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TBT: My Elementary School Playground
May. 15th, 2025 12:54 pmToday's Thursday so it's time for #TBT: Throw-Back Thursday. ...Wait, are people still doing TBTs? Or is #TBT now a TBT thing itself? 😅\
Today's #TBT is my elementary school playground and how it changed over the years. Although I only attended that school for 3 years I remember the playground very well. ...Not just because back then, in the 3rd through 5th grades years seemed to stretch on forever— 3rd grade spanned more than 10% of my life up to that point!— but also because the school was close to home and its playground was a place I visited on weekends, during summers, and even for a few years afterward.
The earliest version of the playground had some metal climbing bars— we all called them "jungle gyms" or "monkey bars"— and a few swings on a blacktop surface. A year or two into my time as a student there the school district moved them off the blacktop into the grassy yard. I presume they figured that having kids climbing jungle gyms over blacktop pavement wasn't a great idea because of how we could get hurt when we fell. And we did fall. But back then (late 1970s) it wasn't a federal case when a kid fell off the monkey bars and hit their head on the pavement. We just got up and shook it off quickly before all our classmates joined in laughing at us.
Moving the playground equipment onto the dirt from the pavement was a good idea, but then the district backslid and put gravel down under all the equipment. I guess the problem was we were creating ruts in the dirt pretty quickly in high traffic areas, like right under the swings and at the bottom of the slide. Deep holes got filled with water when it rained, then who wants to use the slide for the next 1-2 days when there's a muddy sploosh! at the bottom. But it wasn't soft, fine-grain gravel they put down. No, it was coarse, large, sharp pieces of gravel. Back to ouchie city when we fell. And again, we did fall constantly. And again, nobody ever cared.
For many years the elementary school's playground was open. Like, there was no fence around it. There was no fence anywhere. That was cool because we neighborhood kids could play there. The school was our de facto park. There wasn't actually a public park within miles of my home— the community didn't really even have that concept— so my friends and I saying "Let's ride our bikes to the school playground" on a Saturday or during the summer was a totally normal thing.
Then they fenced in the parking lot. Okay, make it so teachers can't escape except on foot? Then they fenced in the playground. The presumptive reason was for the saaaaaafety of the chiiiiiildren. Nevermind that the statistics show(ed) crimes against children plummeting over the years. The TV showed an epidemic of dangers to children, and TV never lies.
I mostly stopped going by my old elementary school when they fenced off the playground. I mean, I still saw it a few times a month because my Boy Scout troop met there (in the multi-purpose room) Thursday evenings. But I was getting too old to want to play on a playground. Especially an elementary school playground. (Give me a playground sized for adults and I was all over it!)
At some point they replaced the gravel under the playsets with wood chips, and then replaced those with some kind of crushed rubber chips. What happened after that? For all I know they eventually removed all the swings and monkey bars because are kids even allowed outside nowadays? Do kids even want to go outside? And do anything other than play electronic games?
Today's #TBT is my elementary school playground and how it changed over the years. Although I only attended that school for 3 years I remember the playground very well. ...Not just because back then, in the 3rd through 5th grades years seemed to stretch on forever— 3rd grade spanned more than 10% of my life up to that point!— but also because the school was close to home and its playground was a place I visited on weekends, during summers, and even for a few years afterward.
The earliest version of the playground had some metal climbing bars— we all called them "jungle gyms" or "monkey bars"— and a few swings on a blacktop surface. A year or two into my time as a student there the school district moved them off the blacktop into the grassy yard. I presume they figured that having kids climbing jungle gyms over blacktop pavement wasn't a great idea because of how we could get hurt when we fell. And we did fall. But back then (late 1970s) it wasn't a federal case when a kid fell off the monkey bars and hit their head on the pavement. We just got up and shook it off quickly before all our classmates joined in laughing at us.
Moving the playground equipment onto the dirt from the pavement was a good idea, but then the district backslid and put gravel down under all the equipment. I guess the problem was we were creating ruts in the dirt pretty quickly in high traffic areas, like right under the swings and at the bottom of the slide. Deep holes got filled with water when it rained, then who wants to use the slide for the next 1-2 days when there's a muddy sploosh! at the bottom. But it wasn't soft, fine-grain gravel they put down. No, it was coarse, large, sharp pieces of gravel. Back to ouchie city when we fell. And again, we did fall constantly. And again, nobody ever cared.
For many years the elementary school's playground was open. Like, there was no fence around it. There was no fence anywhere. That was cool because we neighborhood kids could play there. The school was our de facto park. There wasn't actually a public park within miles of my home— the community didn't really even have that concept— so my friends and I saying "Let's ride our bikes to the school playground" on a Saturday or during the summer was a totally normal thing.
Then they fenced in the parking lot. Okay, make it so teachers can't escape except on foot? Then they fenced in the playground. The presumptive reason was for the saaaaaafety of the chiiiiiildren. Nevermind that the statistics show(ed) crimes against children plummeting over the years. The TV showed an epidemic of dangers to children, and TV never lies.
I mostly stopped going by my old elementary school when they fenced off the playground. I mean, I still saw it a few times a month because my Boy Scout troop met there (in the multi-purpose room) Thursday evenings. But I was getting too old to want to play on a playground. Especially an elementary school playground. (Give me a playground sized for adults and I was all over it!)
At some point they replaced the gravel under the playsets with wood chips, and then replaced those with some kind of crushed rubber chips. What happened after that? For all I know they eventually removed all the swings and monkey bars because are kids even allowed outside nowadays? Do kids even want to go outside? And do anything other than play electronic games?
