The Canadian Society for the Study of Education at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences has decided that dodgeball — the gym class game and rite of passage for most elementary schoolers — is not merely a somewhat dangerous schoolyard pastime, it’s a tool designed to teach children an “unethical system of oppression” that “legalizes bullying.”
The game, of course, is a familiar one: two teams — usually self-selected in a mildly embarrassing process — race to take control of a set of large rubber balls that they then throw at the other team. Kids hit by the balls are out and a winner is declared as soon as one team has been completely eliminated.
In a totally serious article published in Canada’s National Post, researchers argue that social justice demands the complete and total elimination of dodgeball from the Canadian physical education curriculum, lest children grow up to understand they can wield their privilege the way they wield a rubber athletic ball.
The game, the group claims, is “miseducative” and forces students to display “hierarchies of privilege based on athletic skill,” even though the game is mostly just about throwing balls at other children.
“Dodgeball is not just unhelpful to the development of kind and gentle children who will become decent citizens of a liberal democracy. It is actively harmful to this process,” the researchers claim, adding that the game is, at its core, “oppressive.”
Read the rest at: Dodgeball
