True, but tweeting about it is surprisingly cathartic! 
I wonder if it’s just you saying they have “metal”. I bet the other coaches are saying they have a lot of “mettle”.
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No no… I mean metal as in the actual trophies/medals. Actually they are mostly made of plastic.
I don’t think the other coaches mean "mettle, " when they say, “I expect you girls to win some metal,” at the beginning of a tournament that hands out trophies to the champs. If they do, I am going to have to have a word with them about their choice of homonym.
So you think that wussiness is, at times, better than being a real man? Or are you saying that preparation is bad?
Batman’s a wussie?!
Well, he fights from the shadows, hides his true identity, buys all his tools, refuses to use guns and refuses to kill.
Not to mention the rubber nipples.
Slight hijack here. I used to be a PE teacher, and there are some very good reasons for banning games like that in gym class.
Properly taught (which it usually isn’t), Physical Education should be exactly that: Education. Not just playing games for the hell of it. A good PE teacher uses specific games and activities as tools to teach various aspects of physicality.
We want to teach throwing skills? Spatial awareness? Agility? Dodgeball* will indeed teach that to the kids who aren’t traumatized by it. For the rest, it’s not just a waste of time, it’s encouraging them not to enjoy being physical. It only ends up physically educating those who are already physically educated.
Perhaps more importantly, I can teach throwing, agility and such with dozens of other activities that don’t involve targeting people.
And lest you think I’m carrying a grudge from childhood - I LOVED dodgeball. And I personally probably did benefit from it. But I was also aware that while I was having fun, it was a living hell for many of the other kids in my class.
Being physically educated doesn’t mean that everybody has to be good at the same sports and games. Not everyone has to be on the football team or be a cheerleader. Not everyone has to play dodgeball. It’s a bad teaching tool, and a mark of lazy and unimaginative PE teachers.
As for the OP… I don’t know. In some ways people have to be much tougher these days. Much harder to be an unpopular kid with your enemies using Facebook against you.
- I’ll define “classic” dodgeball as being played with the relatively heavy playground balls many of us remember from our childhoods. It can also be played with lighter equipment, but the relatively aggressive nature of the game can also make it an unpleasant experience.
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Makes sense in a way. The connection between “fun” and massively unhealthy food may not be great. Unless you want fat kids who get diabetes and die of heart attacks. This may not be the most effective way to get at the problem though.
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Red is the most stressful color, which is hard coded into us. Since there is no pedagogic value to adding stress it makes sense to not use red color for grading.
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Americans are fat. Stop the presses.
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Never played dodgeball but my opinion is that US culture in general could do with a bit less penalism and less winner/loser mentality. Kids will have plenty of time to pick on eachother and hurt eachother without it being part of the curriculum.
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I’m guessing this is just an “editorial” from the OP.
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Valentines day is a pretty stupid commercial idea to start with so whatever.
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This method works and raises enjoyment as well as participation rates in sports. Elitism in sports has been moving down in ages way too far and should be curtailed.
If there is a trend in the US towards less segregation, less stigmatisism of the “weak” and more focus on well being and health, I would congratulate you. Considering the massive trauma that would inflict on conservatives self image I doubt it will get far, or get there without a lot of stupid opposition though.
What’s the number of obese kids or kids with lifestyle related health issues in the US? What’s the suicide rate among young teenagers? My guess would be that these problems are bigger in the US than in other western countries, and that the above are parts of that reason.
Work ethic? The work ethic IS “wussy”. It’s all about submitting, conforming, having no life of your own, doing what you are told, being a cog in the machine. It’s about working hard whether or not there’s any point to it just because you are supposed to. And no, sitting around doing nothing isn’t especially admirable either; but that doesn’t make work for the sake of work a good thing. Having the self discipline to work hard to accomplish a necessary or desired task is admirable - but that’s not the work ethic.
As for family; the family of the past was more likely to be abusive, to ostracize kids for matters from sexuality to hair length; to teach kids to submit, to obey orders, to never complain no matter how badly off they were. Also “wussy”. Well, “wusses”, and thugs to terrorize them.
As for personal responsibility, even if you aren’t using the normal meaning of that term (a pretty name for sociopathy), they were anything but responsible. They dumped poison into the air and water, bombed people, instigated coups, and on and on; they did all sorts of things we have had to deal with the consequences of. Not that we are great examples of responsibility today, but neither were the people of the past.
That seems less like “wussiness”, and more like either control freakishness or a hatred of fun. Neither of which are new things, except that back in the “good” old days it would have more likely been a preacher ranting about sinful self indulgence.
Sounds like a very recent aberration if it is true at all; they can’t have been losing 50% every 5 years for long if they can still walk upright.
My experience of dodgeball tended to be that the kids would all try to throw as hard as possible, to hurt as often as possible, and often targeting a specific unpopular kid. And always being the last one picked IS pretty traumatic (as someone who had a late growth spurt I know from experience). Nor does it teach you any lessons beyond “people are jerks”.
Spankings are almost always a bad idea in my opinion; I’m glad they are becoming more and more disapproved of. And the comment about raising your voice sounds like an exaggeration.
Was it ever? That was a movie, not real life.
I think that more ordinary Americans lived and travelled abroad duringWW2,the Korean War and Vietnam,but I could be wrong.
Wussier, maybe, but much better at using computers. This is what’s known as evolution.
Proper spelling is for pussies.
The “point” is that in every society, there is work that needs to get done and someone has to do it. That’s why if you have a job to do, do it as well as you can. Farmers work hard not because they are “conforming” but because if they don’t there are no crops that year. We are so removed from the actual fruits of our labor that most people have no comprehension where anything comes from. It just sort of “appears” as if by magic. And so no one cares. “What does it matter if I don’t do my job. My job doesn’t really mean anything.” And next thing you know, everyone is complaining about how nothing seems to work properly.
I mean you think you should be provided for even if you aren’t contributing, don’t you?
So? Throw it back.
Or that people value those who they think can contribute more.
In my day they used to just beat people up.
I started a thread some time ago on how it seemed like fistfighting was a lot more common generations ago (if you go by what you see in old films and TV). It seemed like every dispute, over anything, was resolved by a pop in the mouth. Usually with no physical, emotional, legal or social repurcussions other than the recipient of the punch being all “whatyoudothatfor?!” and maybe putting a steak over his eye.
IMHO, most fights and arguments involving young people are not about a disagreements of opinion, but are about social dominance.
The work ethic (at least as I normally see it in America) is about the virtues of working hard, about the idea that working hard builds character or is good in itself; not about doing a good job, nor a necessary one. Americans work longer hours than people in other countries; they don’t do a better job, nor are they more productive for it; they just work longer because Work Is Good. Americans admire someone who works a lot, not someone who works less but gets the same job done better and faster.
And at any rate, if the work in question is necessary then it justifies itself; you don’t need to make noble sounding speeches about a “work ethic” in order to label it as something other than busywork. The work ethic mainly makes people easier to exploit; they are taught to work hard for its own sake, while the people they work for give as little in return as possible. Our admiration of capitalism and the free market ends, when it comes to the people doing the actual work wanting a reward for it. It’s very asymmetrical.
Why, given the choice? That’s just self abuse.
As I said, jerks. We’re talking about a game, not curing cancer.
Or simple sadism.
I thought if you got hit, you were out?
Regardless, this is like saying, “What, Mike Tyson is beating up on you? Just hit him back, you pussy!” Yeah, like my dodgeball throwing skills are equal - either in force or likelihood to hit.
Der Trihs - Out of curiousity, have you ever had to work hard or fight for something you wanted? I don’t necessarily mean a litteral fist fight. I mean you decided there was something you wanted or wanted to do or accomplish and then had to overcome some sort of adversity to achieve it?
Because from the entire tone of all your posts, you strike me as someone who not only is unable to push themselves, but you seem to think that people who do are somehow chumps or idiots for doing so. Even though by doing so they are acheiving the rewards that you think you deserve.
…the more you know!..
So, now that people aren’t beating each other up nearly as much, would you say that social dominance has disappeared? Of course not, since in any social group larger than, say, 2, there are going to be dominant people and their are going to be submissive people.
So if there’s still dominance, and people aren’t being beaten up anymore (which you posit is coming from wussiness)…then wouldn’t that make wussiness a good thing? In this case, at the least.
Unless you’re saying it’s a good thing for people to beat each other up?
I played crack the whip in grade school. I started 1st grade in 1983.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Wussiness is never a good thing. It’s good that people are finding non-violent ways to resolve problems, but that is not “wussiness”. Wussiness is an inability to stand up for yourself or assert your rights.
But you also said that preparation was wussie. Are you saying that preparation is never good?