Duboce Park, San Francisco

Friday, September 29th, 2006 1:30-2:30 pm
A large group of 4 & 5 year olds with their daycare; three adults total, one was an older woman, two were perhaps 20. The older woman was methodically going through all the kids' backpacks and throwing away whatever snack they hadn't finished during their break time. (Presumably, so the parents wouldn't complain about the leftovers; e.g. "Why didn't Jimmy finish his Cheerios?") She was throwing all this food to a gang of pigeons right on the playground. Overall, very little supervision; the aides sat to the side talked mostly to each other, occasionally on a phone. I observed several marginally unsafe behaviors (rock throwing, stick poking, sand throwing, seven kids on the slide at once), none of which were observed or corrected by the caregivers.