Boomers and their less structured youth

Sarah Palin made a playground analogy when commenting on President Obama's foreign policy negotiations Thursday. Obviously she criticized it as surely as the sun rises in the east. She's a Fox News barking dog. But the playground analogy reminded me of the old abandoned school playground here, of which I wrote a few days ago.
The issue in the previous post was: what will become of the old playground and the massive old school complex that overlooks that part of Morris?
Today the topic is plain old reminiscence along with cultural analysis.
The baby boom generation gave our public school a firm base of numbers. I dare say the people who worked in that system took those numbers for granted. They were comfortable in their positions and felt they could shoo away or intimidate critics. And the boomers' parents weren't likely to be critics anyway. They were very gentle and deferential. The term "helicopter parent" hadn't yet been coined.
Parents who had been through the Depression and World War Two weren't very excitable. Parents were more likely to work with teachers on discipline than to protect children from it. The whole system just rolled forward, and I suspect many education professionals felt it would always be like this. They probably looked forward to lower enrollment because they felt it would make their jobs easier and improve the educational environment.
But there has been unrelenting retrenchment. The young parents of today, many of the "helicopter" type, don't blandly accept what happens to their kids in school. They set rigorous standards (for the teachers) and demand answers.
As schools wrestle with the numbers issues, it is incredibly ironic to note all the advantages and programs that have been created for the young people of today, compared to when us boomers flooded that old playground. Many tiers of special education have sprouted. In an earlier time, kids who lagged behind might be branded as stupid but they largely forged ahead anyway. They made do with their limitations and their peers accepted them. Many kids with apparent special needs were "mainstreamed."
Another term is "social promotion" based on the idea that kids need to be kept with their age peers with whom they have bonded. Of course, once you graduate and enter real society, that peer network is gone.
Nowadays the "slow" kids get identified with "learning problems." Many of these kids who are assigned to specialists would have been considered quite normal when I was in school. By the same token, kids with behavior issues when I was in school had to try to just "go with the flow" as best they could. Their peers learned to deal with them and maybe even help them.
Behavior medications weren't handed out like candy as can be the case today, apparently. Those medications weren't available as a crutch for educators to just tranquilize problem kids.
As enrollment has seriously declined, we have this huge irony of resources available to kids that weren't dreamt of when us boomers romped on the playground. Girls sports is a huge one. So is the indoor ice arena. Then there's FFA. In God's name why didn't Morris have an FFA program back then?
We have a jaw-dropping concert hall. It was like pulling teeth to get the high school auditorium built back in the mid-1970s. The superintendent at that time, Fred Switzer, would later tell people "I almost lost my job over that."
What would have happened to him if he had tried to sell that concert hall? Tar and feathering?
Our new school complex is vast and excessive. How did we get here? How did we get sold on a new football field that is slowly being forgotten by the community? People are always groping for something new. A few years ago we got all the toys we could have wanted.
But the school of yesteryear had its charms. The kids were challenged to get along with each other and gained maturation, despite bumps in the road. Those bumps could include teasing and conflict. Behind all that, kids were forced to take a thoughtful look at those around them and sort out how society is put together. There were far fewer "excuses" that would lead to special ed coddling or behavior medications.
Could it be rough? Yes. Today, "conflict resolution" would be quickly imposed on kids who are inclined to roughhouse behavior on the playground. When I was a kid, in the fall in 1964 there was faux gang warfare on the East Elementary playground between the "Johnsons" and the "Goldwaters." This mirrored the presidential election of that year: the incumbent Lyndon Johnson vs. the pure conservative Barry Goldwater. Johnson inherited the JFK legacy but he was destined to be scarred by the Viet Nam War.
The playground conflict ended up a pretty scientific study too because the "Goldwaters" were a decided minority. Johnson indeed won the election going way, paired with Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, his runningmate whose later timid approach on Viet Nam probably cost him the presidency in 1968.
You could get into trouble on the playground if someone came up to you and asked your opinion on N.F.O. (the National Farmers Organization, at attempt to unionize farmers which was sort of like trying to herd cats). I believe that a few blows were struck in the name of N.F.O.
Is there such a thing as unfettered "recess" time anymore? Or is all playtime strictly governed? In our risk averse culture (with litigation hovering at all times), something like the "Johnsons" vs. "Goldwaters" would probably be discouraged.
Our school in the 1960s was in a friendly neighborhood setting. The biggest issue with our school facilities was available space, because the boomers were filling everything up to the brim. But I don't recall any fundamental criticism of the facilities i.e. their quality.
Our teeming numbers forced "split shifts" until finally a new high school was built with a new gymnasium. The "new" gym built in 1968 was the focus of considerable community pride. Its predecessor was the type of gym that could have been a backdrop in the movie "Hoosiers." It had to be replaced because it was of substandard size and the seating capacity was inadequate.
And it was just, well, antiquated, although it could easily be used for theatrical and music purposes today along with youth basketball. It was an auditorium/gym complex and it seems destined for the wrecking ball now, if the City of Morris can come up with the money. If not, it will just stay cold, empty and haunted - a blight.
And the 1968 gym? It isn't even good enough for varsity basketball anymore. Most of the original bleachers have been taken out. You could say it's forgotten. Another new gym was built in 1991 and it only briefly captured our imagination. Now it too is forgotten, and it never did have enough bleachers to accommodate major varsity competition.
It seems that no matter how much we do for our schools, more is demanded.
Our new varsity gym and concert hall would have boggled minds if shown to parents of the "Wonder Years" 1960s. If Mr. Switzer thought it was risky to push for the very modest high school auditorium, my God, what must he think when looking at all the new stuff?
All these incredible new facilities, along with girls sports that has total parity with boys, are for current generations with substantially smaller numbers than in the "Wonder Years."
But maybe we'll find we can't afford it after all. Maybe we've been doing it with mirrors, sort of like Sarah Palin's ascendance politically. The future can never be predicted.
Maybe future generations of parents will want to push aside all the "extras" like sports and special ed and push for neighborhood schools in intimate, friendly settings where kids can be gently developed, aided by the limitless frontier of information on the Internet.
What does the future hold for Sarah Palin? Politically she has nothing to offer except buzzwords for the political right, but she will surely end up spectacularly rich. No wonder she appreciates John McCain.
Palin is using Fox News to build her fame. Fox News is harassing the Obama administration, which was democratically elected, to the point where it might be considered treasonous. Glenn Beck might as well be in a comic book. They cheerlead for the Tea Party which might just as well don white sheets.
We can only hope that Fox News keeps pushing the envelope until its excesses finally bring it down. In entertainment there is always an urge to "push the envelope." And Fox News and its ilk are clearly entertainment but it's dangerous entertainment.
Palin with Michele Bachmann is a circus of idiots. Bachmann is a very attractive woman and when she's with Palin, she makes Palin look less attractive. And older. There, now if someone in Palin's camp reads this, maybe they won't appear together again.
Maybe what we need is that old "Johnsons" gang from the East Elementary playground to chase the Tea Partiers away.
-Brian Williams - Morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com