Recently, an article appeared in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance titled “Is there a place for dodgeball in physical education?” Several school districts have actually banned the game from PE classes and several PE teachers from other schools have decried the game as having “few redeeming qualities.” It seems that this game is emotionally scarring kids and has been for generations of PE classes. I had no idea!
I played dodgeball in church, in Boy Scouts and at school. I had no clue that I was playing with fire the whole time. To hear some of these anti-dodgeball types, I’d have been better off skipping PE and going to smoke cigarettes with my shop class buddies. One academic even said that dodgeball was one of “so many things breeding violent behavior in children.” Funny, all this time I thought it was parents who don’t take responsibility for their children that breed violent behavior! Son of a gun, it was dodgeball the whole time!
But why stop at just one aspect of PE class? Why don’t we go after the whole class. Face it, PE was a pretty traumatic class for a lot of people. Especially if you were one of the few poor unfortunate souls who had to square dance in junior high gym class. My friend John “Beavis” Beasley to this day gets cold sweats and a severe case of the shakes if he hears “bow to your partner.” Let’s
just do away with the PE menace altogether and save poor guys like John the agony of such illnesses as Late-Observed Tertiary Traumatic Asymmetrical Bow-to-your-partner Syndrome (LOTTA BS).
As a matter of fact, why stop at PE? There are a lot of classes that are emotionally scarring for kids these days. Take math for instance. I myself was horrible in math and still have minor psychotic episodes when confronted with algebraic equations.
My editor thought she’d get her jollies one day by telling me that if I ever wanted to be published again, I must solve for “x” in a complex series of plus signs, parentheses and imaginary numbers. She wasn’t laughing as I curled up on the floor and foamed at the mouth while talking to an imaginary dog who called himself “The Lord.” We can either do away with math or alter it to suit people like me. Maybe “Math without numbers” could be offered as an alternative.
On that thread, we could also offer “English without words” or “Reading without books,” for people who have similar reactions to Shakespeare, Harry Potter, or Beowulf. You don’t think it happens? My sister read one paragraph of “Macbeth” and was in the hospital for a week. It can happen, and it does.
PE classes are already experimenting with “jumping rope without rope” to accommodate children who cannot jump a rope and feel bad about it. Why not expand that logic to math and English as well?
History classes can also be traumatic for youngsters. Think about all the nasty stuff in our past: wars, riots, famine, plagues, Kenny Rogers … it’s hard for some kids to deal with. Rather than expose them to this potentially damaging class, we should do away with it.
While we’re at it, let’s take out science classes, music classes, art classes, home economics, metal shop, wood shop, computer literacy, ROTC and anything else that has the potential to traumatize. Kids can just come to school and sit and think about how-no, wait a minute-thoughts can be traumatic as well. They can just go to school with empty heads, sit, drool and be happy. It’ll be sort of like life in Oxford, only without all the references to Eli Manning.
Come to think of it, school itself can be rather traumatic for a lot of kids. Smart kids make fun of dumb kids, dumb kids beat up smart kids-the vicious cycle has no end. Young boys, upon reaching puberty, are often traumatized by girls. Young girls, upon reaching puberty, are often traumatized by boys. Since kids reach puberty at different ages, the safest thing to do is just keep them out of school altogether.
Illiteracy will go up, and since there will be fewer skilled workers entering the work force, the economy will dry up, too. But we’ll save a bundle on education! That way we can all rest safe knowing that our legislators will be able to retire to Cancun instead of having to settle on retiring in the Florida Keys.