Times Change For The Worse
source
My old school in Cape Town.
When I was growing up school holidays were seen as a chance to use the sporting facilities at the school and it was encouraged. The swimming pools were allowed to be used as long as there was adult supervision and was the only rule really which we broke.
We had the full use of around 20 tennis courts and 4 squash courts plus the cricket nets. There were enough fields for everyone to use and you would always find a game of football to join in somewhere. The sporting facilities were second to none and they were never abused or mistreated as we thought it was a privilege and were just lucky to have such sports facilities on our doorstep.
Today though as soon as the school holidays start there is security and no one is allowed to enter. The place is shut down and locks are put on everything. I would have thought that it was in their best interest to have sporting kids as they will only improve with more practice making the school that much better at their sporting success.
I can recall a few years ago I took my son down to his schools tennis courts only to find that security wouldn't allow anyone any access to any of their facilities. I was a bit shocked as there is no tennis club in the area besides the golf club where you have to pay per hour and they take it really seriously. If you want to just knock a ball about you have to have your own court it seems.
I just don't understand today's mindset and yet people wonder why so many kids are overweight and bored and dread school holidays.
Another big difference in the UK these days is that all new housing developments have houses without walls and fences and there are so many cars littering the road because no one has a long driveway and people have more than one car.
We had walls for goals and a little height to stop balls going in gardens so much.
As I kid it was football, touch and pass or cricket in the street all year round as well as a bit of cycling and even then, someone would have a ball. Other hobbies and interests were reserved for the long dark winter nights and there were only 3 TV channels to choose from.
Changing times and technological revolutions have negative as well as positive effects!
I agree we used to play in the street or in what limited space there was. Windows would often get broken.
could this have something to do with rising crime in SA? It is a shame... when i was young I recall there being loads of public places to play just about any sport for free.
Could be or things were getting damaged I don't know.
That's too bad that they have had to lock things down so much. Maybe there was some vandalism going on or different sorts of theft. They might also be worried about someone carrying out some kind of attack and being able to hide items or people ahead of time. It is hard to say in this day and age.
I think it could be crime related or the guards are just lazy and if there is people around they can't sleep.
Thanks for using eSteem!
Your post has been voted as a part of eSteem encouragement program. Keep up the good work! Install Android, iOS Mobile app or Windows, Mac, Linux Surfer app, if you haven't already!
Learn more: https://esteem.app
Join our discord: https://discord.gg/8eHupPq
That's the case in my country as well. I guess they are protecting the school building, afraid of break-in. As you say, many kids would play at least football as they love that and you don't need much for that, just a ball.
Instead kids are wondering around the streets, doing stupid things because they are bored.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Hi, @cryptoandcoffee!
You just got a 5.44% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.
Hi @cryptoandcoffee!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.176 which ranks you at #3243 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 147 contributions, your post is ranked at #42.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server