Oct 15
The twins’ elementary school held its Fall Carnival yesterday. The twins had a blast. They jumped in a bounce house. They did some bungee bouncing/jumping. They got to climb a rock wall. However, when we walked by the sign announcing Dodgeball, I thought, “Over my dead body.” Why the hell is Dodgeball making a comeback? Why don’t we just call this game what it really is - AnExcuseToTakeOutYourAdolescentFrustrationsOnTheFatOrGayKidBall? Too much of a mouthful, maybe? But, everybody knows that’s what it really is.  Thankfully, our school district does not allow this game. However, the after school program allows students to play it on a volunteer basis, with parental permission. I made it very clear to the staff that under no circumstances are my twins to participate in such nonsense. I happen to agree with a 2004 article that appeared in USA Today. “It was most popular among lazy gym teachers,” says Eugene Borkan, a child psychiatrist in Portland, Ore., who admits he liked the game when he was a kid because he was small and quick. “I don’t think the game has any positive values. It’s about shame and humiliation. And it was particularly vicious when it became co-ed — boys aiming at each other’s genitals and at girls’ breasts.” By the 1980s, enough physical educators shared Borkan’s opinion to create an anti-dodgeball movement. In an often-quoted article in a 1992 issue of the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Neil Williams of Eastern Connecticut State University dubs dodgeball the “charter inductee” in his “Hall of Shame” and declares such games are “self-defeating, because the students who are in the greatest need of skill development are immediately banished, embarrassed and punished, and then given no opportunity to improve.” By the time the National Association of Sport and Physical Education, which represents more than 18,000 teachers and professors, came out against the game in 2001 by saying it didn’t “think it’s a good instructional activity,” the game had been banned in school districts throughout the country. Did you play Dodgeball in school? Did you like it or hate it? Would you want your child playing Dodgeball in PE? With bullying already a severe problem in schools, do you think Dodgeball is a wise game for kids to play at school? Do you think Dodgeball has any positive attributes? 

The twins’ elementary school held its Fall Carnival yesterday. The twins had a blast. They jumped in a bounce house. They did some bungee bouncing/jumping. They got to climb a rock wall. However, when we walked by the sign announcing Dodgeball, I thought, “Over my dead body.”

Why the hell is Dodgeball making a comeback? Why don’t we just call this game what it really is - AnExcuseToTakeOutYourAdolescentFrustrationsOnTheFatOrGayKidBall? Too much of a mouthful, maybe? But, everybody knows that’s what it really is. 

Thankfully, our school district does not allow this game. However, the after school program allows students to play it on a volunteer basis, with parental permission. I made it very clear to the staff that under no circumstances are my twins to participate in such nonsense.

I happen to agree with a 2004 article that appeared in USA Today.

“It was most popular among lazy gym teachers,” says Eugene Borkan, a child psychiatrist in Portland, Ore., who admits he liked the game when he was a kid because he was small and quick. “I don’t think the game has any positive values. It’s about shame and humiliation. And it was particularly vicious when it became co-ed — boys aiming at each other’s genitals and at girls’ breasts.”

By the 1980s, enough physical educators shared Borkan’s opinion to create an anti-dodgeball movement. In an often-quoted article in a 1992 issue of the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Neil Williams of Eastern Connecticut State University dubs dodgeball the “charter inductee” in his “Hall of Shame” and declares such games are “self-defeating, because the students who are in the greatest need of skill development are immediately banished, embarrassed and punished, and then given no opportunity to improve.”

By the time the National Association of Sport and Physical Education, which represents more than 18,000 teachers and professors, came out against the game in 2001 by saying it didn’t “think it’s a good instructional activity,” the game had been banned in school districts throughout the country.

Did you play Dodgeball in school? Did you like it or hate it? Would you want your child playing Dodgeball in PE? With bullying already a severe problem in schools, do you think Dodgeball is a wise game for kids to play at school? Do you think Dodgeball has any positive attributes? 

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24 Notes

  1. the-original-tawny-scrawny-mama reblogged this from electradaddy and added:
    When I was in elementary school in Houston, we played a variation of dodgeball, but it wasn’t actually dodgeball. They...
  2. lettersforharper said: I played it and hated it. If Harper has to play it I will take issue. And I don’t like Red Rover either!
  3. dollywantacracker said: I would purposely get out first and would just sit there for the rest of the day. My teacher made me play a full game once. I sent 9 kids the the nurse. He let me get out first from then on and even let me bring a book to read during dodgeball day
  4. kitkatloves said: It never seemed to be about bullying at my school. It was just fun (coming from a lifelong mega weird nerd)
  5. daysofthedad said: I do remember playing it in school, amd I also remember it ending tears more often then not for the same few kids.
  6. limitededitionpussy reblogged this from electradaddy and added:
    We played dodgeball a lot in school…this is way after the anti-dodgeball movement that you just informed me about and...
  7. bardowlatry said: I was actually a fat kid good at dodgeball. I blended in to the circle until there were only two of us left. I didn’t like it, but I was good at it. I hope my kids never play it.
  8. oneluckyelephant said: I hated dodgeball, still do. Not only was it humiliating being the class target but it was painful as well. I can’t count how many time I cried (even more humiliating) in PE because of this game.
  9. electradaddy posted this

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