Game Theory
The Wall Street Journal today ($$) contains an article entitled "Dodge Ball Doesn't Fly in Schools" describing all the reasons why the game is discouraged by crybabies in school districts around the country.
The article refers to a paper by the National Association for Sports and Physical Education:
NASPE believes that dodgeball is not an appropriate activity for K-12 school physical education programs. The purpose of physical education is to provide students with: · The knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to be physically active for a lifetime · A daily dose of physical activity for health benefits · Positive experiences so that kids want to be physically active outside of physical education class and throughout their lifetime
Uh, no. Sorry, but the purpose of sport goes back eons before Politically Constrictive language. Sports originated as life-skills training for boys and men where they learned hunting and fighting so they could survive. The games invented competition to push the males to perform at higher levels to increase survivability.
They specifically did not want to foster a false sense of "worth" in poorly performing individuals. It was important for tribal hunters and warriors to know who they could depend on in a scrape. Equally important, the less-physically-adept males would not have any false expectations and could be put to good use in less dangerous roles, thus increasing the survival rate for everybody.
Why do we think we are so much better today? Presenting a false environment where competition is bad, where nobody wins or loses, where nobody gets their precious feelings hurt is not only undermining the future of our nation it is all so....French. 1930's France, to be exact.