Whether dodgeball is valuable or detrimental may be debatable, but one thing is certain: people are passionate about the game.ĭennis Senibaldi saw that firsthand when the school board he serves on in Windham, N.H., voted to ban dodgeball and all dodgeball-like human-target games in 2013. “I always tell people my number one goal is not for students to move perfectly, or even be physically fit, it’s for them not to hate physical activity.” Loyalty and Loathing “So, as a profession, are we doing more harm than good?” he said. are less likely to be physically active as adults. While many students love dodgeball, playing it may have disproportionately negative consequences for students who despise the game, said DeJager. His teaching philosophy has been shaped by his own experiences being bullied in gym class. He was skinny and sickly by his own telling and acknowledges that physical education was not the most obvious career choice for him. teachers were probably the students who were good at dodgeball.ĭeJager was not that kid. “That would be like a math teacher saying everyone open up your math books, if you get question 1 wrong, then close your book.”ĭeJager believes dodgeball remains relatively popular among physical education teachers in large part because the types of people who become P.E. “Compare that to a math class,” said Dan DeJager, a physical education teacher at May Rocking High School in Fair Oaks, Calif. Students eliminated early spend most of the game sitting or standing around. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes dodgeball as a moderate-intensity activity, and that’s just for those who make it to the end of the game. SHAPE America’s official stance is that dodgeball should not be played in any school setting.ĭodgeball isn’t the most rigorous activity. ![]() ![]() She said the game is, at its core, aggressive and exacerbates power imbalances among students-the perfect conditions for bullying. “I don’t think it contributes to a positive school climate” or positive social behavior, said Carter. Our approach is if there is a game that kids want to play, how might we organize it, how might we establish the expectations and the rules so everyone can be included in the game and everyone can feel safe in the game?” ![]() “I will say that banning any game, as if the game itself is the cause of bullying, is missing the underlying cause of those behaviors,” Cushing said. This includes having a plan for conflict resolution-such as making students play rock, paper, scissors to settle disagreements-and having an adult play the game to model good behavior such as kind communication and working together to strategize how to eliminate players. Her group recommends setting clear rules and expectations for students. Values such as teamwork, communication, and conflict resolution, said Elizabeth Cushing, the president of Playworks, a nonprofit that partners with schools to offer structured play at recess that promotes social-emotional learning.īullying can be an issue if the game is not properly supervised, she said. So, yes on all of that, but then abolishing dodgeball, you’re just removing from the table a valuable tool that schools can use to engender those SEL values folks are so keen about.” “This idea that we have to be attuned to not only the academic needs of our kids but their physical and emotional needs is exactly right. “I think there is a huge irony that this debate is re-emerging now when social-emotional learning is at a fever pitch in education policy,” said Dale Chu, an education consultant and a former principal of a K-6 school.
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