
School ditches rules and loses bullies - luu
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/school-ditches-rules-and-loses-bullies-5807957
======
argumentum
Since my natural preference (and probably that of many here) would be more
freedom I think it's important to be wary of wishful thinking. Even though I
think the link between authoritarian institutions and bullying is _real_ ,
there are too many variables at play to make such a direct assertion.

Regardless, I favor less rules and more freedom for kids _for it 's own sake_.
If there are social and/or developmental benefits, that would be icing on the
cake.

Where I grew up (near Charlottesville, VA), I had acres of wilderness in my
backyard and the surrounding area to explore with my friends. We would build
make play forts, climb (real) trees, make bridges over creeks and rivers etc.
In the winter we'd go sledding, unsupervised, on _real_ hills that we
discovered ourselves .. age ranges from 7 to 10.

Nearby there were a couple old plantation houses (ruins) near the scene of
various battles from the revolutionary to the civil war. One even had
cannonballs embedded in the walls. To be clear, these were _just there_ , not
maintained as museums etc. They were a rumor passed from older kids to younger
ones, each mini-generation re-discovering them and the wonders contained.

I bet if our parents knew exactly what we were doing they would have been
horrified, that was part of the fun. We did these things _without their
permission_.

When I was about 13, we moved to upper middle class suburban California. Nice,
_safe_ , maintained parks. Pretend islands with pretend castles, slides and
playground equipment with signs displaying instructions for "proper use."
Frankly, boring, synthetic and alarmingly _sad_.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
>Even though I think the link between authoritarian institutions and bullying
is real, there are too many variables at play to make such a direct assertion.

On the contrary, the problem is that schools are _insufficiently_
authoritarian. Low-level harassment by students goes unpunished, while
outright retaliation (a well-deserved punch in the face) _is_ punished.

A lot of schools are in this weird uncanny valley between freedom and strict
discipline. _Both_ would create order, but choosing one in between will have
the advantages of neither.

~~~
kazagistar
I am not sure your ideal of perfect authoritarianism is possible. If you want
to torment someone it is always going to be possible to do invisibly to casual
observation. Restrictions merely determine the language of what harassment
consists off, but those who are less well adjusted socially, who are unable to
participate as effectively in whatever social maneuvering exists, will always
be targeted.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
_My_ impossible idea? I was not the one who coined the phrase "Zero
tolerance."

~~~
ogreyonder
Yes, the idea you espouse. Yours, given that you promoted it. Or do you want
to revise your statement?

------
ctdonath
Occurs to me that under the strict playground rules, the school was
effectively being a bully: harmless natural behavior was being punished way
out of proportion and with no sensible (to the kids) reason. Seems the bullies
were just mimicking what the school was doing.

~~~
ronaldx
Agree in principle: a great deal of bullying goes on in schools that is not
pupil-on-pupil.

~~~
doktrin
I grew up partly in the French school system, and this certainly holds true.
Teachers were often prototypical bullies : humiliating kids, mocking them
outright, verbally lashing out at them.

No shocker that this behavior trickles down as a model to follow.

~~~
Loic
I grew up partly in the French school system too, but never had such kind of
teachers. I was both in private schools and ZEP (area with high level of
immigration and considered schools with problems). This is just to balance
your point of view with respect to the French school system.

------
sunir
While ideologically I am more likely to agree with the study (hence the need
for more caution), the results seem possibly (I bet, more) likely due to the
Hawthorne effect. That is the kids and teachers felt they were special because
of the study and so behaved better. Alternatively, fabricated data.

The article is written like this is a silver bullet with hand waving
pseudoscience justification which implies it is total bull.

~~~
antipodean
I grew up in New Zealand in the 80s. Bullrush, 3-story high flying foxes on
school property, huge trees, open farmland, unsupervised cross-country runs:
no adults around were par for the course except if someone broke a bone (which
I remember happening in my community twice in 10 years) and we managed
ourselves. We like to think we're a good outdoor lot of people and many of us
adults have been horrified to think our kids can't grow up like we did.

What I saw in this video was like looking back 30 years and it made me happy.
You're underestimating our kids to think we can't let them loose for a good
game of bullrush and they are more aware that they are being watched than
actually just playing the rules of the game. Also remember that Rugby is New
Zealand's national sport and these kids grow up watching it and knowing the
rules. I'd bet some of those kids end up in the All Blacks.

~~~
ehmish
Another New Zealander here, there's merit to encouraging safety consciousness
in children. An injury like a broken back (That most people think will "never
happen to them") can doom someone for life. Teaching rigorous safety
consciousness in children should result in some of that safety consciousness
sticking around into adulthood.

That being said, I also think rugby is a silly game.

~~~
antipodean
>Teaching rigorous safety consciousness in children

Yes, watching the video reminded me that no-one taught me how to tackle when I
was playing Rugby as a skinny 11 year old. Good to see the kids at the school
have someone to help them avoid those common injuries and still get some
decent play in.

------
johnchristopher
There weren't any rules when I was in primary school either and there
definitely were bullies and injuries on the playground.

> Children develop the frontal lobe of their brain when taking risks, meaning
> they work out consequences. "You can't teach them that. They have to learn
> risk on their own terms. It doesn't develop by watching TV, they have to get
> out there."

Weak argument for the no-rules position. Children get injuries all the time,
whether you have rules or not :].

The fact that this particular school has no reports of injuries seems
suspicious to me. And a (self reported) higher level of concentration in the
classroom can't be related to the playground absence of rules (well, the
article doesn't provide any explanations for that). Did they ditch the coke
vending machines as well ? I could believe that.

Disclaimer: I was raised in Europe and although there were no rules per se we
weren't allowed to leave the school premises. The article doesn't give enough
details to compare both situations.

~~~
MAGZine
The article doesn't give a lot of information, but neither does your
anecdotes.

>There weren't any rules when I was in primary school either and there
definitely were bullies and injuries on the playground.

I'm not sure that the article is saying that the removal of rules has lead to
zero bullies/injuries--just a reduction.

>Weak argument for the no-rules position. Children get injuries all the time,
whether you have rules or not :].

This is an even weaker argument _for_ rules. If children are going to get
injuries whether you have rules or not, than why are you wasting time rule-
making when nobody wants to follow the rules and nobody wants to enforce the
rules? Furthermore, I'd say that the thesis of "less rules means more
activity, means less time spent harassing and troublemaking," is very
plausible.

It's like getting a husky and crating him up all day, then wondering why he's
irritable and destructive.

~~~
johnchristopher
It got stuck in the keyboard but I wanted to add in the disclaimer that I
don't have any strong opinion on the subject of rules on the playground.
Moreover, there seem to be significant differences between our countries on
that topic.

> The article doesn't give a lot of information, but neither does your
> anecdotes.

I fully agree with you, I just wanted to point out that one school "without
rules" is not enough to draw any conclusion regarding bullying as the article
seems to imply. (I read "lose bullies" as "no bullies", my mistake).

> This is an even weaker argument for rules.

I don't really have an argument for or against rules. I don't even know what's
in the playground rulebook.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Am I the only one that does not see anything special about those kids?

We played with sticks and stones, football, skate, bmx biking, hiking all the
time in Spain.

You got hurt all the time too, but mostly scratches, you understood risk and
knew the limits.

There were also bullies, but the best thing you can do against bullies is
fight them back. There are some places with rules like "no fighting" that
ironically makes bullies rule.

~~~
mwcampbell
> but the best thing you can do against bullies is fight them back.

That sounds crazy to me. Doesn't fighting back just escalate things? And do we
really want the next generation to grow up thinking that fighting is OK? Will
they apply that same pattern when they're adults?

~~~
DonGateley
I wouldn't mind at all if the next generation was more comfortable with
fighting. It's a basic human instinct and when basic instincts are completely
suppressed pathological behaviors will bulge out instead.

The current state of "assault" law is appalling, especially in the U.S. We
need to get more than a bit back to what we actually are.

~~~
mwcampbell
What exactly do you mean by "what we actually are"? I don't want to jump to
conclusions and go off in the wrong direction.

------
thom
I look forward to them publishing, and will be interested to see the long term
effects, especially with kids that have been exposed to only this regime from
the moment they join the school. On the face of it right now, I'd be wary of
the Hawthorne effect:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)

------
brazzy
So 10,000 children grow up happier and learning proper risk taking
behaviour... and one dies from strangulation when going down a slide with a
rope in hand (happened last week in my city)... and one is quadriplegic for
life after jumping into a murky lake (friend of my cousin)...

Do we really, _really_ just want to accept those risks? I don't think that's
easy to answer...

~~~
Fuxy
Yes, it's called evolution the kid that can't figure out he is doing something
very dangerous does't end up having children of his own.

I know this sounds very harsh but it's not like there is another way to teach
this to children. They need to figure it out on their own.

All parents wish they could wrap their children in cotton but the reality is
they can't do that forever it's best children lern about risk early.

~~~
antipodean
I don't know why you are being downvoted. Humans are physical creatures as
much as thinkers, and not letting kids find physical limits is going to have
severe effects on their ability to think and take creative risks with their
minds.

------
smsm42
So, kids can survive playing around without paranoid adults standing over them
and monitoring them 24/7? Truly shocking news indeed, it's not like this is
exactly what has been happening for millenia, until the current paranoid
approach to minuscule risks took over.

~~~
ansimionescu
> [...] until the current paranoid approach to minuscule lawsuits took over.

FTFY. But, then again, I'm a helpless cynic.

~~~
smsm42
Lawsuits are the consequence of that. The concept is that if something happen,
there must be somebody to blame, because they "should have done something to
prevent it". And the lawsuits are in no way minuscule - they are actually huge
and consist a serious drag on the economy, but the worst consequence, of
course, is the behavior modification which emphasizes covering one's ass over
all else.

------
yetanotherphd
In the actual video, the principal doesn't say there are no rules, but that
they start off with no rules and create them collaboratively is the need
arises. E.g. no high tackles in the game of bullrush

~~~
dippyskoodlez
Exactly. Kids don't want to hurt themselves or others, they just sometimes
don't realize certain things like high tackles could be inherently dangerous.
Teaching in this method is brilliant IMO.

------
jotm
The effect on bullying is likely minimal - in my school, everyone could do
whatever they wanted and there were still plenty of assholes that made life
hell.

~~~
hrjet
In the school mentioned in the article, there was a significant _decrease_ in
bullying. But we don't know absolute figures before and after (understandably,
that is difficult to measure).

Two thoughts:

1\. Perhaps the effect of loosening the rules lasts only a few years. After
that the playground gets boring again and the bullies resume their behavior.

2\. There might be other factors too, such as the environment of the kids when
they are away from school.

~~~
dwaltrip
3\. Measuring the amount of bullying that occurs is not an exact science?

Not to say that letting the kids get their hands dirty is a bad idea.

------
johnny99
That story is anecdote. Not surprising or a problem from a general news
source. But as a few commenters have pointed out, it ignores the fact of high
risk/low probability events, and our general inability to properly assess
those.

I'm surprised this crowd isn't more data-driven in its assessment. Surely
studies of child safety trends exist, and could be correlated to levels of
regulation?

The closest thing a quick Google turned up is a study of mandatory cycle
helmet legislation and its effect on injury rates. Those rates declined 45%
after the introduction of helmet laws. Perhaps not a perfect analogy, but
chalk one up for regulation.
[http://cyclehelmets.org/1106.html](http://cyclehelmets.org/1106.html)

------
tod222
Lenore Skenazy (Free Range Kids) blogged about this. [1] A commenter linked to
a podcast with the school Principal. [2]

[1] [http://www.freerangekids.com/unsafe-playground-happier-
safer...](http://www.freerangekids.com/unsafe-playground-happier-safer-kids/)

[2]
[http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20140127-0909-free_play...](http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20140127-0909-free_play_at_school-048.mp3)

------
adamgravitis
Seems like there may be a correlation with: Corruptissima re publica plurimae
leges (The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government)

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tacitus](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tacitus)

~~~
antipodean
Not in this case:

[http://www.3news.co.nz/New-Zealand-again-least-corrupt-
natio...](http://www.3news.co.nz/New-Zealand-again-least-corrupt-
nation/tabid/423/articleID/323818/Default.aspx)

But I will say that New Zealand has a perceived problem currently as a
somewhat 'nanny state'. Definitely a million kinds of by-laws but we try to
resolve our differences with fairness in mind. Generally I describe New
Zealand as a 'fair' country, as in, let's figure out what's fair for all
involved.

------
rsl7
A lot of new experiments like this are basically the montessori approach. our
kids' montessori school has giant tree logs and boulders.

------
kudu
There's nothing very new about this. Aboriginal societies have been exercising
the principle of permissive education for hundreds for years. There is
something very logical about the idea of applying the premise of learning from
one's mistakes to even the most basic things in life, which are learned as
children.

------
3rd3
I think, in order to work that well, this kind of "riot" school yard activity
would require a teacher with certain character traits such as authority,
playfulness and calm at the same time. That guy in the video seems to suit
very well. But it certainly looks like a good concept.

------
bane
I absolutely agree with this move, but I'll play devil's advocate for a moment
on this

>Letting children test themselves on a scooter during playtime could make them
more aware of the dangers when getting behind the wheel of a car in high
school, he said.

Back in the days before all this modern child cocooning began, kids were free
to roam and do pretty much whatever they wanted. But car drivers of the time
routinely drove around without safety belts in what were essentially death
traps. After safety belts and very basic safety equipment were introduced, it
still took decades for people who grew up with the freer childhoods to really
cotton on to them.

~~~
smsm42
When I grew up I could roam freely (well, mostly, and I didn't always make as
good use of it as I could, often preferring books to soccer) and I still have
absolutely no problem with the concept of the safety belt. I know my safety is
my responsibility, and if I have a device that can (and arguably already did)
save my life - IMO only idiot won't use such a device. So I don't see any
connection between rejecting belts and having freerange childhood.

~~~
bane
Well, the article is positing the opposite effect is true, that cocooned
children don't grow up with an appropriate respect for things that will hurt
you, like driving your car safely. My devil's advocate argument is that the
opposite is demonstrably true, that children who weren't cocooned _did_ in
fact grow up to not appreciate things that would hurt them. A 1950s car, for
example, was basically a passenger mulching machine, yet people who grew up
uncocooned (as was common at the time) drove them with quite a bit of abandon,
flying all over the inside of the passenger area without even basic safety
harnesses.

I don't remember the statistic off the top of my head, but Ralph Nader brought
to light one particularly brutal group of years where a large number of
passengers were decapitated on the glove box door during accidents that were
occurring at speeds under 35 mph.

------
ausjke
I would like to send my kids there if there is a school like that at any
state!

~~~
rjd
I grew up in NZ, Swanson is one of the rougher and poorer areas in Auckland,
and the school no doubt has all the issues that come with areas like that. I'd
be careful that gains aren't skewed as its not a 'average' school or socio-
economic environment.

~~~
wepple
yeah, my thoughts exactly. The study is fairly biased in that if you did this
to Remuera school, results may be significantly different.

------
memracom
In my 7 year old daughter's gymnastics class the girls all play bullrush for
fun during the last 10 minutes or so. Of course this is in a Canadian city
where the schools don't have fences, doors are unlocked, no security guards,
adults wander in and out all through the day. Americans would be shocked at
the apparent permissiveness of it all.

------
aestra
I'll raise this useless antidote with another. I was raised in a poor inner
city school that had no playground. I went to an afterschool program that was
heavily subsidized for poor kids that had a huge playground. There was no
rules except the older kids and younger kids were segregated. There was pretty
much no supervision. I was bullied tons. Hair pulled, harassed, excluded from
the parts of the playground I wanted to go on.

------
kenjackson
From a financial perspective there is a lot more downside to "no rules".

Imagine a child dying from hanging in the "lynching game". When teachers are
asked if they knew about they said yes, but there are no rules.

Even if it underestimates the effect of bullying (which I'm skeptical about),
it certainly puts the school at much more risk for easy lawsuits.

~~~
lisper
> Imagine

But that's the whole point: when you actually _do_ the experiment, all these
horrible things that you imagine might happen don't actually happen.

~~~
anigbrowl
By that logic there should have been no problems whatsoever before the
creation of the rules that generally obtain at schools today. One has to ask
what created the pressure for those rules in the first place.

~~~
lisper
> By that logic there should have been no problems whatsoever before the
> creation of the rules that generally obtain at schools today

No, not "no problems whatsoever" just "fewer problems than there are now."
Which is in fact the case.

The problem is that people looked at the problems that existed before the
rules were in place and applied an argument of the form: There is a problem.
Something must be done about this problem. This is something. Therefore we
must do this.

I hope I don't have to explain the flaw in this reasoning.

------
blueskin_
This is the complete opposite of surprising to me.

------
userpasswd
Oh really?

Sorry, I couldn't stop myself. From a standpoint of a person who was young not
that long ago it's pretty much obvious. Children want, children do.

------
chrismcb
What rules did the ditch?

~~~
antipodean
Many schools still won't let kids play Bullrush or play in the dirt. This is a
low decile school so it seems particularly awesome for the kids to get some
exercise as many parents can't afford after school programs.

[http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/26271/bullrush-2009](http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/26271/bullrush-2009)

------
goggles99
So lets ask the question. Why are some people bullies and some aren't? Is is
because more rules are imposed on some then others? Is it because kids aren't
allowed to play bull rush or play in the mud?

Bullies usually have emotional problems or brain chemistry issues. A high
percentage of bullies have fathers that are abusive to their mothers and are
bullies themselves (vicious cycle). It is difficult to tell if this is merely
learned or genetic, but I am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with
playing bull rush.

What is likely having an effect on the kids in this school's situation is
positive peer pressure. The administration puts the kids in a position of
judging other peers. This has been used for at least 20 years and was
effective in a high school I once attended. It was no utopia, but I sure
didn't observe much bullying going on.

