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The new normal

I went down to the local park yesterday.

The plan was to fly a small drone, to which was attached a tiny "thumb" camera I'd been sent to review.

With such splendid weather it seemed the ideal location and time to get some stunning footage of the trees, the lake and other features that really are a credit to those who maintain this area.

When I arrived, it looked like a construction site.

As far as the eye could see were people decked out in hi-visibility vests.

Was their some kind of civil defense emergency or was some sort of large-scale civil engineering work taking place?

After getting a little closer I noticed that many of those involved were school-aged kids.

What was going on here?

I caught the attention of an adult, also decked out in a bright yellow plastic vest, and asked about all the fuss.

Apparently this was an environmental day at the park for school kids.

They were all wandering about, between the trees, the daffodils and other plants, making observations, notes and generally marvelling at the awesomeness of nature.

I recall that as a young school-boy, I did the same on a number of occasions. The teacher would herd us all onto a bus, we'd drive to some green area and then be sent off to collect examples of various insects, plants and other items from the inventory that is "nature".

The huge difference however, is that we just wore our school uniforms and the teachers were dressed in their civies.

In today's "health and safety" world gone mad however, it seems that being outdoors on a sunny day in spring is far to dangerous to undertake without a mountain of PPE and high-visibility garments.

What the hell?

My heart sank.

We may be teaching kids about the carbon cycle, the habbitat of plants, insects and animals -- maybe even a little conservation -- but we are not exposing them to any form of risk.

Of course nobody wants a child to get hurt (or worse) but seriously, all this hi-viz and coddling is utterly beyond a joke.

Surely, an essential part of the growing and learning process is exposure to risk, no matter how small, and developing an appreciation for how to manage that risk. Instead of that, it seems that these days we simply structure all activities so as to completely eliminate any possibility of risk and thus deny our kids the experience and skills they'll need to cope with "the real world ^TM".

How many lives were saved yesterday as a result of that dazzling fluro green, yellow and orange that assaulted my eyes? I suspect -- not a single one.

No wonder we're creating generations of snowflakes that cower in fear at the slightest suggestion of risk or danger. Isn't it time that our schools started teaching that risk is just a fact of life and that we need to develop coping and mitigation skills rather than hiding under the bed for fear of getting a scratch while walking in the park?

Suffice to say, I didn't fly my drone there. God-knows what sort of mayhem might have been created because I noticed that for all their good intentions, nobody had hearing protection and hard-hats were few and far between. The sight and sound of a tiny drone, therefore, would likely have created a stampede in which dozens of poor children may have been trampled.

Or maybe it was just because I didn't want to distract the kids from learning important stuff about the world around them -- even if it was hard to see anything at all, for the sunlight reflecting off all those fluro vests.

Carpe Diem folks!

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