Canadian conference: Dodgeball is an unethical tool of 'oppression'

The poliboard attacked this, not more than a day ago!

quote:

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Marion Young, a social and political theorist at the University of Chicago.

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That explains everything.

Oh Canada.. The Beacon of manliness and strength..

I’m beginning to think that these people sit around and pick subjects out of a hat for stories. The more the ridiculousness of the story, the more clicks these people get to their site. Just like those kids “fill in the blank” stories, but they actually get them published and people freak the frick out over them.

I had a long rant on this subject that I thought I should share here:

What if...and I could just be having a crazy thought...some level of bullying is actually good for adolescent development? I would not be who I was today if I hadn't been bullied both on the dodgeball court and off. Bullying taught me to pick my battles, but to stand up for myself. It taught me not only how to take criticism, but how to joke without wounding the other person. It taught me that I need to face issues head on, and that often in life, you are responsible for your own well-being, and that authority figures will only "save" you if it's convenient for them, so relying on them is a fool's errand. Dodgeball taught me to problem solve in real time. It taught me to deal with pain and rejection, and to use those experiences to learn, grow, and improve to avoid feeling that pain again. It taught me to use failure to fuel success.

I think one of the policy mistakes our schools have been engaging in for the last 20 years has been insulating students from consequences of their mistakes, seeking zero tolerance for bullying and fighting rather than managing that activity in a healthy way, treating misbehavior as a disease that must be managed with dangerous psychoactive drugs, and curtailing the amount of physical activity time is available to students in school. Boys need to fight a little. It is how we show and gain respect, and it is one of the ways in which we solve problems. By teaching kids that it is never ok to fight, while also denying those same kids any other arena in which to settle their disputes, those disputes don't go away, that bullying doesn't vanish, it just goes online where it cannot be stopped, cannot be policed, and follows that kid everywhere for life. Those emotions then build up and explode in violence with kids shooting up schools and homes. If these kids were allowed to fight, these issues would be resolved and these kinds of things would be exceptionally rare. When kids stand up to a bully, they gain respect from that bully, and often walk away as friends. Bullying isn't about punishing people for being different, it is about punishing people for being ashamed of who they are and for not standing up for themselves. To abolish fighting and in-person bullying is to abolish the opportunity for kids to grow up, have confidence in themselves, decide who they want to be, face the consequences for that, stand up for themselves, and to learn how to turn adversaries into lifelong friends.

Besides, looking back, I was bullied for good reason. I was weird AF, or I came across that way, because I legitimately had no idea how to interact with other people. I had zero ability to deal with failure or criticism and reacted emotionally to everything. I learned that when I was bullied for my looks or my weight, it actually had nothing to do with either of those things, I was bullied for being ASHAMED of those things. As soon as I learned to appreciate who I was and not run away from it, I wasn't poked fun at for those things. As soon as I learned how to talk to others like a human being, I wasn't an outcast anymore. When I learned that someone calling me a name doesn't change who I am, and that I am in charge of defining myself and punishing myself for what I am ashamed of, I no longer had an emotional reaction to the teasing, so it stopped. It's amazing: bullying actually helped me learn who I was, what I was proud of, and what things I needed to change about myself. I cannot imagine who I would have been had I not learned those things before going to college.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think more activities like dodgeball are needed, not less. Kids need to fail a little. They need to feel some pain. They need to learn to stick up for themselves. They need defeat and rejection to have the motivation needed to put in the work to become victorious. You don’t learn from winning, you learn from the pain of losing. By trying to save our children from pain, all we have done is spare them from a lifetime of hard, but necessary, lessons in who they are, what they want to be, and what it takes to go from who they are to what they want.

God I fricking hate liberals.

I’m liberal AF but this kind of stuff is where they lose me.

Heres the deal. Ive always been unathletic. I’ve never been able to dribble a basketball between my legs. I’m short, scrawny, and slow, so football was never fun. You can imagine how good I’m not at soccer. I’ve even struck out playing intramural slow pitch softball in college.

But dodgeball was the one activity in PE where I didn’t feel like such a fricking loser. It played to my strengths, and it didn’t matter how much bigger and stronger my opponents were - they had to stay on the other side of the room. I was scrappy and good at -we’ll -dodging. I was able to recognize patterns and be patient and slowly, strategically pick off the bigger guys to help reduce the competition toward the end. I could make plans and strategize with the more athletic guys on my side as well.

Anyway, I’m literally the exact person these people think would be a “victim” with dodgeball but in reality it was the only game I ever got to experience what it must be like to be one of the guys who are good at sports.

And whatever - worst case scenario you get beamed by a volleyball. I am speak from experience that it’s way less embarrassing than dropping a wide open touchdown pass because no one cared to cover you because they knew you’d drop it.

Instead of teaching kids on how to win, we want to celebrate being a loser.

Life is not fair and life does not give out trophies for everyone.