Dodge Ball is a tool of oppression....

dmspilot said:
Your assessment of the research "on a way deeper level" is peculiar considering the paper hasn't been published yet.
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????? Didn't purport that I assesed the paper. . .Did assert that it sounded way silly, and the researcher quoted was open about it. . .
 
Matthew said:
My recollection is that, being a kid-organized activity (vs gym class when the teachers organized it), any bullying during dodge-ball or similar was handled by not allowing those kids to play. Yet another advantage of letting kids sort it out, if you wanted to participate you had to play by the rules.

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And speaking of gym class - that may have also been the last vestige of corporal punishment. Back in jr high in the mid-70s we had separate boys and girls gym. Boys gym was run by the wresting and basketball coaches. If you acted up you had your choice of punishment - one whack with the "board of education" or one (?) minute on the wresting mat with the coach.

At the beginning of each school year someone was always first to have to make that choice. The year I remember, the first kid took the paddle. It was one of those pizza-peel shaped things with holes drilled in it. The kid had to bend over with hands on knees and the coach wound up and let him have it. And it wasn't a love tap, that thing whistled through the air and made a hellacious "slap" when it hit. That kid screamed and ran around the gym a few times with his hands on his ass while the rest of us laughed...and pondered.

The next time a kid was given the choice he took the option of going to the mat with the wresting coach. That kid ended up looking like Beetle Baily after Sarge finished with him, or Loki after Hulk slammed him around like a rag doll. The rest of us didn't laugh any more, but we did ponder.

I think the only other time a kid got in trouble after that was when one kid got into an argument of some sorts with a coach. Our gym was across an alley from the school building and we were lined up ready to head to lunch. The kid got into it with a coach, and the coach moved toward the kid. The kid started backing up, then saw a Coke bottle in the alley and picked it up. He tried one of those movie moves where you break the bottle against a brick wall and use it like a shiv. Turns out that only works in the movies with a stunt bottle. The coach kept moving towards that kid and had one of those crazy looks in his eyes. The kid ran, the coach ran after him until they disappeard around the corner. Then the lunch bell rang and the rest of us didn't care about that kid anymore.

Good times.
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That reminds me of the one time I tried boxing. Like I said, I was tall and skinny, with thick glasses and no athletic ability. Our school had just gotten boxing gloves, and there was one kid who looked like he'd probably be a pretty good boxer that no one wanted to box. So, I said I'd give it a try. I was almost certain he was much better than I. All I wanted to do was to try to block his punches for a round and then be done. The coach started us up, and I think I lasted about 15 seconds before the coach stopped the fight. Not being able to see the punches until they were landed was a distinct disadvantage. What this "fight" did was to establish two things: that I was hopeless in the boxing ring, which i already knew, and that I was willing to try things that I wasn't good at, which I think helped improve my stature in the class.

There was one PE class where the coaches were primarily trying to figure who what the best athlete in each sport, so they set up tournaments where those of us who weren't very good athletes got eliminated in the first round and were reduced to spectating after having been humiliated. If you were trying to convince those of us at the bottom of the heap to never do anything physical again, I don't think you could have come up with a better way to do so.
 
The gang of nerds hung out with did very well in the nontraditional sports, like dodgeball, track, badminton and volleyball.

We actually got a semi-pro team together with a sponsorship from Onitsuka/Tiger shoes and played serious volleyball with some of the local college teams. The first knuckle on my right middle finger is twice as big as on my left hand from spiking the ball in a game of full-contact volleyball!

Water polo is another sport that requires lots of leg and arm strength, but smaller people are usually better at it. I wanted to play, but I had a full time job after school...
 
Matthew said:
The kid started backing up, then saw a Coke bottle in the alley and picked it up. He tried one of those movie moves where you break the bottle against a brick wall and use it like a shiv. Turns out that only works in the movies with a stunt bottle.
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Ah, not so. I thought that way too, until I spent a few nights working (temp work) an a Pepsi bottling plant. Millions of bottles moving along conveyors, and one of the many jobs I did was picking out the ones that were cracked or had chips around the mouth. Anyway... one of the guys showed me how. You CAN do that, but it takes a hard blow on something like the corner of a brick wall or stair. And it works just like you've seen in the movies, a jagged stub of a bottle in your hand.

Of course there's the chance you'll end up with a hand full of busted glass. Good reason not to try it unless you're really, really desperate to defend yourself, and/or are wearing tough leather gloves.
 
DaleB said:
Ah, not so. I thought that way too, until I spent a few nights working (temp work) an a Pepsi bottling plant. Millions of bottles moving along conveyors, and one of the many jobs I did was picking out the ones that were cracked or had chips around the mouth. Anyway... one of the guys showed me how. You CAN do that, but it takes a hard blow on something like the corner of a brick wall or stair. And it works just like you've seen in the movies, a jagged stub of a bottle in your hand.

Of course there's the chance you'll end up with a hand full of busted glass. Good reason not to try it unless you're really, really desperate to defend yourself, and/or are wearing tough leather gloves.
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Pretty sure this was one of those returnable bottles. He hit that wall timidly the first time, and harder the second time. There was no third time, he dropped it and ran.

I wonder whatever happened to him? I don't think I even knew his name, so I never got attached. Once they ran around the corner he pretty much ceased to exist.
 
As an adult, I work for a giant tech company at their headqurters where I am older than most and they even have a name for those of us with grey hair. Oh the humanity. The place is full of people that probably agree with the article in op. We had a work sponsored multi week dodgeball tournament last summer. I never knew you could cheat at dodgeball until last summer. Every game, people would get hit by a ball and claim they hadn't. It was embarrassing.

For those of us that were involved in self regulated play as kids, we should consider ourselves lucky. Yes, there were less than positive events from time to time but, we learned from the experience. Btw, I should add that as the youngest of four boys, my parents let my brothers "regulate" me from time to time and it was usually deserved.
 
Not sure if any of you watch Shameless on Showtime. Great show of you need something to watch. But the main character’s son is accused of bullying. The response is great, there is actually a lot of truth to it.

 
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