Bullying can occur in many situations, but it’s the point of dodgeball – just as injuring another person is the point of boxing.
And I don’t see why either of those activities should have any place in a PE curriculum.
More generally, I think it’s important for PE classes to be designed in ways that make all of the students feel comfortable doing physical activity. Too many of us have a lifelong distaste for physical activity because of our experiences with PE, and avoiding physical activity is detrimental to health.
In this way, I think PE is unique. It doesn’t harm your future health if you develop a lifelong antipathy to drawing as a result of your experiences in art class (which happened to me) or a lifelong antipathy to music, science, or any other school subject. But if you can’t bring yourself to participate in physical activities because they bring up horrifying memories of being bullied, teased, and humiliated in PE classes, you have a genuine problem.
I was an average athlete - good at tetherball and foursquare, terrible at tennis somewhere in between for kickball and other elementary school sports. But dodgeball gave me nightmares. I always ended up in tears having been hit smack in the face. Those big rubber balls stung. It’s a horrible activity. I won’t even call it a game - it’s just legalized torture IMO.
My school played dodgeball with volleyballs and 10 or so kids had to line up against a wall while someone threw the ball at their heads. I don’t think other schools played it like that. Like a firing squad! LOL. When my kids said that they loved playing dodgeball, I was surprised to say the least. But their version involved soft nerf balls, no head shots, and no brick wall. I might have liked it, too!
That was my point exactly. I was being sarcastic. I get the point others make about dodgeball being mandatory in PE and other things being choices. I attended HS in the '70’s. I get what they are talking about, but I don’t buy it. I was the bullied kid, the short, skinny girl with frizzy hair, braces and Coke bottle glasses. I hated dodgeball and every other thing about gym. I thank the Lord that I attended HS before gym classes were co-ed, but I don’t think that equating dodgeball with societal oppression is a valid equivalency. At least in my HS, many of the “oppressors” in gym class were from groups that are considered “oppressed” in real world society.
I remember D15 got her glasses broken in dodgeball in MS - she is indeed unathletic. I was mad at her homebase teacher since it was some activity day thing she made the kids do. Glasses are not cheap!
Never occurred to me she was being " oppressed. " ?
But her HS school does allow all sorts of PE classes - including stuff like weight training, dance, zumba, etc, so she did not get put off being healthy just because she is unathletic thank goodness. @Marian makes a good point about that.
And despite the torture you endured with the the more aggressive version of the game in years past you seem like successful and well adjusted human beings.
I don’t really care tbh if they play this game or not.
I do have an issue with the parenting ideal focused seemingly as best practice to remove all potential threats large and small and obstacles from a child’s life. I agree with the large stuff of course the but this small stuff is actually helpful in a way. This bubble wrap approach, though noble, doesn’t seem to be super helpful long term. It’s a bit too antiseptic. Resilience is useful in life. Thicker skin can be as well.
And yes it you don’t get hit with textbooks in algebra. But sitting there day after day feeling humiliated and dumb compared to the smart kids is dismissed here as no big deal. Maybe the bully is a misunderstood kid too. Perhaps channeling that anger and embarrassment in gym class. Maybe.
I would research the huge increase in addiction, mental health problems and general malaise among the younger generation. See if the elimination of all harms approach is perhaps not as useful as one would think.
I’m not sure what kind of dodgeball other people played, but the dodgeball of my youth was fun. I was the young, scrawny 5th percentile height and weight kid and I never felt threatened in dodgeball. We did it like it’s done in most gym classes today-no hitting above the shoulders (or you were out), no throwing with excess force (or you were out) and if you didn’t want to get hit you stuck to the back. The only difference was that we used the standard red playground balls and as I understand it most gym classes today use a softer ball.
If dodgeball is played as a cruel or physically hurtful game the blame rests with the gym teacher who isn’t reffing properly. Almost any gym activity can be made to be aggressive and unpleasant, but that doesn’t mean the game itself is bad.
Kids are forced to do a lot of things that they do not always love in school. My math LD kid hated doing group math projects, finding them at times humiliating. She learned to advocate for herself in the group. My dyslexic nephew found it really difficult to try out for the required play (imagine standing before your peers stumbling over the text) but eventually became a fine actor.
I think it is strange you all think gym class is even offered in schools, or that kids are forced to play anything. My kids had PE every third day in elementary school (k-5). there was the marine drill sgt teacher (really) whose big sin was making them run. The kids hated it, but the rule was you had to run if you wanted to play. After they ran, they played the games like basketball, volleyball and even dodgeball.
After that, they had to choose PE as an elective. One daughter did and was one of 5 girls in the class in middle school, and one of the only students in the magnet to do so. All the other kids were choosing art or cooking.
I think it’s strange that you think all schools are the same! In our middle school PE is mandatory, every other day and it is no joke. In HS PE is also mandatory - freshman and senior year. At least in HS you have choices, but all are physical activities.
Apparently dodgeball is STILL played with rubber balls in some schools.
Maybe “a note” will allow a child to be excused from this bullying, but it can’t be a note from the child. What if their parents believe that bullying toughens up their kid? Should the school allow bullying of that kid?
Even in my day the PE classes were not just a group of kids playing dodgeball. We picked units like swimming and golf and archery. We didn’t just gather in the gym and play dodgeball. In high school the ‘dreaded’ activity wasn’t dodgeball but swimming for most kids. You had to pick one unit of swimming.
The last time I was forced to play dodgeball was in 4th grade, in a catholic school, with a parking lot for an outdoor play area and no special teacher leading PE, just your classroom teacher taking you outside for exercise. My teacher was about 60 years old and looked like Mrs. Doubtfire so our game choices were limited. The girls were all in dresses and skirts, the shoes were what we wore to school, most of us had long wool coats on. I preferred dodgeball to kickball as it didn’t involve running.
I don’t think PE is a joke, it’s just not the stereotypical dodgeball type activity outlined in the article. I had those gym classes (until 4th grade) but after that, and my kids, had units to do one particular sport or game. They did play dodgeball but at the athletic club and they liked it. Dodgeball wasn’t active enough for a PE class.
To do a study about how horrible dodgeball is, and describe it as how it was played in the 50s and 60s, is kind of stupid. Were there any quotes by kids under 15 about how their glasses were broken or how they felt picked on? No, they were all quotes from 40-60 year olds talking about how horrible it was 30-50 years ago.
The more parents curate their children’s lives and hyper-vigilantly insulate them from adversity the better I feel about my children’s potential to succeed in the real world.
The study was not based on how the game was played 60 years ago, it was based on interviews with current middle schoolers. It sounds as if the original study was about PE in Canada, and they were struck by the fact that so many kids absolutely hated dodgeball. The quotes I listed above are from the comments section of WaPo, they were not part of the study.
I find the idea that bullying is actually good — even necessary — to “toughen” kids up, really bizarre.
In what way does forcing children to allow themselves to be bullied and physically hurt by bigger, stronger, more aggressive people better prepare them for life? Why are we purposely teaching kids that being bullied and physically hurt by aggressive jerks is just a normal part of life, instead of teaching them that this kind of behavior is wrong and they should not tolerate it?
There are plenty of ways for kids to learn resilience and perseverance without being targeted, bullied, and physically hurt in a “game” that serves no real purpose.
We don’t often hear people who were relentlessly bullied in school explaining to us how bullying is good for the character. Usually the people who tell us bullying is good were not bullied. How amazing.
I was relentlessly bullied in school. I have failed to discover any way in which this helped me. Learning that people will hurt me if they can, that people will enjoy hurting me and laugh about it, that people will deliberately make me expose my vulnerability to hurt me more, that other people will stand by and do nothing or laugh – I just don’t see the advantage. Maybe one of you who stood by or laughed when others were bullying people can explain to me how that was supposed to help me.