An Outside View: Tag, you’re “it”

“Tag, you’re it,” are words that some California educators would like to have stricken from the English language. Well, maybe not the words themselves but they would at least like to see the playground game of tag eliminated. Last year it was dodge ball and now it is tag. What will be next? Red Rover? Oh, sorry, that’s been banned in some places too. According to a Jim Caple article in “ESPN The Magazine,” a Santa Monica elementary school principal has banned the traditional game from his playgrounds. His reason? It has the potential of hurting the self-esteem of the child who is “it.” Surely, there are things that might traumatize a kid more than being “it” in a harmless game of tag? Raise your hand if you played tag as a youngster. Do you carry any emotional scars from the game? Do you have nightmares still? Have you explained all of this to your shrink? I didn’t think so. If how it affects one’s self-esteem is going to be the measuring stick for all sports and playground games, we’re going to have a lot of fat little kids running around due to lack of exercise. Do fat kids have high self-esteem? A glance into my Crystal Ball tells it all. What’s that? Oh yes, I see. It is getting clearer now. I see some do-gooders trying to ban baseball. Can you imagine the low self-esteem of a batter who strikes out on three pitches? How dare that pitcher make him feel bad like that? Wait, I see something else. They are trying to abolish basketball. It just isn’t fair they say to make Little Johnny hold up his hand for the world to see when he commits a foul. He can’t feel good about himself. Besides, that kind of discipline should be handled privately in a more constructive manner. Tell me more Crystal Ball. Oh no, it’s football? What does it do to Little Johnny’s self-esteem when he fumbles the ball and causes his team to lose the game? Is that an empty Neyland Stadium I see? Maybe they can sell 107,000 tickets to a spelling bee. No, that won’t work. Little Johnny won’t feel good about himself when he misspells arachnophobia. Come to think of it, I guess we will have to ban science fairs too because we don’t want the losers to feel bad. That’s enough Crystal Ball. Say no more! Reading Caple’s story reminded me of a speech that Bill Gates allegedly gave at a high school. If you don’t know who Bill Gates is, well, I don’t want to hurt your self-esteem. Let’s just say he is a pretty smart guy. Anyway Gates lashed out at “feel good,” politically correct education. He says this type of teaching has no relationship to reality and only sets kids up for failure. And what did Gates say about self-esteem? “The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.” I’m sure that our California friend would shudder at the thought. If we adhered to his line of thinking, we would soon have a nation full of people who feel really good about themselves but accomplish nothing because they never learned how to compete. Like it or not, kids first learn to compete on the playground and on the athletic field and they learn valuable lessons that will serve them well in adulthood when they get a taste of the real world. Competition! Is it good or bad? That is really at the heart of our little debate here. Our Left Coast principal would say that it is evil because someone has to lose and losing doesn’t feel good. My response? Hog Wash! In case you haven’t noticed, it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. Our free enterprise system is based on the concept of competition and it has served us well all of these years. I admit that losing doesn’t feel good. On the other hand, winning feels great! And frankly, I want winners on my side whether it is in a business venture, my doctor doing a medical procedure on me, or my attorney representing me in court. I’m not paying my doctor to feel good about himself. I’m paying him to cure whatever ails me. A final word about being “it.” I understand that being “it” in a game of tag can be a not-so-pleasant experience. But things don’t change when they grow up. Someday, they will be “it” on the job when the boss is having a bad day. The mean old ogre may be totally unfair. So what? He has a job to do and if it isn’t getting done he doesn’t give a flip about your self-esteem. As I see it, kids might as well get used to being “it” at an early age. It will only be worse in the real world.