[Thorliveshere]

I’m convinced that the 1980s were the last traditional decade for kids. The veteran teachers and school administrators who controlled the schools in the eighties learned their craft in the fifties and sixties. They were fine with us playing tag and dodgeball and having “challenging” playground equipment and jungle gyms to play on at recess.

Amen! I believe that, too! It was about 1987 that I noticed the touchy-feely crap sneaking into schools. I remember once--since I was so chronically shy at the time---they brought together a group of kids they felt weren't being "reached" or something like that, and I was included. I didn't want to, but they had me in this group along with a "peer member" who was someone we were suppose to confide with and tell our problems to. Guess who broke down and started crying during the meeting? Unh-hunh. The peer member. The rest of us just looked at each other and had the same thought, "what the **** is this?"

[Yardstick]

Yeah, I remember when the touchy feely stuff started to creep in. Every now and then they’d pull us from dodge ball and have us do cooperative noncompetitive games. It’s funny because I can look back now and see what they were up to. Like there was there was a whole category of games involving a parachute. We’d all be holding onto the parachute and they’d throw some balls in the middle of it and we’d all raise our arms and loft the balls into the air. There were no winners or losers to this so no one got their feelings hurt, but our real enthusiasm was for dodgeball and that sort of thing. The people who were trying to sneak that stuff in in the 80s were in control by the 90s.