----- Original Message -----
From: "FHS CanalClub" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 9:09 PM
Subject: [canals-list] Re: Ivan Cane's Last Fakenham High School Canal
Club's Cruise & Kids on boats
> Not only "condoned" by the teacher - but encouraged!
>
> Knowing what kids do - I expected there to be a handy hole somewhere
> along the fence line where the people who use the inside of the enclosed
> football area, pop out to retrieve their footballs, rather than use the
> gate. This was so at the Eldonian Sports Centre, and we knew that we would
> be gone by the time the Centre opened in the morning - so the only answer
> was to use the hole to retrieve our trapped footballs.
>
So, you really don't see the problem?
You are giving the kids the clear message that fences are just a minor
inconvenience to be circumvented in any way possible if they get in your
way.
Someone made a hole in the fence. That's vandalism, or criminal damage. The
local council taxpayers will in due course pay to repair it. It's a small
step from using such a hole, to enlarging it if it's a little tight, to
making one of your own if someone hasn't been there before.
The underlying issue is one of respect. Someone who had the right to do so
decided that access to that area should be restricted. The fence is only a
symbol of that decision. By ignoring it you are not respecting that person's
right to exclude you.
Then people wonder why modern kids have no respect for others' property or
rights.
I know when I was at school anyone who climbed a fence instead of using the
proper entrance or was in an area they shouldn't have been would be
punished, and rightly so.
To put it another way; assuming you have a house and garden with a fence
round it, if it's more convenient for people to climb your fence and tramp
through your garden to get somewhere rather than going round, that's OK with
you?
Why is this such an issue for me? Because when people can't be trusted to
behave in public, restrictions get applied, and it's always easier to make
sure the situation can't arise than to make people behave. For example, your
group goes back next year and the whole place is surrounded with security
fencing and CCTV etc. "But why can't people play football there out of
hours?" "Because when they did they kept breaking down the fences, so we had
to stop them."
It's like the caravanners who can't accept that it's not appropriate for
their kids to play ball games among other people's units, then complain that
so many sites are "No children" these days.
--
Niall
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