That’s Not Risk-Aversion, it’s Risk-PHOBIA.

Back in 2005 I wrote More Moronics from Nerf™land – I Mean England, about a recommendation by a group of doctors who wanted the government to ban kitchen knives because – and I quote:

Doctors claim long kitchen knives serve no purpose except as weapons

I noted that, were it me, I wouldn’t be giving up my 10″ Henckel’s Chef’s knife any time soon. In the same piece I also reported on the effort to get pubs to use plastic pint glasses and plastic beer bottles because – again I quote:

Pub fights ‘cost £4m a year.’

In that piece I advised:

I’ll tell you what: Let’s just raze the British Isles, tote off all of the wood and brick and glass and metal and rebuild with terrycloth, foam rubber, Saran-wrap and soft plastics and then you’ll all be safe! Right?

As soon as everyone is in a straightjacket, that is. You seem to need the spinal support.

I thought I was being facetious. Apparently not:

Now pupils are banned from throwing paper planes

Pupils have been banned from throwing paper planes to one another – in case they get injured.

Staff at a primary school have instead set up special targets in the playground for the children to aim at.

The edict follows claims by teachers that a few of the school’s pupils, aged between three and 11, had been ‘over-zealous’ in launching the missiles.

The headteacher argued the ban was ‘a sensible’ measure – but parents of some of the 230 pupils reacted with disbelief.

Coming in the wake of high-profile bans around the country on traditional playground games such as tag and conkers, they fear aversion to risk is denying their children the learning experience they enjoyed.

One father of a seven-year-old boy said: ‘I’ve heard it all now. We made paper planes and our parents did the same and I never heard of anyone getting hurt.

‘It’s taking the health-and-safety measures to absurd lengths. Heaven knows what they will think to ban next.’

Staff at Bishops Down Primary School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, introduced the ban earlier this month after two pupils were seen aiming their paper planes at other children.

The youngsters are still allowed to make the darts but are being supervised to ensure they only launch them at the targets.

Headteacher Emma Savage sai staff were particularly concerned about eye injuries.

‘These planes can have sharp edges and have the potential to damage a young person’s eyes,’ she said.

You’ll put your eye out!

‘We have stopped pupils from aiming them at other children’s eyes, which would seem like a reasonable thing to do.

You’ve flown paper airplanes before. They’re not exactly yard-darts. Can anybody accurately hit a moving target with a paper airplane? Especially one with a 15mm bullseye? (Pun intended.)

‘But they can still make and throw planes as much as they want because we have a safe area with targets in the playground.

‘The measure was taken because some of the children were getting a bit over-zealous.’

Mrs Savage claimed no one had complained about the ban.

Paper planes have been a feature of playgrounds since the turn of the last century, although the Chinese were making paper kites 2,000 years ago. And Leonardo da Vinci created parchment planes after sketching early designs for flying machines.

The art of making paper planes is taken seriously enough for an entry to be registered by Guinness World Records.

American enthusiast Ken Blackburn holds the record for achieving flight time of 27.6 seconds in 1998.

A spokeswoman for Kent Council said schools were free to enforce their own safety measures but added.

‘I have never heard of any restrictions being imposed on paper planes before.’

It is the latest in a string of playground safety clampdowns.

Staff at Broomley First School in Stocksfield, Northumberland, ordered children to stop playing tag because it was ‘too rough’. Many schools have banned conkers forcing pupils to wear goggles while playing – because they fear they could be used as ‘offensive weapons’.

And a Gloucestershire village had to remove swings because they faced the sun and there was concern users could be blinded.

Sweet. Bleeding. Jeebus. I guess even they figured out that banning the sun wasn’t going to work.

A survey of 500 youngsters by The Children’s Society charity found the majority believe playgrounds are boring. Forty-five per cent said they had been stopped from playing with water and a third from climbing trees.

It really is Nerf™land!

Some comments from the article:

Has anyone checked that the cotton wool, the kids are wrapped up in these days, is not allergic to them…?

– Pete, Colchester, Essex

There are way too many laws, rules, regulations and prohibitions in this country now in an effort to make life failsafe. Life’s not like that, and any intelligent person will merely ignore this nonsense.

– Nigel Smith, London

But you can’t ignore it, Nigel. The State will come enforce itself on you if you try.

What can anyone say? Words completely fail me – except to say the people who decide on these rules are completely barking mad.

– Carolyn, Isle of Man

But Carolyn, the “completely barking mad” are in charge of the education of your children.

Balls can be thrown so why not ban those… skipping ropes could be used to hang children and god forbid that they should carry sharp pencils or even worse umbrellas.

These sad, sad people who think up such rubbish must have had a sad, sad childhood themselves.
Let the children laugh to remind us of ourselves and let them grow with a strength and determination to succeed. Allow them to have a competitive spirit and the will to go forward. Let them rejoice in the thrill of winning and the fear of chance.

Wrap them in cotton wool and we will be breeding a generation of losers and whiners.

– Alan, Weston Super Mare

Err, Alan, which generation is it, do you think, that’s proposing these bans?

I’ve got two quotes to add to this. One is very old:

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. – Aristotle

The other I’ve repeated here often:

The other day our Carpenter’s helper heard me say something along the lines of, “it is difficult to conclude that incompetence is the reason why our public schools have deteriorated. There comes a point where you have to suspect sabotage, or a conspiracy.”

He asked me if I really meant that. I gave him the five minute explanation of John Dewey’s known affiliation with communists, his frequent essays and articles about the wonders of the Soviet education system, and his quote, “You can’t make Socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”

I then went on to tell him about how public schools changed at the turn of the last century. That there were others involved in turning Americans from free-thinking individualists to factory drones. I also added that many people probably went along with it because it seemed like a good idea, but there were certainly enough people behind the scenes, who knew that the goal posts had been moved. THAT is a conspiracy.

Yes. There does come that time when you are forced to don the tinfoil hat.

The incompetence excuse only works once. Incompetence this great is impossible to attribute to accident.

That one’s by Connie du Toit.

Yup. I’m convinced this kind of thing is deliberate, and for precisely the reason Aristotle noted.

Intelligent, active, healthy, educated children make poor drones when they grow up.