You’re welcome.
So after Hanna fell and chipped a bone on her elbow last week an announcement was made at her school.
Friday morning’s announcements were delivered with a sullen tone and included things like a weather report, a bus route change, something about intramural volleyball and after a long, quiet silence, heavy breathing through the intercom, “STUDENTS ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO DO CARTWHEELS ON SCHOOL PROPERTY.”
Luckily, Hanna and Ellie were at the Dentist’s and unable to hear what I’m sure must have followed. A wave of whispers renaming the cartwheel-ruling “The Hanna Rule” or “The Case Of The Broken Elbow Courtesy of Hanna” or “Thanks For Nothing Hanna!” or “No More Turning, Just Book Learning” (to be chanted). You get the idea.
I received emails from a couple of parents giggling about the announcement others I suspect were looking for the first opportunity to change schools. I would have.
If cartwheels had been banned from my elementary school, I can’t really think of a solid reason why I would have stayed. I would have signed my own transfer card and just waited for the first bus to a more welcoming playing field.
I spent every available second on the playground doing cartwheels, round-offs, back-handsprings. Sometimes I fell, sometimes I didn’t but nobody considered banning tremendous physical exercise as well as training for my future career as a member of the traveling circus.
There are two groups of kids; those who can cartwheel and those who can’t. Those who can cartwheel typically find some other way to busy themselves at recess because chances are they are cartwheeling three to five days a week in a gym.
Those who can’t cartwheel spend their recesses trying to learn how. Sadly, those teaching them are other non-cartwheelers so they are spotted by uncertified coaches who don’t really understand the basics and might grab you by the ankles just prior to you kicking them in the chin. I’ve seen it happen.
I think the school has taken this too far.
I think it’s worth mentioning, three weeks ago, my girls told me of a wild peacock roaming around the school grounds every day. Some days, the Principal tries to walk the peacock down the street off of the property, others, the kids just chase it and draw pictures of it.
I find it very hard to believe that the cartwheel was banned before wild game but there it is.
I should also note, we received a call a couple of weeks before the cartwheel accident that Hanna (again) had nearly hung herself on the rope climber and had rope burn under her chin and back of her neck.
No ban on public hangings but the cartwheel?—Get rid of it!
You know kids are drawn to things they aren’t allowed to do.
One parent emailed me to say her kids just sat down at recess and did absolutely nothing. It was cartwheels or staring blankly for that group.
The word recess has become a hindrance rather than an expression of artistic freedom.
And how does one police the cartwheel ban? Surely the peacock isn’t rigged with a camera…is he?
