> On the other hand, maybe those rough-and-tumble recreation areas of yesteryear served as an early life lesson that the world was a harsh and unforgiving place.
If that's the best argument in favor, I'll stick with the current playgrounds. Kids got seriously injured when I was growing up. One of them broke his leg. At least one broke an arm. Smaller injuries like getting scraped up and having bruises were very common. I don't think the cost-benefit analysis worked out in favor of dangerous playgrounds. Most of the arguments in favor apply equally well to having kids jump out of moving vehicles.
> The Bailey Ball was an Alpine Center attraction developed and tested, but never opened to the public, as a result of those tests. It consisted of a large foam sphere in which a rider could be secured, and then rolled downward. The plan was to do it on a track with PVC pipe as its outer rails, and one was built alongside a ski trail.[11]: 16:25
> The designers neglected to take into account the tendency of PVC pipe to expand in heat. During the first test, with a state inspector present on a hot summer day, the ball, with a man inside testing it, went off the track as a result of the pipe expanding and bounded down the adjacent ski slope. It continued through the parking lot, across Route 94, and came to rest in a swamp. After it came to a natural stop at the bottom, the inspector left without saying anything and park management abandoned the project.[11]: 16:25 [43]
Yeah, we didn't have exactly those in the 80s, but more with planks and ropes (think low-level tree houses).
I've not had a good look at playgrounds the last few years (none where I usually go for a walk), but the ones in my childhood weren't as tall like in the last pictures, but tall enough that I sprained my ankle when jumping down... one day before my first day at school.
A few of the ones I visited when my daughter was in the correct age range (about 10 years ago) all have soft tarmac substitute around them that looks like it's made from recycled rubber (this is on top of changes to the actual equipment).
My local roundabout was a flat metal thing 3 ft off the ground with only tarmac to cushion the fall, and the slide must have been 18 ft tall. The monkey bars were more than tall enough for an adult, again with the same tarmac.
And the tarmac was ancient with loose gravel, so you got stones embedded in your grazes.
The simple stuff has always been known. To run well you must wear a top hat.
However, that climbing picture reminds me of my childhood school. I'm just old enough that all my school equipment used to be telephone poles constructed into very high, and very dangerous obstacles which routinely resulted in broken arms. Children really are missing out these days.
One of the interesting effects of such toys is that it helped kids form a clear picture of what they were capable of. I have a fairly accurate estimate of how high I can drop down from, how far I can jump etc.
Let me introduce you to the SomethingAwful RIPline: a DIY amateur zipline which could accelerate children to 65mph. The vertical drop was 143 feet. Had anyone ridden this thing they would have been pasted.
“In robust training for this life, which is itself a continual fight with some form of adversary or other, the aim should be to form that solid and adamantine fiber which will endure long and serious attacks upon it, and come out unharmed from them, rather than the ability to perform sudden and brilliant feats, which often exhaust the powers in show, without doing any substantial good.”
I have misfortune of having a last name that while not frequently used in English, has an unfortunate meaning ("cowardly"). Seeing this in the title, does "By Craven" refer to someone with that name, or to someone considered cowardly by those doing the exercise?
Ironically, in South Africa ‘Craven Week’ is an annual week long elite school rugby tournament - and it’s the place where talent scouts go to find tomorrow’s rugby stars for club and national rugby teams. It takes a lot of talent and guts to be selected for Craven Week.
Not really, as even though it's a fictional world, it harkens to a time when the word was common. Outside of fiction, I had never heard the word used until recent years, when it's become en vogue to use the term in political "discourse", a use I do despise.
For some reason, the illustrations really gave me the JoJo vibe. Does anyone else feel this book may have inspired Araki to create JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Phantom Blood?
I'd argue knowing how to swim with clothes is more important than without, if you have to pick one. Though I'm guilty myself of not living up to this, I also think everyone capable of swimming should also regularly jump into the water with various levels of clothes on, in various temperatures, just to have the skill fresh if needed. (Even if you never fall into the water, you never know when you will witness e.g. a child do.)
Here in the UK, 'water safety 2 award' [1] includes swimming in clothes.
So if parents send a kid to swimming lessons for a few years, they'll end up doing it some time around age 10. (There are several different sequences of swimming awards, so it's no the second thing you learn despite the 2 in the name)
10? How old do British kids start with swimming lessons? In Netherland, most children tend to start swimming lessons somewhere between the age of 4 and 6, and get their A and B swimming diplomas (both of which include swimming with clothes, as well the 4 basic strokes, diving, swimming underwater, etc) between the ages of 5 and 9 (depending on talent).
Swimming lessons in the UK are mostly extracurricular, so they start whenever the parents feel like it. There are parent-and-baby swimming lessons for 3-month-olds, for those that want it.
The government also provides school swimming lessons, aiming to teach all students to swim 25 meters by age 11 - so some kids start swimming quite a bit later.
The document I actually saw said the swimming-with-clothes course is aimed at 7-14-year-olds which I simplified down to 'around age 10'
> Swimming lessons in the UK are mostly extracurricular, so they start whenever the parents feel like it. There are parent-and-baby swimming lessons for 3-month-olds, for those that want it.
Same here, but those parent-and-baby lessons are more about getting used to water, and not the structured lessons that lead to a diploma. And while regular lessons start when parents feel like it, nearly all parents feel like it between age 4 and 6. There's some discussion whether or not it's better to start early (I think it depends on the child), but starting at 7 would be considered late.
My son is 8, and, partially due to Covid lockdowns, partially due to a lack of talent, still doesn't have his A diploma, and he's the biggest kid of his group.
I had school swimming lessons from the ages of 7 to 11, including swimming with clothes, how to rescue someone and even making "floats" by tying knots in shirts/trousers and then filling them with air and tying them off.
We took our kids for swimming lessons from around 3 or 4 from memory. My niece has been taking her son swimming from being just a few months old.
Australia's the same - if you're a pool regular child looking to get the certificates (lifesaver, bronze medallion, etc) you'll be swimming in clothes, diving for weights, towing others by their chin to the poolside, treading water, etc. at age 12 or so.
Out of the pool you're in the ocean daily as a kid, this is where we were before and after school [1], body boarding in a wet suit.
Thank you. I learned to swim with the primary school I was going to, but learning to swim with clothes isn't be part of the official curriculum (as far as I can understand the words of the official website: https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2011/28/mene1115402c.htm).
On a pure speculation level, I guess it'd be down to the reasons the two governments mandated the teaching of swimming: for France it's more of a public health/fitness cause (maybe even as a funnel for professional/olympic swimmers), but with no intention to teach swimming as a survival skills, or at least not to the point of including the swim while clothed exercise.
Part of one of my merit badges back in my youthful boy scouting days was being able to demonstrate how to turn a pair of pants (jeans iirc) into a temporary life jacket.
Raw sewage was commonly dumped into any available body of water. Which was why he recommended avoiding ponds at all costs.
This sort of thing was why every large homeowner brewed their own beer - the alcohol from the fermentation neutralized some? enough? who cares, drink more? of the pathogens. Reading books from the Victorian (and earlier) eras gives me the impression that everyone back then was suffering from chronic, low level infections their entire lives.
The dangerous playgrounds of 1900s through vintage photographs
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dangerous-playgrounds-1900s...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31855163