“[…] there is a movement afoot to ban dodge ball, a staple of the playground for generations. Dodge ball, it seems, is bad. There are liability concerns, critics say, and the game provides a poor cardiovascular workout. The real deal-breaker, though, is that the game can hurt children’s feelings, not to mention their teeth,” The Los Angeles Times reports.
“[…]The man taking aim at dodge ball–a.k.a. murder ball, killer ball, bombardment–is Neil Williams, chairman of the physical education department at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic. The professor, who has been called a ‘wuss’ more than once over this debate, admits that as a youth he was an excellent dodge ball player. He loved the game, in which his arm strength and quickness often left their mark on his less agile classmates.
“It wasn’t until he became a physical education teacher years later that he underwent a radical conversion. His moment of epiphany came when he coaxed an overweight girl with John Lennon-style glasses and a rosy complexion out of the back of the room to join in a dodge ball game. Within minutes, a young boy slammed her in the face with the red rubber ball.”
‘He hit her so hard, it broke her nose. There was blood streaming down her face,’ remembers Williams. ‘Most of the kids stood around laughing. And I thought to myself, “What am I doing setting up an activity where this is not only possible, but predictable?'”
Well, for one, you’re acting like a phys-ed teacher, Bill — though lord knows what kind of PC-silliness compelled you to stick a non-athletic girl in the same game with smoke-throwing boys and a hard rubber ball. Set up a second game, for Chrissakes. Or take some of the air outta the ball…
But more to the point: Would we hesitate to set up a softball game ’cause the sadsack plump girl might not get a base hit? Howsabout a footrace? Ain’t a chance in hell the rosy-faced cherub’s gonna place in the top 20… Should we ban running, too?
Of course we shouldn’t. So my question is, when are we going to learn that we can’t whitewash away the competitive spirit? I mean, Holy Tanner Boyle, Teacherman! — radical egalitarianism, in all its forms, is just plain silly.
Besides. Chubby kids excel at tug-o-war. And wrestling. And pie eating contests…
Oh, you lost me when you took a leap off Ideology Cliff in the last three paragraphs…
The risk I take sometimes, Aldo.
Out of curiosity, though—what do you mean, “Ideology Cliff”? I’m one of those guys who thinks we should still keep score at little league games, and that not everyone should get an “art” award, etc. etc., sure.
But why is that ideological—except in the totally weak sense that a willingness to make “judgments” is itself ideological?
How can you be working in a humanities department?
Hey, I don’t hear anyone with the last name Dodge complaining about the game. These neo-puritans want to ban anything that is fun, entertaining and non-PC.
Common sense and empirical science <i>began</i> in humanities departments, Matthew.
It’s only within the last 30-something years that the humanities have lost their way.
I aim to be one little doughball in that great trail of breadcrumbs to finally lead the humanities out of the forest darkness…
*<span class=”standard11″><b>Full disclosure</b>: For the record, I was a superb dodgeball player (I used to be a baseball stud, too), and in my salad days I used to drill into the asphalt all the slower kids at Jewish day camp who ventured into dodgeball striking distance (we called the game Greek Dodge, for reasons that still escape me). Those scraped and swollen kids survived, it should be noted—and they went on to become doctors and lawyers and rabbis and deli owners, etc.
Not only that, but by the end of the summer, they’d recognized the need to learn to <i>catch the frickin’ ball</i>! I like to think I had something to do with that.
So. If any of you Camp Mildale kids are reading this, well… You’re welcome, guys…!</span>
Well, you are more than a doughball in that bread trail – you are more like a big sign post saying “Dummies Go This Way” – I think it is great that you are in there, but still amazed that you haven’t been fired yet. People with reason, thought, common sense, and empirical science are too scary to keep around budding young minds!
When a student writes a well-reasoned paper on “The Darling” by Chekhov but ends it with a grand statement about the nature of all spinsters everywhere…that’s leaping off an Ideological Cliff.
But wasn’t that <i>my</i> point, Aldo? That this P.E. teacher was extrapolating from one bloodied cherub the fate of all future cherubs? Whereas I was simply playing off of his example to suggest that we’ll never know what we can excel at unless we’re given the opportunity to excel…
I agree with your assesment of the PE teacher’s mistakes in judgment. I don’t see how this proves that “radical egalitarianism, in all its forms, is just plain silly”.
Ah!
Well, the ideology behind radical egalitarianism relies on an “ends justifies the means” conceptual framework—in short, it strives to achieve proportionalism, which I’m vehemently against (as a forced principle of social design). I’m all for equality, mind you—but I’m for equality of opportunity. R.E. is too often about “fixing” the results, then justifying them later.
Aldo –
I would agree with Jeff because this is an example of “radical egalitarianism” and just how silly it is…
Having been at the receiving end in dodge ball one too many times, I opted out, joined the pie eating team, and never looked back.
After all, the center of a dodge ball circle is not a safe place for any
I am reminded of an episode of the Wonder Years in which Kevin learns to fight the bad guys in dodge ball. I’m out of school – let them fight – which would you rather have, dodgeball with soft felt balls or playing baseball with hard balls?
Thought you all might enjoy this <a href=”http://www.retrocrush.com/archive/smear/default.htm”>page</a> about dodgeball and other childhood favorites.
There was this awful game we played back in Miami’s Skyway Elementary School called “No Man Stand.” Throwing away the pretence of rules and winning and all that, everybody would crouch down, and if someone stood up, then everyone else had license to run after him, and try to catch him and beat it up. I don’t know that the game ended; I just remember a big loop of beatings.
So it gets much worse than Dodgeball. Just go to one of those Karate places for kids, where everyone has to fight each other, and everyone waits–just waits–for their chance to fight that big, fat slow kid… (I waited, and it was worth it!)