Dodging the Ineffective

The P.E. Hall of Shame has a number of games that I played during my early years in school.  From Dodgeball, to Simon Says, to Elimination forms of Tag, my P.E. class had them all.  Dodgeball was one in particular that looking back on it now, really was not appropriate for our class and age group.  First of all, it single's out the weaker players in the class, which leads them to have to sit out and watch once they have been eliminated.  This is exactly what we are fighting against now.  Not only did they feel bad about themselves after being one of the first ones out, but then they got to sit down and wait for the game to end.  That's right I said SIT DOWN!  We need to keep kids moving as much as possible throughout the P.E. class, and having them sit down and wait is absolutely unexceptable.  Now, Dodgeball is not a great game to play in my opinion, especially not the way we played it, but with certain variations to the original game it could still be affective in a P.E. class.  It does work on throwing, catching, dodging and weaving so it is not all bad.  A variation that could have been made to my particular P.E. class was that instead of having the "eliminated" players be sent to the sidelines to watch, they could instead of being "eliminated", be "sent back to base" and from the "base" they would have to each catch a pass from a teammate before the teammate could attempt to "eliminate" anyone on the other team.  This would keep them invloved and still feel important to the game being played.  It also will keep them from SITTING DOWN!!!