Posted on 06/03/2019 8:20:18 AM PDT by mkleesma
Thousands of academics are gathering in Vancouver for the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences from June 1-7. They will present papers on everything from child marriage in Canada to why dodgeball is problematic. In its Oh, The Humanities! series, the National Post showcases some of the most interesting research.
The games children play in schoolyards are famously horrible, if you stop and think about them.
Tag, for example, singles out one poor participant, often the slowest child, as the dehumanized “It,” who runs vainly in pursuit of the quicker ones. Capture the Flag is nakedly militaristic. British Bulldog has obvious jingoistic colonial themes. Red Ass, known in America as Butts Up, involves deliberate imposition of corporal punishment on losers.
But none rouse the passions of reform-minded educational progressives quite like dodgeball, the team sport in which players throw balls at each other, trying to hit their competitors and banish them to the sidelines of shame.
When the Canadian Society for the Study of Education meets in Vancouver at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a trio of education theorists will argue that dodgeball is not only problematic, in the modern sense of displaying hierarchies of privilege based on athletic skill, but that it is outright “miseducative.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
When I was in grade school, I was one of those smaller kids who got nailed in every single dodgeball game. Still, I didn't care because I loved playing the game - great fun!
When it rained the coachs would be on one side and students on the other it was great fun and i got blasted plenty
The Horror!!
What they really need to get their mind right is a good bedtime story read by chicks w/ dicks drag queens.
I was a skinny, slow runner with poor arm strength. Dodge ball and, to a slightly lesser extent, the various tag games were my favorite games. And although teamwork was a factor, there was never team-focused anger: any athletic failings had small effect on teammates’ success.
So, what are the alternatives? A group hug, reading with a drag queen, sharing the bathroom?
Bookmark
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Oh please. Give me a break!
On second thought, don’t give me a break, just let me play, whether I win or lose. I can handle it!
When I was in High School the saying "If you can Dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball" became common. (Because of the movie)
That meant to take chances! Goodness can't even have that anymore.
Yours is exactly the attitude this sort of game is good at teaching! Your value is not defined by how you come out in a schoolyard game, and the same applies to much else in life.
I’m a girl and I loved dodgeball - maybe because I only had brothers.
Geez just turn your back or shoulder to the ball and I NEVER aimed for the head - that target is too small anyway. :-)
I saw the Boston Celtics this month had an organized game of dodgeball with some kids. Looked life soft little Nerf balls, but better than nothing!
education theorists
“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”
The left is opposed to any hierarchies of competence, excellence or ability. But it is zealous about hierarchies of victimization.
“... education theorists ...” and teachers unions are almost the dole problem in modern US education!
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