I also had no idea how not to be bullied. If someone had shared this with me and others, we could have had a much happier childhood rather than a miserable one.
I would have loved to know how to avoid being bullied. Does that knowledge exist today? It didn’t exist in my childhood.
Except that multiple people, on this thread and in the WaPo comments, have said that the slow/overweight/unfit kids learn to jump in front of the first ball that comes near them, so they can sit out the rest of PE, and some even called in sick on the days they’d have to play dodgeball. So it has the opposite of the intended effect: the kids who most need the physical activity get little or none.
And there have been lots of comments that even in schools where that was a rule, bullies often ignored it and hit kids as hard as they could in the head anyway, claiming it was “accidental.” There are so many different options for physical activities, why force kids to play a game where hitting each other is the whole point?
So rather than remove the game, how about removing the bully?
How about 'why ALLOW kids to play a game where ‘hitting each other’ is the whole point? Football anyone?
There aren’t many sports where there isn’t contact- tennis I guess. Basketball sure is physical. Batters get hit by pitches. What about tag? That has physical contact and that contact can be rough? How did I ever get through my childhood?
@MomofWildChild, Are you pretending not to understand the difference between normal physical contact in a sport and intentional ganging up on physically weaker and slower students for the sole purpose of hurting them?
@MomofWildChild yes we played with big red rubber balls. Kids knew they weren’t supposed to hit you in the head. I was not particularly bullied in dodgeball, but I wasn’t very good at dodging. I did not complain, but that did not mean I did not hate every second of it. Thankfully I didn’t play it after sixth grade either. Middle school PE consisted of plenty of required activities but dodgeball wasn’t one of them. In high school, I tried tennis, lacrosse and field hockey before settling on modern dance as a sport I actually enjoyed doing.
I was bullied in 7th grade. but not physically.
There were penalties for even the accidental hits to the head. I have to ask what they were.
Bullying of the type described by the posters here is terrible and inexcusable. But was this an inherent failure of the game dodgeball or of the adult supervision? I think most of us have either directly experienced, or through our kids/friends heard of, teachers, coaches and other adults in supervisory positions who either ignore, or worse yet, encourage the weak to be constantly intimidated, humiliated and assaulted by the strong, mentally or physically. A valid point raised by others though is just about anything that involves some level of competition is susceptible to bullying. On top of that, while we would all agree that directed and constant physical or mental assault at particular individual(s) is unacceptable behavior, what about being picked last, being put in “right field”, never getting the lead role, etc… Kids have to experience inadequacy and failure in order to learn to persevere and be resilient.
Going back to dodgeball. The team version with soft nerd balls doesn’t seem to be any better or worse than any other team sport. I played the old school version with the bouncy round rubber ball where if you got hit and didn’t catch it, you were out, but if you caught it, the thrower was out and everyone else was back in. Last person standing was the winner, which was rare because of the catch rule. I can see where bullies, if unsupervised, can easily pick on the weak, maybe easier than other activities in that version. But it is not dodgeball that creates bullies, it is bullies who abuse dodgeball. In my experience, dodgeball became an exercise in social skills as well as physical skills as “alliances” were formed. There was also some self regulation as well. Some of my friends and I were nerdy and athletic. If our “nerdy but nonathletic” friends got picked on, the “bully” might easily get a ball in his face. Playground justice at its best.
What???
Cycling, swimming, gymnastics, hiking, running, the field sports of track and field, skiing, diving, bowling…
Croquet, racquet sports, ping pong, volleyball (except colliding with teammates) …
I was thinking mainly of true team sports. I was afraid of field hockey, to be honest. I played and was good for awhile, but then I went to a camp and discovered there were a lot of bigger, stronger girls than I experienced at my school. I got knocked around a little. I didn’t feel bullied. We truly are in a snowflake generation. Never mind. We all act on our own personal experiences, some of which are not good.
Believe me, there is plenty of bullying in swimming and running.
@“Cardinal Fang” just to correct you, high level swimming is a contact sport.
Just to correct you, I swam for my college and my nephew was a D3 national champion. Swimming is not a contact sport at any level. During practice, a swimmer may end up touching another swimmer; that is does not make a contact sport.
OK, let me take that back. Competitive swimming in a pool is a non-contact sport. Open water events involve some contact at the beginning.
Kind of amazed this conversation is still going, but if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…
I’d be interested to know how the Canadians play dodgeball. Back in the day, we played in a circle. As you got out after being hit by the ball, you joined the outer circle until the winner was the kid left inside the circle. This was a game played by primary schoolers. Perhaps it’s a game best left to younger kids?
PE exercises are not conducted with the intent to hurt and humiliate others. In my opinion, the worst school game was Thumbs Up-7 Up, or whatever it was called. We played it indoors on rainy days. I dreaded it, because often, no one would tap my thumb. Popular kids got their thumbs tapped. Not the same as being bullied or being aggressively hit with a ball to cause humiliation, of course. But we have separate issues here, of which bullying is the problem, not dodgeball or any other gym activities.
Again, I’m wondering what the heck kind of dodgeball they play in ??. I always think of Canadians as being very civilized, but perhaps they are just bloodthirsty monsters.
I dated an Olympian level swimmer and never saw anyone making contact with him. They are in separate lanes!
Apparently you don’t watch much ice hockey? 
OMG, I had forgotten about that one. Yes, was one of the kids who never got picked. Then there’s the whole thing about picking a recess team - yup - always one of the last.
Yet, somehow turned out to be (I’m told) a well functioning adult human.
There is all sorts of contact in middle school and high school XC races especially when the runners are in packs going around a corner and they are jockeying for a spot.
And if someone wanted to be a bully, they would wait until they were away from spectators and either put an elbow or a foot on a rivals body to slow them down or knock them over. It can cause a lot of physical damage if done right.
A better claim may be that running is not designed to be a contact sport. That does not mean it isn’t in reality.