Going Viral

Response That Tells a Story

We posted a piece recently about the perverse effects of protecting children from being children.  It specifically focused upon what has happened in a school where "health and safety" rules were abolished in the playground.  The effects have been salutary and very positive.  The post was entitled Unintended Perverse Effects.

Once the story became public, the school principal has been inundated with requests for information and general interest.  This, as reported in Stuff:

An Auckland principal who bravely ditched the playground rulebook has been overwhelmed by the positive international response to his story.  The phone has been buzzing with calls and interview requests from around the world for Swanson Primary School principal Bruce McLachlan.  "It's been a busy week, I didn't expect it. It's the reaction against the cotton-woolling of kids, helicopter parenting and nanny states."

It's gone viral--showing that there is unease at the grassroots over the state's nannying propensities in the vain attempt to protect people from themselves and to make the world one without risk, threat, or injury.
 

The Sunday Star-Times last week reported on the huge success the university experiment had on children's behaviour - a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism - after the school let children do what they liked.  Rather than misbehaving, the children were burning all their energy climbing trees, riding skateboards and playing bullrush.  The story was shared more than 90,000 times on Facebook and the principal has been interviewed by 14 international media organisations. Another 30 principals have also contacted McLachlan.  "What's really surprised me is there has been no disagreement. There isn't a naysayer among them."

Maybe this will be part of a roll-back of the lunacy and vanity and hubristic overreach whereby governments and bureaucrats attempt to swaddle  their citizens and subjects in protective cotton-wool.  Health and safety rules, regulations, and regimens have resulted in an unwarranted extension of state power--all well intentioned, all trying to prevent harm and damage.  But the trade-off, which is to push and cajole people to accept a soft-despotic state, is by far the biggest danger and threat of all. 

Far better to let people face consequences of their actions rather than attempting to so protect them by "do's and don't's, rules and regulations, so that bad or negative consequences might never eventuate.  One of the most perverse side effects is inert populations, where instead of "nothing ventured, nothing gained" the prevailing ethos is one of fear and doubt.  Another perverse effect is to socialise responsibility for one's actions rather than sheet home responsibility to where it actually lies.

Let's hope Swanson Primary School (and the Otago University research underlying it) is an avatar of needed change.