No, I am not a Marxist, although, like many of my generation, I fancied myself one when I was in college. But I am still occasionally an economic determinist, which means, to me, that sometimes the solution to apparently complex social problems can be found by following a relatively simple rule: follow the money. When children engage in mysterious and unsettling social behavior, very often the social setting is the culprit. And often the reason for the unsettling context is parsimonious behavior on the part of adults. "Following the money" in thinking about kids' problems is a wonderful exercise, and often a bracing alternative to the endless cant about our devotion to "our nation's children." We will do anything for "our nation's children" except spend real money on them.

In my last post, I discussed kids' playground aggression and the sometimes-silly rules designed to stop it. But now let's follow the money when we think about this problem. Unless we want kids to be totally unsupervised on the playground (something Europeans will accept, but totally unthinkable here) we need some kind of playground supervisors. Who's it gonna be? Teachers need prep time, and teachers' unions demand it. So supervising the playground goes to underpaid and therefore underskilled aides. They're not unionized, which is why they are underpaid, and in my experience they often have the least training of anyone in a public school when it comes to understanding kids.

So, we have kids who are more and more pressured by high-stakes testing (and if the kids don't perform, the school gets labeled as an underperforming school with attendant financial consequences; see "following the money," above). And when the kids are out on the playground they need to let off some steam, and sometimes they get a little rambunctious. And who is supervising them? Underpaid cranky people who don't really know what to do except holler, and make rules that cannot be enforced (like "no competition": see my last post).

There are people who supervise "free play" periods: they're called nursery school teachers. They now how to observe kids- they know when kids need to be left alone and when they need adult intervention. They know when a particular kid is having a hard day, and therefore they know when they have to lurk a little closer so that they can intervene quickly if and when intervention becomes necessary. Fifth graders on the playground are just bigger nursery school kids, and supervising them requires the same subtle combination of observational lurking, restraint, and quick decisive action used by good nursery school teachers. But good nursery school teachers are not usually on the playgrounds; thus the silly rules.

If we were really concerned about kids' squabbling on the playground, we would hire someone made from the following recipe: one part hip male college student; one part gym teacher; one part school adjustment counselor and one part nursery school teacher. Problem solved, I guarantee it. But that would require paying someone with this combination of skills. When you figure in all the time wasted by the school principal carrying out the mini-Inquisitions, it doesn't really seem like such a big expense, does it?