PE online - that’s just really sad to me. Obesity is an epidemic in this country - kids can’t even walk up stairs without getting tired. Too bad if you don’t like PE - I didn’t like taking a foreign language but I had to do it. You do it and you get through it. No, I’m not advocating bullying, but most PE activities do not incite bullying.
When my child took online PE (over the summer), the students were given heart rate monitors and they had to show up in person once or twice to have the teacher download the activity on the monitor. The health portion of the course was online.
@CTTC well that’s different. In that case I’d say it’s a good option for kids who want to take it during the summer. I’d still offer it during school hours however - yes, many students enjoy PE.
“Do you know what your friend the volleyball captain is doing now? She had a special sense!”
She was the youngest person made a manager at her accounting firm. Amanda, the other girl I mentioned, is a pediatrician
D18 says dodge ball was banned in the 4th grade because too many people got hurt. As a result, D21 has never payed it on school.
I played Greek dodge ball in elementary school and remember having the rule that you couldn’t hit the head. I loved the game, sad to hear it was awful for so many. Those playground balls did sting!
My girls are not athletic or competitive. There was a lot of rules for PE- teachers picked teams, all kids would have to be included. Yes, my kids got yelled at by their classmates because they messed up. I told them to not take it personally, competitive people want to win, there are no friends out there on the field. They survived, but both are glad they never have to take PE again!
I went to Junior High in a condemned building because the school district voters refused to pass a bond issue to build a new building. I guess they didn’t care if the building fell down on their kids heads. We were allowed on the first floor only of a 3 story building.
Anyway, the gym had lunch tables set up on one end. The other end had chairs for band and choir. Art was on the stage. Where were we supposed to play games like dodge ball?
On nice weather days we went outside and ran or played frisbee golf.
On bad weather days (and this included the whole midwest winter) we sat at the lunch tables and played cards. We had tournaments for euchre and hearts.
I did play dodgeball in elementary school and high school PE with those hard red balls. I did get hit square on in the face while wearing glasses and braces. I think those were accidents.
I appreciate the skills I learned in those junior high PE classes. How often do adults play team sports? Sometimes, I know. I also know that many more people do not have the time or inclination to play team sports after leaving school.
The individual skills of running and throwing a frisbee (which can be used with a dog as an adult, no other person needed) are valuable to more people than the team sport in terms of physical activity. (not talking about how team sports can help with getting along and working as a team at work).
I loved dodge ball as a kid. I love dodge ball as an adult. You just have to know the 5 Ds – Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge. The game is way different today. No more red rubber balls that left a mark. Now it’s nerf balls – best invention ever. Seriously, doesn’t hurt anymore. Only injury you have these days is the ACL tear, et. al.
Think about which students are repeated targets of bullies. Usually they’re socially awkward and/or physically awkward. If the kid is socially skilled but physically awkward, then they may be able to turn into a class clown to become more popular and stop being bullied, but the socially awkward kid isn’t going to be able to do that.
As to stepping up and asking everyone to throw at you, well, they will. If the balls are hard ones, going closer means they hurt more, and inviting people to throw at you means you’ll get more throws aimed at you. This does not seem to me to be any kind of solution.
White Goodman disapproves of this research.
What do all the anti-dodgers suggest? You are a PE teacher, you have 40 kids, you have no budget but have to use the equipment available. The goal is to get students up and moving and you have 40 minutes.
Don’t you need a Bachelor’s degree, and in some districts, a Master’s degree to be a PE teacher?
I think that anyone with 4-6 years of PE education could use their imagination and come up with something different than dodgeball. In other words, I’m not a PE teacher so I don’t have an answer to your question.
BTW, I love dodgeball. I think its a blast. But I feel strongly that it should not be a required activity for ALL students.
Pickle ball is pretty popular in this area @twoinanddone
Well, IF the teacher(s) are not providing proper supervision and IF there are actual bullies in this dodgeball game and IF no one else steps up to help the socially awkward bullied student and IF the socially awkward bullied person cannot defend themselves (or their friends cannot, if they have no friends to help) or the bullied cannot catch, step to the side or bat the ball away and IF the bullied cannot opt out of the dodgeball class and IF the balls used actually are hard and hurt, then I may be able to see your point.
At or near the midline is where everyone strives to be in the game, though I haven’t played it in a while. By going to the midline, the bullied shortens the distance of the throw from the bully, thus the ball won’t hurt as much, if and when he ball hits you. If you’re hit, then you’re out. You take a seat. Game over for you. Unless of course, somone else on your team catches the ball and you’re the last person on the bench. But that doesn’t happen to often in a big PE class.
If I were a PE teacher, I’d know more games than dodgeball. And if I were hiring a PE teacher, I wouldn’t hire one who didn’t know any other games than dodgeball.
And if by chance I were a PE teacher who didn’t know any games but dodgeball, I would still remember how to take 30 seconds to use Google:
https://physedreview.■■■■■■■■■■/dodgeball-alternatives.html
https://www.ssww.com/blog/dodgeball-game-alternatives-activities/
There are a lot of kids that love dodgeball. And they don’t play dodgeball all school year long. It might be one unit.
My fear is that we’re raising a bunch of snowflakes and kids won’t be learn able to improvise, overcome, adapt, etc. And it’s not just about dodgeball. Sad to me really.
Dodgeball can be the great equalizer for the “awkward” kid. There where many games in my day where they might be one of the last few standing. And many kids, even the “awkward” ones like dodge ball. It’s way easier to play that basketball, softball, etc.
Well, I never liked PE much…the worst was when we played softball. I was in the outfield and no one ever hit that far, so I just sat in the grass. Usually it was boring because only a small number of kids were good at the sports we played…
We never played dodgeball that often and I do remember it hurt to get hit…
I was so happy in high school when I could do dance for PE. D did dance for PE too…
Right, you must also think of a non-dodgeball game that everyone can play and that even the awkward non dodgeballers will like. They could play catch but that’s boring and the non dodge kids would hate that too. Now you have a whole class that hates PE where at least with dodgeball some of the kids liked it. It you are going to replace dodgeball (which I don’t believe is played all that often in schools anyway), you should replace it with something the anti-dodgers like. If they are going to dislike the new activity, why not just stick with dodgeball?
pickleball requires equipment and enough room to set up the courts.
Look, I think there should be PE required but that’s going to require kids who don’t want to run to run, those who don’t want to swim to appear in public in a swimsuit, those who don’t want to bounce a basketball to actually go one on one with the guy who is 6’ tall in 8th grade.
We could pick our units in high school but swimming and square dancing were required units. There was a lot of grumbling about both but dancing was really fun for most of us. I’m sure there were some who hated it and yes, it involved bodily contact, and was probably more dangerous than dodgeball with 200 pound boys stepping on your feet and twirling you around. There was one dance called ‘Spin like Thunder’ where the girls linked arms above the boys’ shoulders and the boys spun and we lifted our feet off the ground, which often ended up as a pile of 8 teens on the floor. I remember one of the socially awkward farm boys was a fantastic fantastic dancer (a lot of Polish weddings in his family) and a sought after partner. He would have been the last partner you’d have picked to work on a science project or act out a scene in English.
School is supposed to be about learning things, about trying new things. Yes, students should be forced to try new games and sports. I was not a great athlete but enjoyed PE. The equalizer was that there was a written test for every unit, even swimming and dancing, with 1/3 of the grade attendance, 1/3 participation and 1/3 written test. Easy A for me. And I can tell you all the rules for bowling.
The best time to introduce sports to kids is at a young age. If they don’t learn a sport early they are less likely to play it later. In elementary years, physical fitness is just a side benefit of having fun. Kids that age love playing games, including dodgeball.
College intramural dodgeball is so popular because so many college students played it growing up and they love playing the game. It’s not just the big public schools that offer it as part of their intramural program, it’s most colleges. The first two pages of a google search turned up the following intramural dodgeball participants: Colorado College, Carleton, Wellesley, Baylor, Boston College, Yale, SMU, and Loyola. Harvard recreation program offers it. Princeton has an annual dodgeball tournament and the following description:
“The annual Dodgeball tournament is one of the few non-alcoholic events that engages a majority of the Princeton student body. All student groups, from dance troupes to eating clubs, compete with each other to win their bracket. The chance to play dodgeball with friends, get free t-shirts and pizza, and win cash prizes all serve to attract a diverse mix of students and groups who would otherwise rarely interact. Furthermore, the participation of all the eating clubs and the major student organizations guarantees that the Dodgeball tournament is the main, if not only, significant social event on campus that day.”
I think the adults who have had a bad experience with the game should allow their kids to participate, and they can see for themselves if they like it. They just might think it’s great. I believe if it becomes something kids are allowed to opt out of, it will disappear. P.E. teachers can’t run alternative activities.