Yes dodgeball is still played. The local school I know calls it “prison ball.”
And don’t forget these immortal words of wisdom from Patches O’Houlihan:
I’m just going to say this may be the silliest thread I have ever seen on CC.
I am trying to think of something applicable to white privilege for this.
I agree that social media provides great scope for bullying, sadly. It wasn’t around when those of us were bullied 5 decades ago. There were many ways of bullying then and are now.
I agree that children/people should not be forced to participate in a game where they are physically harmed, intentionally by others.
Those of us who were bullied can honestly say that the few suggestions contained in this thread would not have stopped the bullying and could well have worsened it. Many of us have been scarred by years of bullying in school—no one advocated for us or stepped in to stop it.
We did teach our kids to literally fight back when the person in authority (teacher or coach) sanctioned the bullying. We did it reluctantly but sadly felt it was the only option and it did work better than humor or turning the other cheek.
@maya54 that’s a good question what the purpose of gymnastics was. I personally thought it was to give the wanna-be cheerleaders extra workouts. Or maybe it was to make parents feel good about spending a fortune on their daughters’ gymanstics classes (this was in the post Olga Korbut gymnastics mania) – they finally got to shine when competing against those who didn’t have private instruction and (like me) couldn’t do the stuff. Beats me. I can tell you, it was humiliating as hell. I’d have gladly traded it for dodgeball. You get hit, and you’re done and the misery is over.
What’s the purpose of gymnastics? OMG! ?
I’ll admit as a kid, I didn’t know enough to show the proper amount of respect for gymnasts or gymnastics. Today, they receive my ultimate respect. The purpose? Simple. To increase balance, flexibility and strength, especially your core strength. I assume we all desire those things.
For those who aren’t competing at the Olympics, there’s nothing wrong with being to do pull-ups, dips, pushups, climb a rope, sit-ups, etc. One of my kid’s best friends is a gymnast. And she’s amazing.
I have to ask…how many times can PE teachers default to dodgeball as an activity? How many times per year are we talking?
“Dietz- agree about art. I think I better go back to therapy for the humiliation I felt in art class.”
Music. Choir. I can’t sing even if my life depended on it. I can hear though when somebody else is off key… My worst nightmare of elementary school was a mandatory choir tryout. The entire class laughed when I was called up to the front to sing some stupid jingle. 
I was decent at gymnastics but I hated it with a passion. Javelin and other thrown objects were much worse - I hated that crap. Could not throw a thing…
I’m wondering why all the hate in this thread is for the game but not the coaches who encourage or ignore bullying behavior. I loved dodgeball when I was a kid and was pretty good at dodging. We played with a soft ball that didn’t hurt. It was a big deal for me because that was about the only physical activity I was good at. And it wasn’t during PE, just one of the favorite pastimes for the neighborhood kids.
How about instead of training kids to either accept bullying or avoid all activities that may be used by bullies, we train teachers and coaches to notice and fight bullying behavior? Dodgeball and PE in general might provide more opportunities for bullies, but also more opportunities to teach good sportsmanship.
There have been varying attempts to teach anti-bullying and teach folks to be compassionate bystanders to reduce bullying but we still have a long way to go as a society.
The game has changed a lot since the 1970s and 1980s. It used to be played with the red rubber kickballs and they could sting. It was also a little more free play than today’s rule governed game. Now there are smaller foam balls that are no-sting and there are rules that protect players from face shots.
In our school district, besides P.E., there are a lot of extracurricular games involving all sorts of groups like teachers vs students, one department’s staff vs another’s, the football team’s offense vs defense- it is a big fundraiser and really popular for the students to watch and participate. It is also a really popular intramural sport on college campuses.
Maybe it’s not for everyone, but it would sure be a shame to ban it given how many students really do enjoy it and play it with good sportsmanship and by the rules. The bullies can be dealt with.
The objection I keep reading about in this thread is that people are FORCED to participate in a “game” that they strongly dislike, which involves people throwing a ball at them or fail or get a poor grade for a required course. If it was an optional event, I think folks who WANT to play can be allowed, as long as those who don’t want to play aren’t compelled to do so. I personally liked a variant of dodgeball called German Dodge and played it over many summers in a loosely supervised fashion. It was wholly voluntary–those who wanted to play could and those who didn’t could opt out with no coercion or pressure at all.
We’ve obviously played different versions of dodgeball. We played with basketballs. Two lines. Boys vs girls. Middle school. Ridiculous. Nothing but sanctioned abuse.
Gymnastics was not my forte and I flat out refused to do stunts that I wasn’t capable of doing. My grade proved it but at least I wasn’t a statistic. That was pretty brave of me when I look back. Guess by that time I did learn to look out after myself. Didn’t win me anything but ridicule from the PE “teacher” ( who was a bully).
This thread jumped the shark many pages ago.
It’s ridiculous to assume that many kids have suffered or incurred trauma or abuse from this game. Plenty of kids just aim for the nearest person, or their friends. I 100% do not believe that all kids are trying to hurt other kids, that all teachers just turn a blind eye, and that all powerful kids aim for the head. Probably some kids and teachers are, very occasionally, complicit in nefarious actions. Millions and millions of kids who played dodgeball were not out to hurt others, or bullied, or injured, or traumatized, etc… So many things can have a negative impact on so many different people. It doesn’t mean they are universally bad things.
Maybe we just have to deal with things we don’t like.
If I was traumatized by anything in school, it was algebra. I am not being flippant. I STILL have occasional nightmares about Mrs. Ravenscroft’s class. Kids definitely laughed at me, so I learned not to ask any more questions in that class. I got over it, and yes, I failed algebra and had to repeat it. I got over that too.
As I said earlier, I have a child who works at a school in a high crime area where nearly all of the kids live under the poverty level. There are insufficient resources and monitoring of the kids. Dodgeball is not apart of the PE program and more often than not stopped if found happening on the playground, The game and it’s variants just too easily easily and quickly evolves into a predator’s delight.
I actually looked up some online advice on what a child should do to stop being bullied.
Some sites say to walk away from the situation where the bullying is taking place and avoid places where the bully spends time.
Some say to tell an adult – but not in the presence of the bully.
Some say to project confidence and indifference to the bully’s actions.
Some say to stay with your friends as much as possible because bullies are less likely to go after a group.
The “confidence and indifference” strategy is what many of us made an effort to do as kids to try to move from the “victim” social stratum to the “invisible people who get ignored” social stratum. It meant never being authentic, but sometimes it helped. However, it’s difficult to do this in situations involving physical pain.
The other advice doesn’t seem applicable to dodgeball – a situation where you can’t walk away, where an adult is supposedly supervising the activity, and where you don’t have the option of always staying with your friends (if you even have friends).
I said earlier that our schools do units of activities and kids can pick and choose. However, you obviously have to pick some. Parents get angry that the mile run is mandatory - this boggles my mind. Let go a little, stop projecting your own angst and just maybe your kid will learn and achieve something unexpected.
I understand dodgeball not being mandatory, but I do think some parents create issues for their kids because of their own hang ups. Again, our PE teachers are excellent and you don’t hear about bullying in PE.
I’ve been an education advocate for over 2 decades, Dietz. Districts aren’t dealing with it. Teachers who are tenured are nearly impossible to remove. Kids from certain families have a lot of freedom and others get a pass because districts have so many other pressing issues to deal with.
Younger, more idealistic teachers won’t call bullies out because they aren’t going to rock the boat. More experienced teachers are involved in other battles (appealing to the state for more dollars, to districts for increased support for their department, to taxpayers for increased budgets). Administrators are fighting for a bigger share of the state’s budget, trying to meet state test standards so they don’t lose what funding they do get, helping their district stay competitive for college admissions, trying to keep teachers and staff happy in-between contracts, and convincing taxpayers about the need for higher taxes when those contracts are signed. A lot of things go unnoticed, and the people who do notice are generally powerless to do much.
Families are afraid to rock the boat. If they complain about a student and that student is related to someone who works in the district, as many are, then it will go nowhere and it will be worse for their kid. If they complain about a coach that isn’t going anywhere either, and they risk drawing the ire of other teachers. If the coach takes it out on the class, as some do, now they’re going to be targeted by other students.
It’s difficult enough to get kids with learning disorders the accommodations they need and to get the lower income students into the honors classes they earned the right to be in before districts fill them up with kids from upper income families who may or may not be related to someone in the district. Their families aren’t going to rock the boat. It’s apparent from other threads that when college admissions may be affected, even upper income families are reluctant to rock the boat.
We can see from this thread how helpful other parents can be. People who complain are called weak and told to “suck it up” or to depend on the district to handle it. But, as taxpayers, we’re part of the district. The responsibility to protect the children, in the absence of action by our own districts, falls to us. You ask if current employees in the educational system can identify and deal with bullying. I don’t live in your district, but you do. Your question is one every taxpayer should know about their own district. Anyone who’s interested in learning more about their district can attend school board meetings and review the minutes from previous meetings. They won’t tell you everything about your district, but they’re a start.
Poll this morning:
D16: " Dodgeball wasn’t fun. I wasn’t good; no one aimed at me as I was a non-player; I just stood in the back. Bullying can happen in any PE sport."
S15: “I loved dodgeball. we played it at camp. not at school. It’s fun!”
DH: “we played in jr high; boys vs girls on a basketball court. the girls were the same size as the boys, but got the advantage of getting to go beyond the half court line.”
Me: we played lined up against the wall; got balls thrown at us that we had to dodge; it was like an execution squad. We chose teams; and I always felt bad for same the last kids who were picked.
D23: “it’s great!! I loved that tournament at church last year! we won!” (200-kid tourney that was timed, reffed. it was a treat!)
Lots of different opinions here.
I think dodgeball can be a fun competitive game; at the same time a vehicle for targeting kids if it’s not monitored.
So can most school sports. But yes, social media is the big worry to me for teens today; but of course that’s a different topic.
I agree that most districts are doing a terrible job managing bullying. In ours, It was nearly impossible for students to be suspended, let alone expelled. So much so that teachers were told not to bother sending students to the office. Our district is not unique as I’ve heard the same from friends all over the country. I have one friend who stopped subbing for public schools entirely as there was zero administrative support for teachers trying to keep control over the classrooms. There were many “anti bullying” campaigns to educate the students, but when nothing is reinforced and the aggressors continues to get away with it, the environment isn’t going to change.
As an aside, I hate how polarized this thread has gotten. You can still have enjoyed dodgeball as a student AND still validate other people’s experiences that it sucked. I don’t love the inflammatory adjectives used by the researchers but their points are valid.