The first time I signed a petition, I was in sixth grade. My classmates and I were protesting a rule prohibiting girls and boys from playing together at recess.
Despite their merits, our demands were very poorly received by the management of our private Catholic school in the north of the city. This first petition for life earned me a first punishment for life. Forget recess! Forget diversity! Forget equality! Detention for the whole class! It will teach you to want to play together in the schoolyard…
This absurd story which taught me at 11 years old that adults are not always right came back to mind when I read the investigation by my colleagues Gabrielle Duchaine and Ariane Lacoursière on primary schools which multiply prohibitions in playgrounds.
Schools would be expected to promote the well-being, development and healthy socialization of children, both in the classroom and on the playground. One would expect it to be in tune with the most recent expert recommendations. However, quite the opposite is happening in many schools. While the Canadian Pediatric Society recommends encouraging risky play among children, the tendency is to restrict it, my colleagues noted by examining the codes of conduct and regulations of more than 450 elementary schools in Quebec.
Although we no longer prohibit mixed play like in the schoolyard of my childhood, the list of prohibited activities is dizzying. It is forbidden to throw snowballs. No playing in puddles. It is forbidden to stand on a patch of ice or slide your feet on it. Forbidden to play war…
In the name of safety at all costs, we confuse risk and danger, play fighting and real battle, healthy bickering and intimidation.
We forget that free play is essential to the development and physical and mental health of the child. We also forget that risky play has underestimated benefits.
At a time when children spend too much time in front of screens, it is a way to prevent several health problems linked to a sedentary lifestyle. It is also a way of learning to better manage your anxiety, of exposing yourself to fear and uncertainty in order to better overcome them.
Whenever a rule is put in place in a school, we should ask ourselves if it is really designed for the well-being of the child. This applies to the idiotic regulation imposing silent dinners on elementary school students as well as to the prohibitions concerning risky activities that contribute to their healthy development.1.
“When we invoke security, we must ask ourselves: whose security exactly? That of the child or that of the adult who doesn’t want to have too many things to manage? », Tells me Réjeanne Brodeur, president of the board of directors of the Association québécoise de la garde scolaire.
Nobody is against basic prevention measures, that goes without saying. Far be it from me to be nostalgic for the time when children did not wear seat belts or bicycle helmets. But on the path to prevention, our era which fuels fear is sometimes prey to unjustified panic movements.
Remember the security hysteria of schools which closed their doors on the day of the eclipse instead of organizing to make the astronomical event of the century a wonderful collective experience for their students. In the name of safety at all costs, a wonderful learning opportunity was missed.
If many schools have understood that unjustified bans are bans on learning, we too often note contradictions between theory and practice, deplores Réjeanne Brodeur. The one who has 31 years of experience as an educator is now teaching the next generation. Active (and necessarily risky) play is an integral part of the good practices taught as part of the training required by the Ministry of Education, she emphasizes.
“I kill myself telling my future educators that they must be agents of change to undo certain practices! »
This is a collective responsibility, recalls Mme Embroiderer. Because the rules imposed in a school environment do not only reflect the vision of education of the staff, but also that of the parents who discuss it on the governing board. If we’re dealing with overprotective parents who panic at the slightest scratch, we can’t be surprised to see management erring on the side of caution.
Today, lawsuits are so common. So we protect ourselves. But we protect ourselves as adults. We don’t think about the well-being of the child at all in this. A return of the pendulum is necessary.
Réjeanne Brodeur, president of the board of directors of the Association québécoise de la garde scolaire
The balance can be difficult to find when the school faces a shortage of qualified staff and welcomes children with special needs. In such a context, the temptation to add prohibitions to simplify management is great. But doing things differently is not mission impossible.
“Several settings include children with an autism spectrum disorder and things still go well,” emphasizes the teacher. When we work on respecting others before playing, when we do activities of a social and emotional nature for prevention, children are able to understand that we cannot do everything when we play outside or at the gym. »
There is always a way to intelligently mark risky gambling rather than prohibiting it. For example, if we fear that permission to throw snowballs will become a free pass for bullying, we can easily designate an area of the schoolyard for this activity or install targets on the wall.
We must also keep in mind that, contrary to what one might believe, turbulent and disorganized play, even when it involves its share of shoving and fighting, is not bad in itself for children. Studies attribute a host of virtues to it: reduction in cases of bullying, increase in conflict management skills, better self-esteem, greater concentration.2…
If we really care about the well-being of children, all of this is well worth the risk of banning all these prohibitions.
1. Listen to an interview with the president of the Quebec Federation of Educational Institution Directors on 98.5 FM
2. Consult a document from the Canadian Pediatric Society
Read the file “Prohibitions by the ton in schoolyards”