Swimming Carnival
I'm new to the school and today was our swimming carnival. Throughout the day many students were spraying water pistols at each other and at teachers. Many teachers were also getting in on the 'fun'. The rule, as far as I was made aware, was that students were only allowed to spray people who wanted to be sprayed. I found out later in the day that this rule was included in the documentation sent home to families.
There were also water balloons being thrown around and students filling up plastic cones from the tap to throw water at people. Student were filling up water guns with pool water while races were happening.
I was pretty successful at make the zone I was supervising a no spraying area. But that didn't stop me from getting sprayed and from me having to be constantly vigilant about any students walking past my house's area.
I expressed frustration about the fact that water fighting was tolerated, let alone, basically have been supported by the school. I spoke to a few (4 or 5) teachers and they generally agreed that it was pretty bad this year. But that it would be too hard to enforce a ban.
For me it feels like a safety hazard. Increasing the risk of slips, trips and falls from the spillage and the students and teachers running around near the pool. Plus the peer pressure students who didn't want to be sprayed must have felt to say that they, in fact, did want it. And the psychosocial hazard some students were exposed to while many students were aiming gun shaped toys at their face while being asked if they consent to be sprayed.
I'm a bit (a lot) of a safety nerd, and the whole thing makes me feel like today put students and staff at risk of injury.
What I'd appreciate from you guys is help to figure out:
am i crazy thinking this whole thing is kind of f*ucked?
should i bring up my concerns? and if so how? if not, can you explain why?
I fully get that water fights are fun for some people, and i don't want to be captain of the fun police. But i really got the ick from this experience.