“Don’t let the kids get so close to you, it is a huge liability.”

A huge liability–for playing with the kids? After three weeks of non-stop middle and high school assignments, I took a job teaching a first grade class. First grade was just like I remembered it: runny noises, endless questions, and cute kids would just want to have a good time. No one is trying to prove their “coolness” and no one is trying to get out of doing work; first graders still care about being good students.

Today, I was assigned yard duty. With a whistle in hand, I march up and down the play ground looking for bruised knees and raging fights. Instead, I found three girls that wanted to play a game of tag with me. Being down to earth–and bored out of my mind patrolling the playground alone–I started to chase them around. We were laughing and having a great time until a veteran broke up our game.

“Leave him alone and go play somewhere else.” She yelled in a stern teacher’s voice I hope I never develop.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she explained, “But the teacher’s union has warned us against playing with the kids during recess. Many of our teachers have been involved in litigation and I do not want to see you slapped with a lawsuit.”

“A lawsuit for what?”

“Well, you might lightly push or grab a kid as part of the game and they could turn the story around and claim you abused them or hit them intentionally.” She paused, looked into my eyes to assess if I was getting her draft, and continued, “So, I do not want to see you get in trouble when you have your whole teaching career in front of you. I have been in the game for 30 years and I am about to retire, it is young teachers like you that I am worried about.”

First, I am only a substitute and I will be gone soon–in fact by the end of the day. In a sense, I will be retiring before her.

Second, what kind of world is it when I cannot even play a game of tag with my own students without worrying if I am going to be sued by day’s end. It is just so upsetting because I loved playing with the kids, partly because I am a big kid at heart.

I agreed with the veteran and told the kids to go play somewhere else. As I pondered her words, a solution came to me. It is only a potential liability to touch the kids during our games, there is no liability for the games themselves. With this thought in mind, I took the class out for P.E. later that day and played 20 minutes of Simon Says. I had the kids doing so many moves it was like playing twister. Even though I was not “in the mix,” I was exhaustedly by the end of the day. My solution?

A long old teacher’s nap.