Obstacle Playground
Technology has taken over the actual social life from even from the senior citizens to young kids in school. People can’t leave home without a gadget or can’t go inside a mall restaurant with no wi-fi. But with the availability of low cost data internet, people walk around with gadgets on stick on the faces.
I am too a victim of the technology craze world, where everything you need is just at the palm of your hands from taking photos, calculator, currency converter, and even on tutorial for the guitar. You can search in Google or YouTube with detailed instructions and video. We missed the days that instead of talking and spending time with other people. Every bit of information is now available on the internet and this is losing the value of spending quality time with family and friends. Gone are the days when one
has to travel to a communication service center to send a fax, email or call overseas. We now live in a world where it is possible to connect with someone instantly. Although instant communication is convenient and helpful, it creates false sense of reality wherein sometimes the social media becomes the reality instead of the actual reality itself. What they see on net sometimes becomes the real news compared to what they actual see in real world.
Some has lost touch with am/fm radio stations and newspaper due to availability of online news and podcast. Young kids has lost its social skills, manners and expect everything to be delivered as fast as the internet does. At one time, I asked my students if what sport are they into, they replied immediately: “we play basketball almost every day through play station.”
Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu Admin and PTA Board came up with a new project that could help student interact with students. The board came up with an idea of making a miniobstacle playground for the students, which I was very hesitant at first because of safety concerns. I grew up in the 80s and spend my school days at the Sacred Heart School for Boys in Mango Avenue. Our playground was rough and I myself had some serious accidents with the obstacle, and was hospitalized for a week or two. Some playground obstacles had to be removed for safety concerns, but now when that technology has taken over the social activities of these new generation, it is time to bring back old-school obstacle playground.
I was tasked by the school to come up with some obstacles that would create interest for the students and the same time safe for them. It was tough because as an athlete, I want the obstacle to be as challenging as possible for the students, but again safety
is top priority. So I designed a much smaller scale obstacle like the 5ft wall climb, 6ft tire wall, a frame rope traverse, crawling station and the famous monkey bar. Make the monkey bar too high then you have the risk of kids falling down and injuring their legs or elbows or arms, make it too low then your risk the kids climbing on top of the monkey bar. For now, injuries have been on blisters due to the rubbing of the hands on the monkey bar. We had a meeting though with the PE coordinators of each year level where we tackled safety concerns. The do’s and don’ts and most of all instructions on how to use the obstacle playground.
The benefits of using an obstacle playground is focusing mainly for the kids interacting with other students again. And while having fun, these kids are getting fitter, stronger and healthier without them actually knowing they are already exercising. With the mini obstacle courses, most of the major muscle groups are activated like the back muscles, legs, upper body strength, grip strength and core. So for now, the kids are enjoying the new obstacle playground.
There are obstacle playgrounds available in Cebu like the cool adventure camp, Foressa Park in Balamban and Mountain View resorts in Busay. In Labogon, Mandaue City, there is a newly-opened facility, “the Gorilla Boot Camp”, which is an obstacle challenge facility that sits on a 5-hectare property. By far this is one of the most complete facilities in terms of obstacle challenge in the country.
With the fast-paced evolution of technology, I sure hope that we should eged on thet young ones and the not so young one’s go back to reality wherein blood, sweat and tears are real, go out enjoy the sun, feel the breeze, enjoy the sea waters, go out, have fun and enjoy nature.