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 ...
We’re kindred spirits. Loved all of those shows, and Star Trek, and Wild Wild West. Played it all the time— OUTDOORS.
Oh good God.
Look,I was always the hated one (I was too ugly, and maybe too nice), always last picked, and not very good at any of these athletics. Nonetheless I liked to play Greek Dodge and Wall Dodge and tried my best both ways. I never hated the game, BTW....just wasn’t fond of my torturous foes, who would harass me whether these games existed or not.
I did OK regardless. Actually, it all depends on the crowd....at HOME, I played happily with my actual neighborhood friends and cousins, no problems. The problem was bunching all kinds of kids together in a school who are completely different people which includes those who would taunt and bully, and being forced sometimes to play with them.
I went to Panama City Moseley, Class of ‘77. NoFla was a good place to be from.
AT Ft Monmouth, near the West Point Prep school, we (Regular Army) played worldball against the preppies. A huge, 6 foot, heavy air pumped ball and you pushed, shoved or fought it across the ground to the opposing soccer net.
Fought was the operative word. The amount of skinned knuckles, bruised shins, twisted ankles and “angry” retorts was at insane levels. We (preppies and regulars) were all Cat A type people and we were NOT going to lose. I think we finally broke somebodies leg and the authorities (the preppy O-6) decided his cadets did not need to injure themselves.
“I was a skinny, slow runner with poor arm strength.”
Same here. Yes, it really was teamwork and having a lot of fun. Getting hit stung for a couple of seconds but still fun.
I attended Springfield Elementary. My siblings, the same plus Jinks, and Bay High.
Until recently I led a Trail Life USA Troop of Boys. When given the choice for gym games, dodgeball is the overwhelming favorite.
Easy? Says the jock!
Actually dodge- as basically all playground games - was played with those pliable thin rubber generic balls. Soccer balls are pretty nasty hard.
Apparently everyone has forgotten that the PROPER definition of “queer” is “weird”. Thesaurus analogy.
The Puritans weren’t as much of a buzzkill as the Progressives are.
The writer left out “Bean-O”.
These people need to get a life and let kids be kids.
What gets them about ‘dodge ball’ isn’t how it is played but what it was actually called in Middle America...it wasn’t called ‘dodge ball.’
It was called Smear the Queer, and it was a blast, great fun to play, and a game where even awkward, less athletic kids could win, and small kids had a slight advantage, being harder targets to hit. It was infinitely better than softball or the other more rule-laden, structured sports. It was just a game that let kids blow off steam before a math test or after a glassy eyed session on grammar.
Probably the name originally meant ‘smear the oddball,’ but even when I was a kid the meaning of queer had already changed from anything ‘merely odd’ to specifically ‘gay’ limp-wristed people... Just as the word ‘gay’ once meant ‘joyous.’
I never heard of the other games they mention, ‘butts up.’ Sounds queer. I don’t think the farm kids in my part of the woods would have stood for it if some kid had suggested it.
We used to play red- ass
When you lost the game. You had to to to the wall and put your butt up
Then the winners got to throw balls at your ass
This was allowed at school. Ca. 1976-9
Now they try and ban dodgeball ? Still allowed at my kids school. Soft balls
We called dodgeball smear the queer, the only rule was the person you could throw your ball at on the other team had to have a ball in his hands when you hit him.
My junior high not only had dodgeball in gym class, we also had boxing!
We played that too, and much funnier grade school version in which everyone had to stay on a board with casters attached while trying to get the giant ball to the other side, which equalized the game somewhat as all the biggest guys were busting a gut laughing while just trying to stay on.
Or smear the queer.
I used to equal opportunity blast anyone I could. I took the return blasts like a pro. WTF is wrong with America today? This new America would NOT have won WWII.
No more head shots on unsuspecting classmates?
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