London Bridge Is Falling Down

Who remembers this game from childhood?

London Bridge is falling down
Falling down
Falling down
London Bridge is falling down
My fair lady. 

Take the key and lock her up
Lock her up
Lock her up
Take the key and lock her up
My fair lady.

If you were the player caught in the arch formed by the two "bridge" players at the end of the rhyme, you had to pick which side of the bridge to be on by choosing between, say, oranges and apples. Was this our first contact with a multiple choice quiz that didn't include "all of the above"?

Somedays I feel like public education is a game of London Bridge, in which we have to make choices between which side of the bridge to stand behind. For example: caring about children's well-being or caring about students' performance/scores. Of course, ideally teachers, administrators, politicians, etc. care about both. But just like in the London Bridge game, sometimes folks have to choose which one to care about most. Just for the record, whenever that situation arches above me, I intend to choose children's well-being.

There are several theories regarding the origin of that school-yard song and game, which dates back to at least the seventeenth century. One is "that [it] refers to the burying, perhaps alive, of children in the foundations of the bridge ...  based around the idea that a bridge would collapse unless the body of a human sacrifice were buried in its foundations." Coincidentally, this is called the Child Sacrifice Theory!