line between assertive and aggressive.  If this town in question has a bunch of rough kids, then maybe it's a good decision for them.  It's easy to say that someone can opt out of the game, but if you have every boy in 3rd grade playing and 1 or 2 kids don't want to (maybe because they're smaller, non-athletic, clumsy or find they're "targeted" often by the rougher kids), then opting out means being picked on later for being the "pansies that played with the girls". 

Yes parents should do more to raise thier kids (to be assertive and confident and also not to be bullies...).  Yes it may seem unfair to deprive 20 kids for the sake of 2 (blind supposition), but what are they being deprived of?  A license to push some other kids aruond?  I'm sure that if the tag games at this school were good natured and mild mannered, the school wouldn't go to this extreme.

And what the freak does this have to do with Parkour anyway? If you're worried about the erosion of your personal liberties, this doesn't even make it into the top 1000.  Train harder, do it in the wrong place, get banned and them come back and complain (as least it will be on topic) 

(Turn's off the valve on the flamethrower)

BobT,

That was my point: that if bullying is going on, the solution (IMO) is not to ban tag, but to address the bullies; to make it powerfully clear in no uncertain terms that bullying and harrassment are not acceptable. Banning tag because of bullying actually makes the bullying problem worse, because in a way the bullies "win." Instead of being made responsible for their actions, and forced to accept consequences, the administration has simply removed one of the bullies' preferred forums. They will find another way to bully students, irrespective of the availability of tag, and no one will have learned anything.

My issue is not with the fact that kids "need to learn to stand up for themselves," but that simply eliminating an arena of bullying doesn't help address the larger issue that there is bullying going on. To my view, they have attacked the leaves of the problem but left the roots intact.

You're right in that for all we know, the community in this article could also be implementing other anti-bullying strategies in an attempt to eliminate a culture of bullying, and the journalist may have chosen not to elucidate those details. If this is the case, then I agree, our uproar is unfounded. However taking at face value the information we're given, without speculating, for me personally, I disagree with how this was handled, not because I think kids should be allowed to "duke it out and see who's still standing," but because I believe that if a school district wants to address bullying, they should roll up their sleeves and address bullying, not take away avenues that bullies use to bully, and other students use to play. IMO that's just redirecting the problem.

In any case, this has little to do with parkour, I agree.

Thank you for your balancing insight.

*toasts marshmallows on your flamethrower and makes s'mores for everyone*

Major rant coming up
Ok well hate to break it to you, but...bullying is not going away anytime soon. I go to high school, and those little assemblies and speeches about why we shouldn't bully, they don't help much. Maybe a couple kids will listen and learn, and next time they see bullying they will try to break it up...and everyone starts fighting them. Thats the way it works, and thats the way it always has worked. A snitch, a rat, someone who tells a teacher: everyone will start bullying them!!! Anyone else on these forums who goes to high school can back me up: it takes a lot to actually step in and stop something. We all want to be able to, but the reality is, it just doesn't happen a lot. I know there have been instances where I could have stopped something, but I didn't.

I guess my point is, though I didn't really address it, that this has been happening for decades. Only now are we trying to stop it, and it isn't working. What happens when you tell a kid not to do something? He does it out of spite. There may be less physical violence now, but it is still there. And you can't stop it. I know it sounds like I'm trying to defend bullies, but I'm not. Obviously, if bullying gets to the point where kids are dying or are hospitalized, there is a problem. But very few bullies want to kill people. And the more you try to stop it, the more it will happen. Maybe not physical, but emotional, which can hurt just the same. I see the good intent of teachers and staff to stop bullying, but really...it doesn't help a lot. Obviously you shouldn't stop, because yes, schools would be better without bullying, but there is no real way to end it completely. That sounds horrible, but it's true.
End rant

Wow that prolly sounded like a major downer to any teachers out there. Sorry for that, but thats what I've seen as a high school student.

Thank you  I accept it with much gratitude.

And really, my school is not so bad, apart from the administrators can't really...administrate. The teachers are all awesome though! They usually still understand what it's like to be in high school. I think the admin are the real problem here too...the parents did not complain to the teachers, because that wouldn't get results. The teachers would say something logical, like "It is just a game, really."