The Dodgeball Paradox

you A paradox is a statement that despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises leads to an apparently self-contradictory or logically unacceptable conclusion. A paradox involves contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time. One example of a paradox is a ship of Theseus. Theseus

was a mythical king and founder hero of Athens. This paradox is a thought experiment and raises a question of whether an object that has had all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. First, let's consider the ship of Theseus was sailed by the hero in a great battle, and it's been kept in a harbor as a museum piece. As the years go by, the wood begins to rot, the bolts begin to rust,

and each element of the ship is replaced by a new one. As time goes by, all the parts are eventually replaced. The question is, is this restored ship still the same object as the original. This thought experiment has been considered for over 2,500 years by great philosophers such as Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle.

Aristotle considered four causes to explain change and try to answer this paradox. The first of the four causes is matter. Now when considering matter, we are considering the material that composes the change thing. Second is form. When considering form, we're considering the arrangement, the shape, or the appearance of the changed thing. Third is agent. When we consider this cause we are thinking about the person or persons who brought this thing into being.

And lastly is purpose, the final cause, that is the sake of which the thing is what it is. We can use Aristotle's four causes to determine whether or not the ship of Theseus has changed significantly enough to be considered a different ship. We can also apply the ancient wisdom of Aristotle to a paradox that has polarized the physical education community for years. This is the dodgeball paradox.

How can we justify playing a physically aggressive game in a safe learning environment that is the physical education classroom? To consider this paradox, we first have to look at the history of dodgeball. Here is Andy Vasily.

To understand the dodgeball paradox, it's imperative to really take a deep look at the fascinating yet gruesome history of dodgeball itself. According to actual historical records, the game of dodgeball was created between two and three centuries ago, and it was created in Africa, and it was a war game. So you took the men in the village to come together to divide into two teams.

And the dodgeball game was created in a way that they obviously didn't have rubber balls or softballs or leather balls back then. What they had was what was available to them, which was stones. So they picked up stones and the aim of the game, the number one objective or aim of the game was to physically maim your opponent, to cause bodily harm.

and to ultimately kill them. No holds barred. Anything was okay. You could throw the rocks as hard as you could at a fellow tribesman's head with the intent to kill him. So you imagine these men are slinging these huge rocks back and forth at each other. So if I have a rock, I pick it up and I sling it across.

20, 30 meters at an opponent and I hit him in the head and he collapses and he's bleeding out. His teammates then have to protect him. So they surround him in a half circle. You got some... some of the men throwing rocks back at us. But our goal is to kill that person. And then the game goes back and forth. So there is a sense of teamwork happening.

There's a sense of teamwork. You want to protect those who you love, which are your teammates. But the game was designed that way and ultimately to weed out the weak. And the way you weed out the weak is to eliminate them first. Because the weak of the tribe were not fit to go into battle.

There was a missionary working in Africa in the 1800s by the name of Dr. James Carlisle. So Dr. James Carlisle goes into these small... tribes in in Africa to just study the way they interact with one another and then suddenly he sees this dodgeball game going on but he's watching this game being played on a regular basis, and at first he was shocked and appalled by what he was witnessing. But then...

Over a succession of weeks and months, he marveled at the way the game taught players to be quick and strong and agile. And he was amazed to see the progression in their skills and how they developed as athletes. But at the same time, he was mortified by the... by the injuries and the deaths that were taking place but when he left africa and returned to england he taught at st mary's college in norfolk england

he decided to teach his students how to play a much safer version of dodgeball because he really fell in love with the sport. But he taught them in a way that was without the brutality and the death. and then he introduced the rubber ball instead of rocks. So Dr. Carlisle teaches his students how to play, and they played in a big open space, but it was still about...

maiming the opponent. You still wanted to create physical injuries to maim your opponent and slowly take out the other team one by one. So you could still go... and pick up these balls, these multiple balls all over the place and just continuously bombard an opponent who's down one after the one causing probably major contusions and bruises and maybe even... broken bones, but it was a much safer way to play. That then turned into...

The official game of dodgeball. So we're now talking about 1884 when the game was being played. But the official... game of dodgeball was created in 1905. And then that was with boundaries. much more like the modern game that is played now, but with the same idea, with a softer ball, which back then in 1905 was still quite a hard ball. There were rules in place, and obviously you didn't want to kill your opponent, but it was still a very physically aggressive game. So that, in a nutshell, is...

The history of dodgeball. After learning a little bit about the history of dodgeball, the first thing we can consider when thinking about the four causes is matter. So one of the questions we can ask is what are the materials used and what is the difference between the materials used in the first iterations of the game and the game we see today?

So it's easy to see by the history of dodgeball that in the beginning, they used stones and other hard objects to maim and injure their opponents. And in its next iteration, they started using leather balls that could still cause... quite significant injuries. From there, it evolved to possibly using rubber balls, maybe playground balls, and then now we see foam balls being used in some of the dodgeball games.

The idea behind this is not only physical safety for the children, but also psychological safety. So the question we can ask is, has this change been significant enough to consider dodgeball? psychologically, and physically safe for our students. For some insight on the psychological safety issue, we talked to our school psychologist, Paul O'Callaghan. My name is Paul Callaghan. I'm the school psychologist in the Kaust School and I've been working in psychology for probably the last...

10 years and then in education for approximately 20 years. Yeah, and I worked a lot in East Africa and in the Congo and now in Saudi Arabia. For today we're here to really talk about psychological safety in regards to student learning. What role does psychological safety play in that? Can you just share your thoughts? I mean, it's absolutely pivotal. I think it's interesting that neuroscience around psychological safety actually is pretty clear that...

When people feel threat, social threat, threat of humiliation, threat of embarrassment, it's identical to the same regions of the brain where you felt threat in the past for attacks by saber-toothed tigers or mammoths or whatever. So the actual fight or flight mechanism that functioned in the past from an evolutionary perspective to keep us safe is the identical fight or flight responses that we have when we feel threatened. And now the big threat for people is social.

loss of social status. So social status is equivalent actually to the threat people faced when their whole lives in the past were in danger. So the very same limbic system that operates even the physiological reactions. are identical. So when you take that then into the classroom, particularly then for teenagers at a very vulnerable stage in their life where social status and image and how they're perceived is so important. threats to that status are.

hugely impactful on them and can be very very negative so because our limbic systems need to record memories and also very painful memories almost seem to be etched very strongly because they're emotionally charged because the exact reason because they're linked to our emotions. So when we feel great, like high impact emotions, particularly negative emotions, they tend to stick with us. So even that's how we remember after school, long after we've forgotten quadratic equations or whatever it is.

learning but we remember the maths teacher that either made us feel great which is the flip side of it or else made us feel unworthy or yeah that we didn't measure up or that we were lacking in some way in their particular subject Yeah, and that's a great point, is that idea of, and we spoke about this before I hit record, is the power of differentiation in itself promotes psychological safety. So you and I come from educational backgrounds where there was no differentiation.

You spoke about the reading, for example, where the whole class had to read the same text. The poor readers were forced to read publicly. That was shaming, right? There was no differentiation whatsoever. So a lot of the research over the past decade proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that... differentiated instruction is of paramount importance in delivering teaching and learning. I think it's interesting when you think we compare, because a part of education is an element always of comparison.

And it's interesting, there's almost like two dichotomies there. In one hand, we compare students with other students. And so you'll hear that they're two years behind, or they're three years behind, or whatever it is, or they're two years ahead.

But then the flip side of it is we actually compare students with who they are themselves and the progress that they've made last year and the progress that they made the year before. So I think when we look, education fortunately has changed to being a lot more individualized. and it's focused on the rights of the individual and it's at the individual level that we start focusing on children's learning rather than the class level or the state level or whatever at higher levels.

So I think, yeah, when it comes to differentiation, the UDL approach, Universal Design for Learning, looks at differentiation not just of assessment, but also of... content and also how that content is delivered so we seem fortunately in education to be getting more and more specific to really identifying the individual needs and strengths of students and then targeting our

teaching and the support that's offered to match that level because I guess at the end of the day every child comes into school to learn and regardless of whether that student is of great ability or has severe learning needs they will always make progress. Our trick, I think, as educators is clearly identifying where they are, finding the zone of proximal development and supporting them to transition to that.

Then we can go home at the end of the day as professionals and say, we've done a good job, but also our students are going home feeling, yes, I'm not expected to be at an unattainable goal of where everyone else is in the class, but the teacher's found out where I am and is willing to. you know strip back the course into the level that I can access it and then when I can access it I can learn and then the feelings of self-esteem and

you know, feelings of competence that everybody needs in order to be successful. And to belong and to feel... Exactly, to feel significant and to belong. I mean, the two crucial things. If you can differentiate effectively, your children are going to belong, yeah? And they're going to...

feel significant so what greater gift i think can you give them it has its root in our knowledge of child development because we actually it's interesting if you look at even the five key areas of development cognitive language fine motor gross motor personal social emotional those

five areas there's actually graded steps that kids take and so the majority of kids provided their development isn't atypical will progress step by step by step so even physically you know kids learn to be able to support their head before they can sit

And they learn to sit before they can stand and they learn to stand before they can run or whatever it is. So there's a very clear progress. So in every single skill, whether that's in PE with motor skills or whether that's music or whether that's art or whether that's literacy or numeracy.

There is actually a relatively normal progression that kids need to take through these stages. And so finding out where they are or where the gaps are and supporting that is the only way that we can actually really support students.

In Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Talking to Strangers, he talks about the effects of coupling. to circumstances and conditions. When considering how the matter of the game has changed, it seems to me that the physical safety has been accounted for, but the psychological safety of our students could still remain an issue. If we think about our students who have experienced trauma sometime in their life, and we couple that with the circumstances and conditions of a physically aggressive game,

it could lead to a situation where psychologically they feel unsafe. If we reflect on what we just heard from Dr. Paul, what impact... does the game of dodgeball have on the psychological safety of our students? According to the National Dodgeball League, the game is played with six players on either side of an evenly divided court. Four balls are placed in the middle of the court. Two 8.5-inch rubber dodgeballs and two...

five inch rubber dodge balls. These five inch rubber dodge balls are called the stingers. Teams consist of a combination of men and women The object of the game is to eliminate all other players on the opposing team by hitting them with the ball. If we consider the form of the game, that is the design of the game, and how it has changed, it's obvious that the addition of these rules has changed the way the game is played and has contributed.

to how it is accepted as a sport. However, some of the elements of the game that featured it in the Physical Education Hall of Shame still persist today. founder of PE Central, about how the Physical Education Hall of Shame began and how dodgeball was included on the list. The Hall of Shame was written as part of a Jopard article by Neil Williams at Eastern Connecticut State. So back in 1992, he started...

He included a bunch of games in there. So it is not the PE Central Hall of Shame. It's Neil Williams, the article that he wrote, part one. And he started with dodgeball and he writes, he writes about. why those first few are in there in his article. Whenever Neil retired, he called us and said, you know, I'm retiring and I want to keep alive the Hall of Shame. and we'd like PE Central to do that. So we took everything that was in his articles, the actual...

and then we just put them into a website that is part of PE Central. So it really was started by Neil Williams and his Hall of Shame, and then he wrote three more. articles in Joker, the last one being in 2015. Because all of those practices and games that he lists deserve to be in the Hall of Shame.

because it was time to take a stand to change our profession to where we had we were viewed more as just somebody who rolled the ball out and played dodgeball and some of the different types of games that are in that list. We are much better at that than a lot of people think we are. We should be known as high quality teachers and that we, when a child comes into our classroom.

going to learn things that are going to make them physically active for a lifetime. They're not going to be embarrassed. They're not going to be scared to be in a physical activity setting. If you talk to a lot of teachers or a lot of different people on the street, dodgeball is not a pleasant experience for a lot of people. And that's a shame. But when I did my study for my thesis.

I went and interviewed children at a program that had dodgeball and a lot of these inappropriate games, and I did interviews at a place that didn't do any of those. The difference is truly amazing. The children that could talk about... and do the things that they should be doing at that program could talk really intelligently about what they learned in PE and what they can take to become physically active for life. The other children.

It was just a really distinct difference. So when I did that study, it just made it really clear to me that I would not choose any of the games in the Hall of Shame to put in that. What would you tell a teacher that says... My kids love dodgeball. It teaches them dodging. It teaches them to be tough. It teaches them throwing skills. That's another one that comes up a lot. It teaches them to be tough, toughness, grit.

What would you tell a teacher that has that sort of a mindset? Simply look at it more closely than with your heart and with your eyes saying, oh, they're having a great time and listening to them saying they're having a great time. yeah, the kids that are really well skilled and can throw and can hit somebody, they're having a great time. I was one of those kids. I enjoyed those games because I did well. You're not seeing the child that...

is sitting out first and they won't even play. They'll go just sit down. You're not talking to them. You're not seeing them. You know, go and do some recording. Look at your program more. look at your class a little bit more critically with your eye, or invite somebody into your program to, or best thing to do is take your iPhone out or phone out and videotape it, and then go look at it.

How many times did the children that got hit, did they practice throwing? How many times did they practice dodging? Did they get tougher? Not so sure. So in two days a week. for 30 minutes or 20 minutes by the time you take off the top and bottom of your class. Seriously, we taught them toughness because they got hit in the face and they got to go sit down. Okay. If we're going to have that argument, then we'll just agree to disagree and move on with our life.

If we look deeply at the physical education profession, it is clear to see how it has evolved over the years. The next of the four causes is agent. The thing that brings the game into being.

In this case, the agent is the physical education teacher. How has a PE teacher evolved their practice to meet the needs of today's students? To get a clearer understanding of the evolution of the profession... and to examine the conditions needed to help all students flourish, Andy Vasily spoke to Dr. Scott Kretschmar. Retired professor emeritus at Penn State University. I started down this road as a college athlete. I played basketball, baseball, and cross country. And now I'm a...

table tennis player, a biker, and a golfer in my senior years. I've always loved to move. I've always felt it was an integral part of my life. I don't get up in the morning any day without making sure I get in my workouts or my playouts, as I like to call them. So I'm now... in my office and I'm enjoying life as a retired professor and I still write and still read and still try to figure out this thing we call human movement.

and play, and games, and sport, and I'm enjoying that very much. What was... traditional PE many years ago what was the purpose of PE many years ago even before you got into the field I think my phys ed experience was sort of The one side of it was something we still concern ourselves with, and that's sort of the fitness preparedness. often conducted in a quasi-military kind of environment. Get in the proper dress. Points are taken off if you're not in your military dress. Stand on the numbers.

to command and so there was a degree of that and there was no explicit kind of military thing behind it, but it was more implicit that that was kind of a model that helped shape how Phys Ed was conducted. It was very regimented, very organized. perhaps for safety reasons to an extent, but I think it was also the way my teachers were trained, that you have to get people into shape. You have to, you know, toe the line.

and a lot of discipline is needed if you're going to do it. So I would say discipline was one of the themes sort of undergirding physical education. Then there was the other side of it, which was oh, yes, we also have games in our culture, and we want to introduce you to those games. And so we would have a couple weeks of golf and a couple weeks of volleyball.

And to me it was kind of confusing because, you know, the teacher would give us basic rules and then we would muddle our way through those games without much skill. I would say it was generally unsatisfying. I mean, I enjoyed getting to know some of the different games like lacrosse that I had never played before, but I didn't like the fact that it was just a sort of a cameo appearance.

You know, now we're going on to something else. Well, I didn't even get to know the thing we were just doing. And we would move on to another activity because in the lesson plan. There were going to be five sports within a fairly short period of time that we had to cover. So I think that kind of approach did not. did not do much for the meaning side of me. I wanted a relationship. And the phys ed that I experienced didn't develop durable relationships. So I see...

physical education as a growing kind of relationship and that would work for things that are more fitness oriented. I certainly believe that persons can develop loving relationships with jogging. and with weightlifting and weight training. And so I don't want to sound like it has to be a quote-unquote fun sport that a person has to be engaged in. I think meaningful encounters can happen.

the more fitness kind of direction, bodybuilding kinds of things, as well as in our games. So I think traditional physical education didn't meet my... meaning needs. It didn't help me grow relationships with activity environments. I had to do that on my own. Everything that I hear you saying is very much like the traditional model was very much teacher directed and based on compliance and one way of doing it. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I think there was very little flexibility in the system. Like if I wanted to emphasize a sport and say, could I have five weeks of this instead of two weeks, that was not available. Yeah. Yeah. So when you look at everything that you've learned and all the papers that you've written and the research you've done about the conditions necessary to create...

meaningful movement and embedded within that is obviously, and you and I have talked about this before, is the importance of differentiation. But can you talk about... Yeah, well, that's... a huge challenge because, as you know, kids come with different abilities, different skills and so forth. felt is that I needed to take cues from the culture in which I was teaching. Where do the kids come from? What kinds of experiences do they have?

And so I think one of the dangers in traditional physical education is we bring things in from the outside, so to speak, either from science that tells us this is the right way to move if you want to get a person fit and strong. to other kinds of ideal programs and curricula. I don't like the ideal. I like the human. I like the local. I like the things that...

fit into the cultural patterns that people have. It doesn't mean that we just mimic what a cultural experience has been. We in education need to help people expand and grow. But I like to use that as a touchstone because that makes the students feel more comfortable. And it doesn't send the message, what you learned at home or what you learned on your own doesn't matter. I think we educators need to.

say that it does matter and what you learn has some value to it. I'm going to take you to a new place that hopefully will be even better, but we start with what you already know. I think... have to empathize with students in terms of their own fears. Again, this gets back to the meaning things. Some of us who are rugged people aren't afraid of certain kinds of environments.

because of our background or our disposition or whatever, but we have to remember there are some kids in class who are afraid of those kinds of situations. And so we shouldn't be surprised by that, and we have to... scan our entire population, the big kids, the small kids, the strong kids, the weak kids, if it's a mixed class, the men and the boys and the girls, and try to

empathize enough so that we're providing an activity that can touch all of them in their own way. And so I like activities that allow people to participate with different skill levels and enjoy the activity without fear. I like to bring people along and let them know that if they're not the best in class, that's okay, that they can have an enjoyable experience without being excellent. And so some of the literature I read about

Seeking excellence is inspiring in one sense, and I certainly don't want to be a teacher to say I'm aiming at mediocrity, and probably no teacher should say that. But the other side is equally... dehumanizing in a way, saying that we have this beautiful ideal up here and we're going to aim at that. Some kids can't get there.

And they're never going to get there given their body composition or their motor capabilities and so forth. But that doesn't mean it can't be hugely meaningful and hugely important to them. So I like...

activities where a range of skills can allow a person to enjoy the activity. And I try to, when I would teach activity classes at Penn State and elsewhere, I try to make it a comfortable setting where just the top people are not the ones that we dote on or look at, but the whole range of skill improvement, the whole range of skill. is acceptable and um you know i play in a golf league now and some of the golfers in that league are terrible i mean if you looked at it objectively

and say, that is not a skillful golfer when you see the burn. But if you ask them what matters in their life and what brightens their day and what they look forward to every week. They would say, oh, the golf league, that's one of the coolest things I do. So we have to remember that meaning doesn't track one-to-one with high skill level. Meaning tracks with close relationships.

And if we can develop that close relationship, it certainly has something to do with skill. And I worked very hard to develop skill when I taught my activity classes, but it doesn't track one-on-one with skill. So people can find joy and they can find meaning if they see some improvement, if they're reasonably competent, and if they spend time. in that environment. The physical education profession and the agent, in this case the PE teacher, has changed.

According to Dr. Kretschmar, there has been a need to move from a compliance-based system towards a framework that offers meaningful experiences to allow each learner an entry point into movement based on their needs.

This brings us to purpose. The original purpose of the game of dodgeball was to eliminate the weak and have the strongest players emerge in order for them to protect the tribe in times of conflict. It is clear to see that the physical education profession has evolved and is more important than ever to create meaningful movement experiences for all of our students.

I talked to Dr. Tim Fletcher to explore the idea of meaningful physical education. All right, so we know where we've been as a profession. And in your perspective, where should we be going? Where should physical education be going? What should be our aim? And how can we optimize our students' physical education experience? think we need to be heading toward making physical education something important to all students.

I think in the past it's been important to a few students but it's also been very unimportant but also very... harmful to a lot of other students so in in meeting the needs of a certain few we've excluded a lot so I think in terms of where we should be going we should be going towards a very inclusive form of physical education. The huge challenge for physical educators then is how do we do that for all of our students.

all the time. That's the ideal, and I think that's what everyone's striving for. I think even in the past, people were maybe implicitly striving towards that. It's not that they wanted to exclude kids, but... perhaps lack the critical ability or the critical wherewithal or tools to be able to question well why. Aren't my students doing that? What do I need to do to change rather than what should or how should my students change? Right.

So that's a big question. So how do we do this? So in your perspective, in your opinion, what would be the best way to get to that? How, like, how are we? are we doing this in physical education class with, like you said, such a variety and such a difference in resources, spaces, a number of kids.

How do we get to a point where our students are understanding the importance of physical education in their whole education? I think the things that... that I would try to do and perhaps that I would try to advocate for with the pre-service teachers that I work with, the practising teachers that I might work with.

is starting with the relationships that we have with our students as the foundation to get to know what things about our physical education... programs resonate with them and the things that don't and the reasons why things resonate and the reasons why things don't and then being able to incorporate and act on those things. regularly but perhaps then it comes back to them being able to see the value in even in some of those things that they don't like okay I don't like it but I can see

why we're doing this. I can see why I should persist and not just say this sucks and I'm going to go and sit in the side. And so I guess to go back then. Teachers and students need to be able to see and to explain to themselves and to each other why they're doing what they're doing. So what would you say, because I think you're absolutely right, that relevance part is really important and teachers should take that into account when they're planning.

And they're planning these experiences in PE. What would you say would be some of the other key components to a physical education program that we should be considering when we are planning those experiences? So the relevance, I think, is a very big part of it. And the relevance is going to be attached to the social and cultural context in which the program is...

being offered. So what's relevant to kids in Northern Canada based on their environment, based on what they have access to, based on... What they do after school and on the weekends is going to be very different from kids that I might be close to in a suburban part of a megacity type of thing. So that's going to be, being aware of and conscious of those social and cultural connections, I think, is extremely important.

I know I do it, and I would imagine a lot of others, I find it very easy to just say, well, this is us in our gym and with our playing field, and that's our program, right? It exists. within these walls or within this fenced off area. So we really need to incorporate beyond those things for it to be relevant, I think. With that said...

That gymnasium and that fenced off area of the school playground are important parts of kids' lives. Like they're spending 12 years, most of them, in that type of environment. So it is part of their lives. It's not the only part though. And I think we're really trying to get them to take the part of their lives that exists in school. to their lives outside of school. So that's certainly something that I think should be included. So there's that vision, if you like.

about things being meaningful and relevant to kids, but also then understanding what makes something relevant, why is it relevant. And a lot of the time that's attached to... to their lives inside and outside of school, what they have access to, what they're interested in, what kids in their community are interested in, those sorts of things. So you mentioned some of the research that you've been doing. Could you talk a little bit about the research you've been doing?

You've published a lot about, you know, creating this meaningful experience in PE class. Could you talk a little bit about some of your findings and some of the research that you've done? Yes. We started out. Deirdre Nicronin and I started out thinking about this as teacher educators. How do we teach future teachers? How to foster these experiences regularly? as former teachers ourselves and as teacher educators we were of course striving for that.

regularly but we lacked the language to explain how we would do that or how we would teach others to do that. So I guess that was sort of our starting point we tried to think about. how we can teach future teachers to do that. Stephanie Benny, who's a PhD student at Brock University, she worked with us as a research assistant. She's become a collaborator.

or has always been a collaborator with us on that project. Her literature review, the literature review that she led where we used... some ideas from Scott Kretschmer around features of meaningfulness has been very helpful to us. in creating that language so that we can explain to each other, we can explain to teachers things that they can look for.

or that can help them try to foster those meaningful experiences for kids. So I think social interaction, challenge, fun, mode of competence, personally relevant learning. and delight I think I got them all there now when I say all they're all the ones that that we found evidence for in that literature review we are still very much open and expect that there will be other things that people identify as meaningful and prioritise expression and creativity, for example, I would think.

empowerment and so on and so forth. Importantly, that literature review, we looked at things that young people had said contribute. to those sorts of things. So we're trying to get what young people had said keeps them going back or keeps them looking forward to something or seeing the value in. PE. So we use those as an initial or a preliminary framework to help develop a language.

For teachers and to use with their students and for students to use with their teachers and and with each other so that they can Talk about what they like what they don't like what they see value in what they don't see value and that goes back to that first part of the conversation that we were having you know getting to know your students and what drives them

or doesn't drive them. So that language helps facilitate that conversation. Yeah. And then away you go from there. And so based on that, we've tried. We've done a couple of little pilot studies with a few teachers here and there including Andy. Steph herself and Chiara Griffin studying their own practice and using those features in ways that they felt they could be used. So we're not trying to come in and prescribe something in a rigid way like a model does.

That's not to discount the value of models. It's just not what we think meaningfulness is too big a concept to come in with that lockstep approach. It needs some flexibility. So I think that's important. And we've been working with some teachers to try to help them engage with those features, but also hear back from them about ways that they're... that they're using those features and other pedagogical elements like using student voice and choice, like very democratic type of principles.

things that are inclusive and so on and so forth. So working with teachers around those pedagogies and how we can use different strategies or pedagogical approaches that... perhaps best lend themselves to kids experiencing those features such as fun, challenge, positive interaction and so on. Okay, so let's say in your ideal mindset, where would you like to see physical education in 10 years? So the class that I teach at the moment.

um one of the assignments is sort of your vision for physical education and one of the guiding parts of that assignment is that describe the type of teacher that you want to become describe um or explain what you would like your students to say about you and the classes that you offer so that's going to be different for each student it's going to be different for each teacher

So I struggle with saying this is what I want, this sort of uniform, like everyone would be doing this. I think it's going to be different. What I would want... is for teachers to be able to say that they're pretty in tune with what their students like and don't like and that they are modifying and adapting their programs and their instructions regularly to best meet their students' needs and interests.

Dr. Tim Fletcher just spoke about the Meaningful PE Framework, which emphasizes five features, joy, challenge, relevance, motor competency, and social interaction. When considering purpose, which is one of Aristotle's four causes, we also have to consider the educational system as a whole. The educational system has gone from a compliance-based system to a more democratic system. that is driven by voice choice and differentiation for all students.

If the purpose of physical education is to create meaningful movement experiences that inspire all students to be physically active for life, How can we as educators reflect on the actual learning experiences we offer our students? If the ship of Theseus existed and it had undergone... significant enough changes between the time it had sailed and the time it was kept in a museum, it would cease to be the same ship. In this show, we looked at the history of Dodgeball, the equipment that was used,

the design of the game, the PE teacher and setting, and the purpose of not only the game of dodgeball, but also the PE profession. It is clear that there has been significant changes in every area. The dodgeball paradox is how can we justify playing a physically aggressive game in a safe learning environment that is the PE classroom? The answer lies within the changes. The game can be justified.

If the matter, the form, the agent, and the purpose has changed significantly enough to eliminate physical and psychological fear, allow for student initiated differentiation, and create a learning environment that will promote a meaningful physical education experience for all students. The dodgeball paradox is a question meant to spark thought about our profession, what we do on a daily basis, and how our students are impacted by our decisions. And now, here's Andy Vasily with a final thought.

As I reflect back on this episode and the thoughts shared by our guests, I'm drawn back to the theme of teacher accountability. This episode began with dodgeball and the history of the game, as well the role that it has played. in the physical education space. The question Jorge posed was, how can a physically aggressive game be played in a safe learning environment? This is a great question for PE teachers to reflect on.

To take it deeper, I'd like to ask us all to reflect on a different question. How do the choices we make about student learning in physical education impact those under our care and guidance. We heard about the five features of meaningful PE, and we also heard about the key building blocks to support psychological safety in regards to students.

and their learning experiences. To add to this, we also heard about the importance of differentiation and how our teaching environment needs to be set up in a way that helps every student find their own entry point into learning. The responsibility for creating these conditions lies squarely on each teacher's shoulders. The pedagogical choices that teachers make have a direct impact on student learning. The way our classes are set up need to promote deep learning and engagement.

teachers have them play in PE. Teachers need to actually find out to what extent their students actually do enjoy their physical education experiences, and not just assume that the students love everything that they do in PE. To emphasize the importance of student voice, I want to share a short story.

I was once doing consulting work at an international school in Europe. The team of nine PE teachers from across the school had their students play games such as dodgeball and had many sports-specific units in their program. As well, they did fitness testing a number of times per year. The majority of the PE teachers said that their students loved PE and that they loved taking part in all of the activities done in their program.

What these teachers didn't know was that I had two presenters working with me that had interviewed well over 70 students from this school about their physical education experiences. More than half of the students interviewed expressed a dislike of many of their physical education experiences. A number of the students felt that they always had to do activities that the teachers wanted them to do, and that many of these activities were done as a whole class.

When I presented the data back to the teachers, you could hear a pin drop. That's how quiet it was. They seemed quite shocked by the student feedback. I told them that I hadn't collected this data to throw in their face, but instead to show them the importance of student voice. As a team, they reflected on the data and began to have some authentic conversations about what needed to change in their program and set in motion the steps needed to create this change.

It is imperative that we be willing to take a hard look at the learning experiences we offer our students and the educative purpose behind all of the decisions that we make. I want to leave you with three questions to reflect on. 1. How do you ensure that you differentiate to meet the needs of all of your students? 2. How do you ensure all learning experiences are relevant?

and challenging. And lastly, number three, how are you getting honest and genuine feedback from your students in regards to the learning experiences that you offer in your program? The dodgeball paradox is meant to open the door to having important discussions about our own teaching practice and the practice of our peers. In having these discussions, we put ourselves in a better position to genuinely improve our practice and the learning of our students. Thanks for listening.

This was episode one of the Disrupted Podcast with Andy Vasily and Jorge Rodriguez. Special thanks to Dr. Paulo Callahan, Mark Van Ross, Dr. Scott Kretschmar, and Dr. Tim Fletcher. This show was produced under the Global Phys Ed Podcast. If you would like to help support the show, please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com backslash global phys ed.

If you would like to interact with the hosts or ask a question or continue the conversation, please use the hashtag disruptedpod on social media. Thank you so much for listening, and we hope you enjoyed the show.