Schools banning Ooshies is a sign that childhood is enduring – Editorial
While the toys change, the school bans do not.
This week several schools around the country announced they had banned the latest must-have item in the school playground, Disney Ooshies.
Wānaka Primary cited classroom distractions and disagreements because of the Woolworths collectible. Māngere Central School warned of lost learning time. Cambridge East School said the collectibles were beginning to cause issues between students. Several schools have simply asked that the toys remain at home.
Does the scenario sound familiar? It should, as every generation has had its own version of Ooshies.
Long before McDonald’s Happy Meals started serving us up collectible plastic toys, marbles were the schoolyard currency. While the game is remembered with nostalgia, it caused many of the same headaches for educators as Ooshies do today.
Before long, Kiwi kids were losing their marbles over rugby cards, from Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards to Regina Confectionery’s Rugby World Cup 1991 cards and Bluebird’s Rugby Superstars series.
While teachers loved that youngsters were inadvertently utilising negotiation and maths skills, the more street-smart kids were said to be fleecing younger students. The unfair trades no doubt helped add reason to the banning of those cards in some schools.
Then came Chatter Rings, Beanie Babies, Pokemon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh, Silly Bandz, loom bands, Shopkins, fidget spinners and countless other playground currencies. All welcomed with the same cycle of excitement, obsession, negotiations, clashes and eventually school intervention.
Of course, schools are entirely justified in keeping their classrooms clear of collectables. Teachers are there to educate rather than mediate quarrels over whether Elsa and two Spider Mans are worth the ultra-rare Flocked Bullseye.
But somewhere between morning tea and lunchtime, children are learning lessons about value, fairness and perhaps regret that no textbook would be able to teach them. In many ways, the playground remains a child’s first encounter with supply, demand and buyer’s remorse.
However, the crux of the issue isn’t that something has gone wrong.
Ooshies are a sign that childhood is enduring.
In a world of smartphones, YouTube, TikTok, Roblox, Minecraft and chatbots, kids are still being kids. Give them something collectable and colourful to hunt for and they will build their social world around it.
We’ve seen this story often enough to know how it ends. When the Ooshies promotion wraps up later this month, many of the figurines will end up at the bottom of school bags, under beds and in forgotten drawers.
In their place will be another fad, another school notice, and a new set of parents and educators shaking their heads. Who knows what the next generation’s Ooshies will be.
Whatever it is, schools will probably end up banning that too.