1986: Adventure Playground

June 13, 2022

By AHNZ

This image (left) is of an endangered if not extinct habitat for young New Zealanders that was called an Adventure Playground. This one belongs to the Young Generation X time period at Goodwood School, Cambridge, at a time when it had just 72 pupils.

We see rope-swings, old tires, concrete pipes, netting, and the potential for children to fall from a great height. The ground was padded by no more than sawdust.

The playground dates from 1986. A time prior to the 1990s Victimhood Culture child-protection movement where such ‘dangerous’ environments were cut down.

Hard, rough, edges from these concrete pipes could hurt a child. Femminised, Victimhood Culture, teachers and parents removed such play things least some poor child cut their head open. Climbing beams were either removed or else cut down to size, least the child fall.

Up to that point the culture of the teachers and parents was also caring. Don’t make the mistake in thinking they were not! However, they invested the safety of the child in the child themselves. Rather than wrapping the kid up in cotton wool and bubble wrap and removing danger, they left it up to the child to develop the tactile life skills to protect themselves. We moved from an internal model of safety to an external one. From independent children to dependent ones.

The work for Goodwood’s playground was done by the community itself, the equipment ‘scrounged’ up rather than newly purchased they way it would be in later times. Hours of paperwork were also required to gain permission from the government Education Board for the people to do for themselves what they wanted done for their own children.

“The tarzan swings and tyre jungle gym are of Mr Reid’s own design, the latter being a virtual mountain of tyres, painted in glorious pastel shades, with a centre pole down which children can slide to the ground. So impressed was the Education Board with Jack Reid’s first tyre jungle gym, that they requested copies of the plans as as a result, tyre jungles gyms have spread throughout the country.”

“Mr Reid warned his charges that they may well suffer from a few aches and pains after using the new equipment for the first time” – Adventure Playground Exciting Addition, unknown publication (1986); Goodwood School Facebook (2021)

The chief architect of the above playground, Goodwood School Principal Jack Reid, was the longest serving (32 years) primary principal in New Zealand when he retired in 2015. That means he lived to see his 1980s Honour Culture creation go out of fashion and dismantled. By 2003 this design was swept away by a newer and more sanitised child-protective playground without concrete objects or any risk of falling from height. Sawdust had given way to bark chip padding to catch any stumbling Millennial kids.

“Today we said a fond farewell to our junior playground. Tomorrow is the last day that explorers will be able to play on this 18 year old structure. We acknowledge all those who worked hard to create this amazing space which has served a generation of explorers so well. The time is right to retire much of the equipment as it is rapidly becoming less safe….mana whenua will bless the site in preparation for work to commence on our new building project.” – Goodwood School, Facebook (July 2021,) ibid

“Today we were delighted to hear from the Glenice & John Gallagher Foundation that they are awarding us a grant of $5000 to help with the cost of the playground!..If you would still like to help – our Hoa pai group is meeting in the staff room at 2.30pm tomorrow, Wednesday, to brainstorm some ways to make up an approximate $35000 shortfall.” – Goodwood School, Facebook (May 2022)

The 2003 version of the Goodwood School Junior Playground was torn up in 2021 and supposed to be ready about 12 months after. You can be sure that Jack Reid’s 1986 version never took so long and would not have cost the tens of thousands of dollars the new one has so far. It is questionable that the current Generation Z kids are receiving a proportionate increase in joy and developmental education. When a GenZ kid falls down it wont be from very far and rather than concrete, sawdust, or bark chip, it is usually on bouncy rubber matting.

It’s not clear that the new school policy reflects a design that is “rapidly becoming less safe” or simply materials that needed re-fixing or replacing for a fraction of the cost. It seems that a complete re-design that was beyond what was affordable suggests that a new r-selected playground design is what has been sought.

If a teacher warned that aches and pains would be suffered by children as part of using their school playground these days then he would probably be fired rather than celebrated. However, his children would grew up with stronger muscles and bones and physicality. They would grow up with an internal model of safety rather than psychological fusion with authority figures expected to provide a life-long Safe Space for them to live in.

New Zealanders are as strong or weak as the childhood playgrounds that forge them. We have had super-safe child-protective historical time periods before and they made weak citizens. Certainly in the near future we will again see a demand to scrap the contemporary play pens and bring back Adventure to our children. If we don’t, we will certainly be overrun by an invasion of another culture that does not coddle their children’s bodies and minds with mana whenua blessings.

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Image ref. Kaumatua Harry sings a song and touches Goodwood school to bless it supernaturally while staff in face masks totter along, sheep-like, behind; Ref. Goodwood School, Facebook (Feb 2022)

Ref. Hundreds farewell ‘extraordinary’ Jack Reid, Cambridge News (2019)

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