As we all know with the Health and Safety Nazis taking over the, well everything, in a futile attempt to make sure nobody ever gets a skinned knee or a bloddy nose it seems that technology is coming out with replacements for play time toys.
Read here about a collaboration between Nintendo and schools to work on kids games being ported to the Wii.
Now, I have a Wii, and very nice it is too but for the life of me I fail to see the point of replacing a bit of rope, or string, you can pick up at home or for £5 in a very expensive shop with a bit of kit that costs over £150, doesn’t handle being wet very well, breaks easily, is easily stolen and is usually not taken to school. In my day we had chalk, a ball for the boys, skipping rope for the girls and a concrete playground. If we were lucky. Yet we all ran about like maniacs playing and having fun. Playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians and a good time was had by all. Nowadays we can’t play cowboys and indians because that is racist. Can’t play cops and robbers because nobody wants to be a copper any more unless they have a personality disorder and woe betide anyone who makes a gun shape with their hand and points it at anyone. SWAT will be on you before you have time to put your hand back into it’s normal shape.
So skipping, football, baseball etc. will all now be performedby Wii. Sports teachers will have to become IT experts and kids will just have to wait until they are 18 to learn that gravity and inertia are bitches. Just hope they don’t take too many people with them while they learn from experience much, much later than we did.
If this is the future then maybe we should start buying shares in technology companies.
That’s a significant comment from you but I agree – there are some things technology is the best choice for and others not.
Sometimes there is no real substitute for technology. Think of Sat Nav and what it has done.
But a skipping rope? Seriously?
Oftentimes it’s going to take an individual to place the information before you before you know that every body might take much more proper care.