Dodgeball is dead. What can we kill next?
Schools are tightening the screws and getting rid of dangerous activities like free play time. Dodgeball is out and so are games like tag where interpersonal contact are required. Did you and your friends make up your own game? Better write the rules down, otherwise it might get banned.
Eight rules for Switched, a game Briauna and her friends made up, were scrawled on a piece of notebook paper: Rule No. 2: “You must say ’switch, switch’ two times to begin the game.” Rule No. 6: “Make right choices no yelling.”
Briauna and her friends drew up the regulations so the game wouldn’t end up in shouting matches and hurt feelings - which could get Switched tossed off the playground in the Rio Linda Union School District.
…
Concerned about safety and injuries and worried about bullying, violence, self-esteem and lawsuits, school officials have clamped down on the traditional games from years past.Gone from many blacktops are tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact. In are organized relay races and adult-supervised activities.
And no pushing each other on the swing either. That involves touching so it’s not allowed. Plus there is such a propensity for bullying. I’m not sure how they can justify allowing relay races. Somebody has to lose when there is a race and that has got to be a major self-esteem trauma. Maybe they just run one team instead of a competition.
The restrictions trouble some early-childhood experts and parents. Recess is usually the only part of the school day where kids can do what they want. Experts say free play helps kids learn how to cooperate, socialize and work out conflicts.
…
Tightened restrictions on playgrounds are part of the growing trend to more strictly control what happens during the school day. Child behavior experts are concerned that strict rules for play threaten to straitjacket students’ creativity.Recess is supposed to be spontaneous play. The unstructured time helps fuel the imagination, said Dolores Stegelin, associate professor of early childhood education at Clemson University.
Unfortunately that very sensible opinion is not widely shared.
Games where kids chase each other - tag or even cops and robbers - are generally banned in Natomas Unified’s elementary schools. No grabbing or pushing is allowed.
At Natomas Park, students can only toss and catch a football - tackling or blocking isn’t permitted. But the no-contact rule applies beyond the grade-school gridiron.
During lunch recess one recent afternoon, yard supervisor Janice Hudson spotted a first-grader pushing a girl on the swing.
“Do not push,” Hudson told the student. “Let her push herself, please.”
“One person can be a little stronger than the other,” she said as she walked away.
I think I’ll use that one the next time my kids ask me to swing them. “Sorry buddy, but I’m a little stronger than you so you’ll need to push yourself.”
Dodgeball teaches students eye-hand coordination and gross motor skills. Getting singled out and eliminated from competition is part of life, said Tom Reed, professor of early childhood education at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg.
“Life is not always fair,” said Reed, also a member of the Association for the Study of Play. “You don’t get what you want. Things like this are learned on the playground.”
Sit in your assigned seats, no talking in class, 5 minutes to get to your next class, sit in your assigned seat for your 20-30 minute lunch, line up for organized play at recess. Do not confront, do not compete, do not touch, do not interact. These schools are actively conditioning their students to become antisocial worker drones. They are creating a generation of sheep.
(Tip credit to Joanne Jacobs)
In memory of the lost days of recess, I dedicate my next game of Dodgeball to today’s and the future’s students who well never know the adrenaline rush associated with playing Dodgeball.
I’m 27 and I’m playing Dodgeball at the end of the month with 50 of my fellow co-workers with ages ranging from 21 to 35.
Great memoreis.
Some people falsely believe that a lack of social interaction is a problem in the home school realm. That home schooled students do not get to learn proper social skills. Somehow this sounds a whole lot worse to me.
That’s just sad. We played dodgeball and tag when I was a kid. We could eat PB & J sandwiches too. It just sucks to be a kid nowadays I guess.
I’ve read that some newly built schools do not even have playgrounds. Some schools have “silent” lunches and some schools don’t even permit students to talk on the school bus! I don’t ever want to hear some phony from the AFT or NEA complain about lack of socialization opportunities for homeschoolers.
Schools are going to lose customers if they continue in this vein. An article in yesterday’s educationnews.org says that cyber schools are becoming more and more popular with parents. At least a student has control over his day and can take a break.
I remember dodgeball in fourth and fifth grade at Mt Calvary (near Suitland, MD) being a lot of fun on the playground but dodgeball in high school gym (in Colorado Springs, CO) being dangerous. The balls in high school were harder, and some of the boys threw them around at great speed and poor accuracy. If I recall correctly, one kid (a few years after I graduated) died from taking a hit in the head.
I don’t know, Harry. That sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.
My class created a game that got banned. It was played on the parallel bars - one person was at each end, swung the legs over to the right, and ran to the other side. The object was to catch the other person.
It got banned because some first-graders decided to play - they were decidedly smaller than us giant fifth-graders - and one little girl broke her arm.
But they didn’t ban the monkey bars the time I almost broke my neck (had a lovely bruise right across my throat after a slip)… though they’re almost certainly gone now.
I’ve been watching this develop for awhile now, and only barely convinced my husband that we needed to watch out for this when our son goes to school. If this does occur in his school, we’d more than likely homeschool him.
I don’t think the dodgeball death I mentioned was an “urban legend.” I DO recall reading the article about the death in the Colorado Springs paper, The Gazette-Telegraph (it’s now just The Gazette). I DON’T recall when I read the article or whether the death occurred in a high school or a junior high. Had it been my high school (Wasson HS), I’m sure I’d remember that. I also recall thinking at the time that I had always expected while I was in school that a serious dodgeball injury was inevitable given how hard the balls were (more like volley balls than the soft underinflated balls I remember from grade school) and how strongly they were thrown.
Above all else, just keep in mind WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS CRAP.
It IS NOT conservative republicans. They do not have the stranglehold over the public education establishment.
Who does that leave?
dodgeball is a necessary aspect go growing up. the banning of it is insane. america becomes weaker and weaker each time we do this. it goes right along with giving 5th place winners trophies. dodgeball is a child’s first date with reality, some thrive and some fail… and thats real world
our school has recently undergone changes to recess. what was once “unstructured” free time for kids is now a “choice” recess. This program was adopted to 1) deal with a bullying problem at school and 2) deal with the problem of exclusion for some kids. Does anyone have an opinion on whether structured recess actually deals with any of these issues effectively or at all?
dodgeball kicks ass
I’m a high schooler in a Texas school district, I remember loving dodgebal and being pissed when it was banned from my elementary school, I am now trying to start a club for dodge ball in my high school. The school’s reasoning for not allowing it are completely absurd, they say it is dangerous, and yet they sanction sports like football and forget the main fact, IT’S VOLUNTARY, when u decide to play , you are taking into fact the risks of the game, if you get hurt, and are a reasonable citizen you understand that you have no one to blame but yourself. But school boards and adults with deep emotional scars do not even take the opinion of children into the matter, when dodgeball was banned in my school district, our PE teachers took a poll, 90 percent of us wanted to keep dodgeball, 5 percent wanted it gone, and 5 percent did not care, how can the government tell us that dodgeball is emotionally scarring, its jsut the opposite, it was one of the few sports I enjoyed in PE asides from Soccer, I sucked at basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, field-hockey, and any other sport we played, at the time my hands were really uncoordinated, the first time we played dodgeball, I was the worst, the sport was the only thing that taught me how to throw, catch, and honed my reflexes. Baseball couldn’t do that for me, Basketball certainly couldn’t, football wasnt fun, I broke my finger playing FLAG FOOTBALL in PE class, did the government see my pain, of course not, and making recess structured time wont even create anti-social worker drones, because they wont even have minimal problem solving skills, our country will stalemate, Recess was the only thing that kept me awake during elementary school, making it structured will ultimately bring about the death of our country…