posted on December 28, 2000 08:47:59 PM
I've read two newspaper articles in the past few days reporting that the game of Dodge Ball has become controversial. It seems that some school districts have banned, or are considering banning, the game because it encourages violence, sends the wrong message to our children, discriminates against less able kids, and so on. I believe one of the mentioned schools is in Maryland.
Well, I always liked the game in school. I know that my 8 year old son enjoys it now. My recollection is that most kids liked it, even those who were not particularly adept at sports. The rules were simple and everyone could get a chance at being the ball thrower. I did go to an all boys school so I don't really know whether the game is well suited to a co-ed environment. I see no reason why it wouldn't be, though.
I disagree with those who would ban the game but maybe I'm just not seeing the issue clearly. Is there something wrong with the game?
posted on December 28, 2000 08:57:51 PM
Gosh, I dunno. It was one of my favorite games in elementary school. I was pretty good at it too. My son liked it alot, since he wasn't particularly interested in organized sports, and my daughter likes it. They are just starting to teach it in her second grade. What will they come up with next?
posted on December 28, 2000 09:29:35 PM
You're right, krs, but almost any game can be referenced metaphorically to illustrate a RL situation or experience.
I think the point made by the anti-DB proponents is that it reflects attitudes and behaviors that are no longer relevant or beneficial to modern society. Much the same as the view, held by some, that scorekeeping in children's games is somehow damaging to their fragile juvenile psyches.
Since I fail to grasp the logic in either POV, I am seeking enlightenment or maybe a Dodge ball target. I'm never quite sure of my own motives.
posted on December 28, 2000 09:36:58 PM
I have a niece who played on a soccer team with the "no score" rule. It was a joke because the parents on the side lines kept score like crazy. I totally missed the concept of what it is we're supposed to be saving these kids from. Reality?
When it comes to rough sports I would think that Dodge ball should be at the bottom of the list.
KRS I'm really worried about you now. First a genuine fluff thread and now being so philisophical... I think the cold went to your head.
posted on December 28, 2000 10:04:41 PM
Dodge Ball was one of the few "games" that I was allowed to play, without them rewriting the rules for me. I saw it as a game of strategy. Being small I was not easy to hit. Then if you stay in the background and let the big kids get taken out first you tend to do finish near the end. Even won a game or two...
About rewriting the rules, Baseball was fun. With short fingers I have difficulty gripping the bat so often the bat would go flying instead of the baseball. This got their attention!!! Once they dodged the bat they had to pick it up and chase me to first base. If I got there first I was safe...
posted on December 28, 2000 10:14:07 PM
KRS - my mistake. I thought I read something about a moist sore throat. And then you used the word ABSOLUTELY - I just knew you were suffering a true malady of some sort.
Barry - I was the Queen of Volley Ball - they called me (drumroll here) the grasshopper... Nope, I won't tell that story!
posted on December 29, 2000 12:08:06 AM
From a PE stand point, I don't see how dodge ball is a productive game. Of course, I don't see the 'point', from a PE stand point, of baseball or kickball either. Maybe someone else can tell me how a kid benifits physically from standing around waiting for a turn. (And that isn't even addressing the social aspects).
I would think that games and/or activities that keep ALL the kids moving as much as possible would be a good goal.
I remember playing a game where we did a 'crab crawl' (hands and feet on the ground while keeping the body up....face towards the roof) and the goal was to keep one of those big red balls in the air (by kicking it) and get the ball through the goal. Everyone kept moving, there was an aspect of compitition, and it was FUN. We only played that on rainy days, the rest of the time I remember standing around waiting for a turn.
As for dodge ball....well, maybe I've just carried one to many kids to the nurse's office after they were beamed in the head, but I just don't see the point.
posted on December 29, 2000 02:16:41 AM
DB reflecting attitudes and behaviors that are no longer relevant? Maybe non-relevancy is a good thing.
About 8 years or so ago my son, then in elementary school or junior high, was in the gifted program in his public school here in Georgia. Georgia has the most awful "gifted program" I've ever seen, it mostly consisted of going to a trailer once a week and doing logic problems like you get out of Dell Crossword puzzle books.
But, once a year they let all the gifted students in Georgia out of their trailers, and sent them to a statewide gifted kid hoo-ha up in Athens at the University of Georgia, where they did 'relevant' activities.
You had your choice of which workshops you wanted to participate in, science, creative writing, etc. One of the ones my boy chose one year was the workshop on world hunger.
They divide these kids into "nations" containing different numbers of people. Then they give each "nation" some number of jellybeans. They gave the "nation" with the fewest members the most jellybeans. Then they said to the workshop - "Solve the problem of world hunger" and turned them loose.
It didn't but a few minutes for the majority of the workshop to decide that the way to solve the problem of hunger was to attack the smallest nation, which had the largest number of jellybeans. The workshop ended with about 30 kids (my son included) piled up on the the last, crying, "smallest nation/largest food supply" kid, who was curled up in a ball on the floor, desperately trying to hang onto his jellybeans while being pummelled by the rest of the group. Yeah, this is relevant, no doubt about it.
My son went to the gifted kid hoo-ha up in Athens the next year, and returned to report that the world hunger workshop had been discontinued. He dropped out of the gifted program after that - the trailers were cramped and hot, the logic problems were boring, and they wouldn't let you beat up on kids with jellybeans anymore.
posted on December 29, 2000 02:59:20 AM
The educational system is something to survive. Thank goodness for a public library where I could go learn something. I learned what adult life would be like.
The people in charge are second rate and have goals incompatible with yours.
Group activities are for identifying someone for the others to distain and punish.
If you are different they will take you into the hall and beat you until you learn to hide it.
If you want to exact retribution do so in private without mercy and cover your tracks.
[ edited by gravid on Dec 29, 2000 03:00 AM ]
posted on December 29, 2000 04:34:50 AM
I don't understand - we must have played dodgeball differently than some people here because there was no 'waiting for turns'. Everyone was just divided into two groups, put in a court divided into three sections and threw the ball at each other. You couldn't go into the center section (this prevented someone from throwing the ball at someone six inches away).
posted on December 29, 2000 05:54:54 AM
I played the same version of dodgeball as barbarake. From childhood I've been hopelessly nonathletic (even today, don't toss the car keys at me, because I WILL miss); gym day for me was an endless string of abuse from the gym teacher, no joke. However, for some reason I enjoyed both dodgeball and soccer.
What I DIDN'T like, and which still makes me wince, was "bombardment," which I am hoping is an anomaly invented by this sadistic gym teacher. One "team" stood in a row, unarmed, while the other "team" threw balls at them for a specified time. Score was kept, each "unhit" player counting as one point. Then the teams switched roles. This went on for several rounds, with the highest-scoring team being the "winner."
I will admit it taught me how much I didn't like standing there waiting to get hit...which I do believe is a valuable "life lesson". Some way to teach it, however.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Dec 29, 2000 05:55 AM ]
posted on December 29, 2000 07:28:11 AM
My gym teacher was aggresive to an excess. He considered it personal cowardice that I would not wrestle, so he arranged the classes so I would be in the same one as the captain of the wrestling team. Just so nobody missed the point he made wrestling part of the class and
put this jock and I together for the first class. When this bozo charged me I turned away a bit and brought an elbow up under his chin which stunned him but he stayed up.
I then picked him up by the crotch and the neck and slammed him down head first on the mat which knocked him out cold. I got a big screaming raving lecture about having no sportsmanship. I told him I had made it clear I would not fake fight and sorry if you don't have the guts to face the real thing. They really wanted to see this thug jerk me around and make me beg for mercy but it backfired. The one I would have willingly fought was the teacher but he had to use a proxy. I would have broken some bones had it been him. Boy do sports ever build character!
[ edited by gravid on Dec 29, 2000 07:34 AM ]
posted on December 29, 2000 09:35:04 AM
I see that there are some who do not have fond memories of dodge ball. The game itself, however, does not appear to be the source of the remembered trauma. The horrors of gym class are a common point of reference for many. Sadistic PE instructors, bullying jocks, an unclimbable rope, are indeed cliches.
I now agree that there is some logic to the ban. The culprit in the matter does, however, seem to be an unfettered social dynamic and not the game. I don't believe any child should be forced to participate in an activity, however benign, that causes pain. Arguably, such forced participation can "build character", but it is apparent that it can also create an enduring hurt.
The proposed ban on dodge ball seems like a simplistic, and probably ineffective, solution to a larger, more complex, problem.
donny,
I do enjoy reading your posts! In another thread, your offhand reference to a Pete Dexter book gave me warm fuzzies of a kindred sort.
posted on December 29, 2000 12:47:20 PMThe proposed ban on dodge ball seems like a simplistic, and probably ineffective, solution to a larger, more complex, problem.
So...kids who enjoy playing dodge ball will be lose out?!?
A far better solution would be to allow children who dislike the game to opt out of it when it is offered as part of gym class--let them jump rope or play four-square while the others enjoys themselves.
We played dodge ball all the the time when I was a kid. Played it vigorously. And, really, kids were *not* dropping like flies or limping away with bloodied noses, concussions, broken bones, or irreperably damaged egos.
I wonder why society today is determined to wrap kids in cotton wool, going out of its way to prevent any of the scrapes and bruises (physical & mental) that are natural to childhood? We are not doing our children any favors.
posted on December 29, 2000 01:01:14 PM
I'm not surprised seeing Dodge Ball being a taboo. Schools are increasingly being left the job of the parents today. Lawyers also have an impact today in a school's operations. Many school districts have removed Jungle Gyms from the playgrounds, the danger of a child falling an legal problems are an element that wasn't so common place years ago.
When I went to high school it wasn't uncommon for several of us to have shotguns in our car or truck so we could go hunting after school, there was no big secret about it either. Today such an action would have parents down at the local bail bond negotiating a release.
posted on December 29, 2000 02:15:22 PM
I loved Dodge Ball in elementary school! IMHO you don't have to be athletic to play it. I didn't enjoy baseball but I still had to play. I think it's a great idea to give the kids a choice.
"If man were to be crossed with a cat, it would greatly improve the man, but deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain
posted on December 29, 2000 02:20:16 PM
Let me tell ya~when you are a girl, awkward and 5'7" in 5th grade~dodge ball is no fun.
First, the jerk PE teacher did the "captains pick" team thing, so me and the chunky kids were always picked last. Then the meanest, girl-hating bullies in the school intentionally threw that hard rubber ball at my head and chest because they knew I was an easy target.
Thank God for waterpolo, cause height was an advantage and I ruled the water!
And those bullies~well, they all still live in Hicksville, get drunk and slap their wives around on Saturday night.
But, no, I wouldn't say it had any lasting traumatic effect on me....LMAO!
posted on December 29, 2000 11:22:13 PM
I don't remember ever playing dodge ball. We were constantly playing kickball which I loved.
I remember my kids speaking of playing dodge ball and from what I remember I believe it can teach fast reflexes but I do have to agree with Bunnicula. I many areas we are doing our children grave disservices today.
I have always considered true wrestling a disgusting sport. Just thought I would throw that in.
My son liked it alot, since he wasn't particularly interested in organized sports, and my daughter likes it. They are just starting to teach it in her second grade. What will they come up with next? 
...) Barris
