I am listening to Dennis Prager this morning and he is mentioning a piece by Christina Hoff Summers in the latest issue of Time magazine.
Yeah, there is still a Time magazine. It outlasted Newsweek and will probably keep doing so.
The piece by Mrs. Summers is that schools are becoming, no check that, hostile to boys.
There is a lot of evidence to back her up on that audacious claim. In a lot if not most school districts, there are "zero tolerance" policies for various real and imaginary offenses. And one is that guns, any kind, real, made or imaginary are a huge no-no. Mrs. Summers offers examples of this inane policy.
But Mr. Prager mentioned something that caught my attention.
In some schools, tug-of-war is no more. Oh, it is not like the concept is totally on the ash-bin of history. It is just renamed, and the point of the long-running activity is twisted and it is know as, I can not believe that I am writing this, tug-of-peace.
I kid you not.
If you go to the link in Mrs. Summers article, you will see a flyer for an elementary school celebration. And buried in the events is tug-of-peace.
Who comes up with this crap?!
Well, I put tug-of-peace in a search engine and there is an online game store called Cooperative Games.
I knew that it sounded bad but when you go to the site, it is worse than you can imagine.
But it is instructive because it explains the concept of tug-of-peace:
Participants group themselves around a rope that has been tied in a knot to form a circle. Players squat down around the rope, holding the rope with both hands. At the count of three, all players lean back and-using the energy of the group-they stand up. When everyone has stood up (and cheered), players can, on the count of three again, carefully lean back into a squat.
In this game, the counterbalance support that players provide to one another is a graphic representation of mutual support and cooperation. It’s a totally different experience than Tug-of-War, which can be a painful exercise that activates aggression and leaves players in the dirt.
(This game comes from Maria Sapon-Shevin, “Because We Can Change the World”)
First, I would like to ask Miss Sapon-Shevin how this "game" changes the world? To me it makes both boys and girls weak and takes away their individuality.
Oops! My bad! I guess that is the point. to stifle individuality. Why no one person can be better than another. One team pulling on a rope is so, so unfair. Because it teaches that there are winners and losers.
And in the real world, sorry folks, there are winners and losers. And to promote such a false teaching as the Cooperative Games folks do is just wrong.
So in going backwards on the explanation of the point of tug-of-peace, let's focus on this line:
It’s a totally different experience than Tug-of-War, which can be a painful exercise that activates aggression and leaves players in the dirt.
Yes, the team that loses will fall in the dirt. Yes it gets rid of natural aggression by both sides. And yes, there can be pain and that is not just for the losers. The winners will actually have more pain because they have been pulling as hard as they can. The team that loses actually has given up and thus they get maybe a mud bath.
It's kind of the point.
But I love the socialist message of the joy of tug-of-peace:
In this game, the counterbalance support that players provide to one another is a graphic representation of mutual support and cooperation.
Well, if everyone "wins", then it is really no longer a game. It is an exercise, but not a game. And tug-of-war is a game. In a game, there are winners and losers. But it Cooperative Game Land, there are no winners or losers. Everyone will have their perceived self-esteem intact.
Now the actual game itself, without to social engineering can be OK:
Participants group themselves around a rope that has been tied in a knot to form a circle. Players squat down around the rope, holding the rope with both hands. At the count of three, all players lean back and-using the energy of the group-they stand up. When everyone has stood up (and cheered), players can, on the count of three again, carefully lean back into a squat.
Take out the phony cheer and the exercise is just that. A group exercise that can be good for the body.
But I assure you, this site is just frightening to me. For while I do not have anything against cooperation in general, what this does as I noted is take away the individuality of people, especially children and young people.
So I went to the link on the story about Cooperative Games. It is a long meandering piece, but it is the brainchild of one Suzanne Lyons. And she is not a dumb person. She writes that she has degrees in physics, Earth science, and science education. And she also has a California teaching credential. Lord have mercy! You have to go quite away down the story of Cooperative Games, but this is the motivating factor to how it came into being:
Here is the story of how this business came to be: My husband, Pete, and I watched our kids play competitive sports through childhood and vie for the “Principal’s Award” in school. While basketball, Spelling Bees and other competitive activities have an upside, they also promote aggression and stress and lead to bruised feelings. Likewise, competitive board games can often bring out feelings of anger, defeat, selfishness, or aggression.
You have to get here to know that Mrs. Lyons is even married.
But what a shock as sports is what made her and Pete crazy. That damn competitiveness. Promoting aggression, stress, "bruised" feelings.
What Mrs Lyons does not mention is that there are team sports and individual sports. Swimming, golf, tennis deal with individuals and yes there is team scoring, but the individual is emphasized. And team sports do at the child and youth level emphasize working as a team and even in team sports individual achievement is lionized.
But you know, there are some kids that are better than others. Some teams better than others. And in Mr. and Mrs. Lyons world, that is just awful.
Think about the feelings of the losers. They are angry, selfish and even more aggressive being losers.
Oh I know, you think that it is mean to use such a term.
Winners and losers.
It is not mean but real. Yes Mrs. Lyons, whether you like it or not, there are winners and losers.
Even her Mrs. Lyons' description of defending why they can't have low prices, it is a slam against the capitalist system that actually fosters such an endeavor that she is taking:
Our prices are as low as possible. We have to keep the lights on, so we can’t engage in the kinds of hypercompetitive price-slashing that the big retailers sometimes use. We don’t use computer programs that sniff out the lowest prices on the web for given products then reduce our price by a penny or two to capture your business. Another business practice grounded in a cooperative mindset is that we strive to “co-exist” rather than “compete” with other merchants. To each, his own. Let’s hope there are many companies that will earn a living through cooperative play in the future. We don’t have to be the biggest one or the only one; we just have to be ourselves–CooperativeGames.com. Good Wishes for Peace and Prosperity to All. Period.
UGH! What a frickin' tool!
So Mrs. Lyons, is all your business about keeping the lights on? Wouldn't you like to actually make money? Would you not like the opportunity to expand the message and sales of Cooperative Games?
No, because in your words, yuk–that’s hyper competition and it’s unsustainable.
What will be unsustainable is this business model. Eventually if more and more people want the products you provide, then you will have to expand. Yes Mrs. Lyons you may have to hire actual employees. You may have to have a warehouse that will be able to store the products so that there will be enough to fill orders. Then it is no longer about keeping the lights on.
But judging, yes friends I AM being judgemental-BWWWWWWWAAAAAHHHHHH!-by this business model, Mrs. Lyons has really no interest in making money but in promoting this concept of cooperation over individual intuitive. And that will lead to eventually this business going by the wayside.
But not the concept.
It is all about this concept.
And here is what is scary about Cooperative Games.
They are infiltrating our schools.
How else would the Albany, Minnesota elementary school know of such a "game"?
Well, here is why. Cooperative Games has an "Educator's Hub" and it is an orgasm of sorts for teachers like Mrs. Lyons.
And of course educator is an inclusive term because that does not mean just teachers but administrators as well. That would also include principals and school boards.
BAM!
It is the kind of "thinking" of Mrs. Lyons that is turning boys into lobotomized zombies rather than fostering their natural aggression and play to the kind of games that will not turn them into future mass murderers but normal grown men.
There is a balance that can be had here. But when you read people like Mrs. Lyons and see the ideas she promotes in practice, it is totally unbalanced and worse does not prepare boys and girls for the real world.
And the point of Mrs. Summer's article is that boys are even less prepared to be part of the real world than ever.
And the scary thing is that Cooperative Games is part of that problem.
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