Bias. More accurate would be to say: "whether they let kids make human targets of themselves to their classmates. BIG difference.
In 1963, when I was in seventh grade, we got a new principal. One of the first things he did was stop dodge ball, a hallowed formal and informal recreation much beloved by my classmates and I.
I wasn't good at a lot of sports, but I was good at dodging. I used to love to do it. I was outraged at this new interloper for his idiotic rigidity.
Guess he's mainstream now. It's enough to make you puke.
Only bone I've ever broken. Maybe the Prof has a point :-).
I don't feel all that emotionally scarred though.
Dodge ball was strictly lunchtime recess in the asphalt play yard bordered on three sides by the brick walls of the H-shaped school, and by the iron fence on the fourth.
We played a version in which those tagged out by the throw of the red rather soft ball smaller than a basketball stood on the sidelines and cheered--and I think we could catch the ball if it came to us, and throw it to our allies.
There was action, suspense, great fun--and only a scrape or two that anybody got during all that time.
There was none of this so-horrible psycho-sexual abuse described by the current crop of "experts"--who have given us the "Kleibold-Harris Dodge-Ball Variant": "Dodge Bullet".
The consistent intent of all of this de-competitiveness is to reduce the young to soft, obese wimps.
So can losing a chess game! Our PC government schools are so obsessed with "self-esteem" that it has resulted in not just the pressure to end competitive sports, especially those some kid will be last picked for a team in - but also resulted in the dumbing down of curricula and textbooks.