"How did we get to the point where having an old-fashioned see-saw on the playground is something almost no park ... would consider? ...
"[I]t all began in the ‘60s. Not with the hippies – with the experts.
“'The idea we had back then was that we could prescribe the correctness of public choices with detailed rules,' say [Philip] Howard, author ... of Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. 'But actually, that’s not correct. Practically every situation involves human judgment in the circumstances.'
"The post-war optimism about technocrats led America to start substituting regulations for what some of us call common sense. ... This combination, which was supposed to make our world safer and more fair, had the unintended consequence of making it stagnant and scary. Lots of rules meant lots of opportunities for punishment. ...
"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems. “You no longer have the brain learning these social skills, because you have an adult overseeing them,” says Howard.
"Perhaps Howard’s biggest bugaboo is the burgeoning books of standards that schools and other institutions, like day care centres and nursing homes, are required to follow. ...
"And when we are busy trying to make sure that we have done things exactly as outlined on page 78, sub-paragraph 5-H, we’re not getting smarter. 'The regulatory state is literally mind-numbing,” Howard says. Load it up with rules and it can’t see the slide as anything other than a piece of equipment that is noncompliant, should it angle more than 43 degrees in a vertical direction'."
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