Produce Better Humans And Fewer Bullies

Even though I was a skinny, asthmatic kid, I was damn good at the game. I was always one of the last to go out, and along the way I'd take out many on the other side. I wasn't a bully (but relished taking the bullies out), but enjoyed the game, which I aways thought about as solely a survival-of-the-fittest game, because ultimately only one could remain standing in the end. 

And because I was a skinny, asthmatic kid, I was targeted a lot in the game, but I became pretty good at surviving, being agile enough to hop around my zone. We also played a variant of the game we called nation ball where it was double the targeting action. What I didn't realize then in my childhood mind was that dodgeball, and nation ball, were nothing more than sanctioned bullying where even bystanders could be hurt. 

In fact, in the decades since grade school for me and all the times we played dodgeball, I never really thought much about it, until our youngest Bryce got hit in the head with a ball and ended up with a mild concussion. And she wasn't even playing. Just sitting off to the side talking with friends. Most likely it was an accident, but we'll never know if she was hit on purpose or not. 

This was during middle school physical education class and both our kids had mentioned that sometimes they play dodgeball when there's time to fill during a class. Until we asked our school principal and superintendent about it, we didn't know it had thankfully already been banned from our school district (and many school districts across the country) and was no longer sanctioned to be played. Our district’s comprehensive school safety plan includes a policy consistent with the prohibition against discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying pursuant to Education Code 200-262.4, and that includes not playing dodgeball. There have been multiple lawsuits about this game, too. 

Dodgeball was just something our middle school PE teachers let the kids play sometimes, unsupervised mostly. That's dangerous and thankfully that will end now. If you're not familiar, here are the rules of dodgeball according to USA Dodgeball: 

GAME OBJECTIVE/POINT SCORING

• In order to win a game, a team must eliminate the entire opposing team within the time limit.
• Each team forms an Attack Line
• Each person eliminated is called a Kill

Eliminate. Attack Line. Kill. Think about that -- those are the literal words used in the dodgeball rules. The reality is that the human is the target in dodgeball. It is solely about the strong targeting the weak to take them out. It might be fun for adults who are good at it, and those who watched the comedy from 2004 called Dodgeball, but for kids in grade school, middle school, and even high school, there are no redeeming qualities of the game. Again, I never thought about it until our daughter was hit in the head with the ball and received a mild concussion, and she wasn't even playing, just sitting off to the side. 

Being a Gen Xer, I've laughed at my share of social media memes that say things like "we never wore bike helmets in our day, and we turned out okay." Ha. We subscribed to Friedrich Nietzsche's quote, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger." But when we played games like dodgeball in school, and when we were good at it like I was, we didn't think about the impact on weaker players who never wanted to play and were always targeted. Talk with anyone who was pummeled with those red rubber balls, sometimes mercilessly, and the negative memories are painful. 

I never considered myself a bully, but I definitely know now that there was never any team building or character building in dodgeball, only enabled systemic bullying that instilled fear and anxiety in those being pummeled. Survival of the bulliest. Thank goodness our school district had already banned it from sanctioned play, and now unsanctioned play. There are plenty of other positive team-building sports and physical activities that schools engage in today, activities that can help produce better humans and fewer bullies.