• NEIL F: WILLIAMS •

At the heart ofour physical edu­cation curricula is usually aconfiguration ofactivitiesand games that we present to

our students for the purpose ofachieving the ultimate goals ofphysical (motor skills and fitness),emotional, cognitive, and affectivedevelopment of the child. We are, asa profession, attempting to assist ourstudents in the development of theunity of their minds and bodies toenable them to live as healthy andproductive adults in our society.

Over my 23 years in the field ofphysical education, I've observedthat several of the most popularand widely used activities andgames at the heart of our curriculahave many features and traits whichare contrary to accepted practicesof good physical education teach­ing-either they are patently dan­gerous, have minimal participationby the majority of the students(Klesius, 1988), have limited physi­cal activity, require little training orpedagogical skill to teach(Faucette, McKenzie, & Patterson,1990), barely promote any of ourmajor goals, or single students outfor potential embarrassment infront of their classmates. It is in thehope of eliminating these types ofactivities and games (and the inap­propriate and misguided thinkingthat goes with them) from our cur­ricula, that the Physical EducationHall of Shame (PEHOS) has beenestablished.

After giving the matter and thepotential candidates a great deal of

JOPERD/August 1992

thought, it has been decided thatthe following games will be de­clared as "Charter Inductees," withall of the rights and privileges per­taining. They are presented in al­phabetical order because it wouldbe impossible to establish a hierar­chy of "quality."

Hall of Shame Inductees

• DodgebaU. PEHOS is not the firstto decry a game which has as itsmain focus the attempt to inflictpain, harm, injury, and embarrass­ment on one's opponents(Zakrajsek, 1986). It is unfortunatelya staple, ifnot the backbone, ofmany school programs and mayhave done our profession moreharm than any other single factor.Over the years it has been calledmore descriptive names, such as"Bombardment," "Murderball,""Killerball," or "Poisonball." This is avery popular game which some chil­dren (typically the highly skilled)love to play.

Generally speaking, the game is alitigation action waiting to happen.At most, about half of the studentsreally play-the rest hide in the far­thest reaches of the gym.There isno denying that the game involvesthrowing, catching, running, think­ing, teamwork, and strategy. How­ever, there has to be a better way todo it than to endanger the healthand well-being ofour students--notto mention the security ofour jobs.This game is usually played untilsomeone gets hit in the head. At

that point, the teacher decides thatthe game might be dangerous andstops it temporarily. Therefore, it isnot surprising that dodgeball is aPEHOS Charter Inductee.

• Duck, Duck, Goose. This circlechase game, usually played with pri­mary grade children, involves onestudent selecting another to chasehim or her. While the "ducker" ismaking the selection for the"goose," the other children areforced to sit still while having theirheads "tapped." Once the goose ispicked, he or she is faced with theunlikely prospect ofjumping upand trying to catch the duck whohas a running head start. The twoof them race around the perimeterof the circle, with the duck trying toget back to the goose's original spotbefore being caught by the goose.The task for the goose is nearly im­possible, but usually the goose isencouraged by the incessant high­decibel screaming of the other stu­dents, who have little else to do.The failing goose now becomes theducker, and the game continues inthis pattern.

In this game, it is entirely likelythat at least half of the students inthe class will never be picked (andconsequently will never move fromtheir spots on the floor, except tospin in circles on their backsidesduring the entire game), and gen­erally, about five students do all ofthe "playing." Friends usually pickfriends, but some students are occa­sionally picked by the duckers just

57

to see them fail and be ridiculed.With minimal student participationtime, an almost impossible task tocomplete, and minimal activity forthose who do participate, Duck,Duck, Goose is a unanimous choicefor the PEHOS.

I Giants, Elves, and Wizards. Amodern version of the more basic"Crows and Cranes" chase/capturescenario, this game is now quitewidely played in physical educationclasses. The concept is that in everyround, each of two teams assumesthe role of one of the three titlecharacters (each of whom has"power" over one of the remainingtwo characters and is also "overpow­ered" by the remaining one of theother two characters). The more"powerful" group then chases itspotential victims back to a safetyzone in an attempt to capturethem. Captured players becomepart of their captors' team and suc­cessive rounds are played, with play­ers changing groups as they arecaptured, until one team capturesall of the class members and "wins."

The game is supposed to teachstudents creative movement (intheir portrayal of the title charac­ters), develop anaerobic fitness(from the sprinting), improve deci­sion-making skills (in students'choices to chase or be chased), andenhance group cooperation skills(through the groups' cooperativechoice of which characters to as­sume at what time). In fact, most ofthe time spent on this activity­about 98 percent-is spent explain­ing all of the confusing rules and inthe huddles where students choosetheir characters. In the course of atypical game of 15 to 20 minutes,students get to play about eight toten rounds. In each of thoserounds, students are anaerobicallyactive for about two seconds for anactive participation time factor ofless than 2 percent.

Is the game fun? Sure! Do thestudents enjoy playing it? Yes, theydo! Is there a better way we couldaccomplish all ofthis? If you thinkthat this kind of game is worth-

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while, then at least choose a morebasic type of tag or chase activitywhere the participation time factoris somewhat closer to 50 percentand the students can actually un­derstand all of the rules.

I Kickball. Physical educators of­ten begin to play and teach this soc­cer/baseball combination in theirclasses as early as kindergarten. Ithelps reinforce many aspects ofbaseball (running to bases, fielding,throwing, batting) and soccer (kick­ing a moving object strategically),and the students generally seem toenjoy playing. They enjoy the gameso much, in fact, that as early as thesecond grade, we can also observethem playing it by themselves, with­out any adult supervision, duringtheir recess periods. They seem tobe perfectly capable of organizingteams, establishing a field, and work­ing their way through the gamewithout any help at all. Why, then,do we insist on teaching this gamein our physical education classes allthe way through secondary school?

Wilson (1976) observed that in atypical kickball game, more thanone third of the children nevercaught the ball and more than onehalf of the children never threw theball, and a highly disproportionatenumber of these uninvolved chil­dren were females. If we consideradditional negative features such asputting the batter on display for em­barrassment in front of all of therest of the class, a participation timefactor of 5 percent for most of theplayers (a few strong players domi­nate the field and the rest of theplayers bat about once every 15 min­utes), and the opportunity to getplayers "out" by hitting them as hardas possible with a thrown ball, thisgame surely qualifies for PEHOS.

I Musical chairs. This is a classic"elimination" game, not unlikeSimple Simon in concept, in whichstudents supposedly develop theirlistening abilities, thinking skills,and quickness. In the gym, musicalchairs is often played with hula­hoops (instead of chairs), and the

students also can move in a particu­lar locomotor pattern or practice asports skill (i.e., soccer dribbling)while the music plays. The last stu­dent to find a hoop when the musicstops is sent out of the game.

What usually happens is that theleast skilled or least attentive stu­dents are the first to be eliminated,and then they spend the rest of thetime it takes to produce a "winner"sitting on the floor as "losers" withlittle to do but watch their class­mates. Elimination games are self­defeating, because the studentswho are in the greatest need of skilldevelopment are immediately ban­ished, embarrassed, and punished,and then given no opportunity toimprove. The next time they play,those students will be first outagain. The average participationtime factor for students in thisgame is about 50 percent (which isnot bad), but for some students,participation time is over 90 per­cent while for the students whoneed the most practice, participa­tion time is generally less than 10percent. While some elements ofthe game have merit, we must finda way to increase the amount ofparticipation for everyone tohigher levels.

I Relay races. There are someteachers who believe that relayraces are a wise use of physical edu­cation time: they enable students topractice skills, promote teamwork,teach students to follow rules, andthe students "love" them. ThePEHOS Charter Induction Com­mittee sees it differently.

Usually, a relay race takes aboutsix to ten minutes to run when in­cluding the time it takes to makefair teams, set up the race andequipment, explain the task andrules, actually do the race itself, calmthe students down when it's over,and move on to the next activity.During that time, each student"goes" once with a turn that mightlast 30 seconds-of the averageeight-minute race, a student is likelyto be active for, at the most, 6 per­cent of the time spent on the activity.

JOPERD/August 1992

Ifuseful sports or motor skills areinvolved at all, and often they arenot, the students are asked to per­form them under stress and in frontof80 percent of the class who havelittle else to do but watch and makefun of their classmates' mistakes.And woe is the student who doesmake a mistake, because he or sh.has to go back and do the taskover again-the "right" way. Sincethe teamwork aspect is only cen­tered around who "won" and who"lost," what values are really beingtaught?

I Steal the Bacon (STB). STB is <venerable sideline game in whidtwo players at a time (one fromeach of two teams) competeagainst each other in the centerof the playing area in front of thewatchful eyes of all of their scream­ing teammates (vaguely reminis­cent of Roman gladiator contests).The teacher assigns numbers to allplayers which ensures that everyonewill get a fair share of playing time,and the team with the highest num­ber of points "wins." The game pur­ports to enhance competitive strate­gies-feinting, deception,quickness, and agility-while pro­moting a team concept.

While the students are con­cerned with which team has "won"or "lost," how can a physical educa­tion activity which has none of itsparticipants active more than ap­proximately 5 percent of the timepromote any of its objectives? Withsuch minimal levels of participationtime, the great potential for embar­rassment (as two students performunder pressure in front of the en­tire class), and with physical activityalmost totally absent, STB in thisform easily qualifies for PEHOS.

What emerges from all of this isa picture ofwhat physical educa­tion often is, but should not be,and perhaps some indications offactors we must consider whenplanning games and activitieswhich are at the core of our teach­ing. Some of the less importantcharacteristics of these Hall ofShame games and activities are:

JOPERD/August 1992

tasks which are extremely difficultto achieve; directions which are toocomplex and involved; activitieswhich the students can and will dototally on their own; encouragingand/or ignoring breaking therules; and an overemphasis on win-

In Duck, Duck, Goose, at

least half of the students

In the class will neverbe

picked, friends usually

pick friends, andgener-

ally, about live students

do all of the playing.

ning and losing. These are badenough, but they would have to beconsidered minor when comparedwith the elements of popular physi­cal education activities and gameswhich have necessitated the estab­lishment of the PEHOS in the firstplace. Such elements include:• absence of the purported objec­

tives of the activity or game;• potential to embarrass a student

in front of the rest of the class;• focus on eliminating students

from participation;• overemphasis on and concern

about the students having "fun";• lack of emphasis on teaching

motor skills and lifetime physicalfitness skills;

• extremely low participation timefactors;

• organizing into large groups

where getting a "turn" is basedon luck or individual aggressive­ness or competitiveness; and

• extremely high likelihood fordanger, injury, and harm.

Students' class participation timefactors must be maximized, and aminimum of 50 percent for all ofthe students in every class is sug­gested as a guideline for acceptableplanning and teaching. Further­more, when there is a high level ofparticipation, there is a much lowerchance for student embarrassmentbecause each student is too busyworking to be concerned about theperformances of others.

"Fun" is both the boon and thebane of our profession. Gross mo­tor physical activity, in almost anyform, is enjoyable for our students,and we do not need to be overlywor­ried that they are or are not enjoyingthemselves in class. It is fairly certainthat fun is not a major considerationwhen planning classes in other fieldsof study, and we should not judge ordefine the value or quality ofwhatwe do in physical education classesby whether or not the students havea "good time." Ifour lessons arewell-conceived and planned, and ifthey reach constructively toward theattainment of our ultimate goals,students will automatically have a"good time," and they will actuallyderive all those important benefitswe claim to promote.

We must eliminate, as much as

59

possible, the elements of unduedanger and harm from our teach­ing. While many physical educationactivities and games do and shouldinvolve some elements of risk tak­ing, we must also make intelligentdecisions and plans, and not teachgames or activities which promoteand encourage our students to hu­miliate and injure one another. It isenough dishonor to be in the Hallof Shame, but it is better than thepossibility of being in court on thewrong end of a lawsuit.

It is incumbent upon us, as pro­fessional physical educators, tostructure and teach our classeswith the intention and purpose ofachieving our ultimate goals. Weare not the only discipline in theschools which emphasizes emo­tional, cognitive, and affective de­velopment-all subject areas havethese considerations as goals. How­ever, we are the only discipline toinclude the development of physi­cal fitness and gross motor skills asgoals; therefore, these two ele­ments must be present in all of ourplanning and teaching if we aregoing to keep ourselves from be­ing enshrined in the Physical Edu­cation Hall of Shame.

Author's note:Ifyou know ofan activity orgame

that should be inducted into thePhysicalEduca­

tion Han of Shame, pleasesend a briefdescription

and supportingevidenceto the author.

ReferencesFaucette, N., McKenzie, T., & Patterson,

P. (1990). Descriptive analysis ofnonspecialist physical educationteachers' curricular choices and class

organization. journal of TeachinginPhysical Education, 9(4), 284-293.

Klesius, S. (1988). Are games like duckduck goose and pin guard inherentlybad? Floridajournal of Health, PhysicalEducation, Recreation and Dance, 26(1),29-32.

Wilson, N. (1976). The frequency andpatterns of selected motor skills bythird and fourth grade girls and boysin the game of kickball. Unpublishedmaster's project, University ofGeor­gia. In G. Graham, S. Holt/Hale, T.McEwan, & M. Parker (1980), Chil-

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dren moving:A refleaioe approach toteachingphysical education. Palo Alto,CA: Mayfield Publishing.

Zakrajsek, D. (1986). Premeditated mur­der: Let's bump offkillerball.journalof Physical Education, Recreation &Dance, 57(10),49-51.

Nell F. WilliamsIs an associate profes­so, of physicaleducationat EastemConnecticutState University,Willimantic, CT 06226.

PROGRAM...from page 35to promote learning in these do­mains. Competitive activities areoffered to students of similar abilityand those interested in measuringtheir skill level in relation to others.

4. Ample learning time. All stu­dents have equal opportunities forlearning and participating in theprogram. Learning and participat­ing opportunities are the right ofall students.

Developmentally appropriatephysical education increases thelikelihood of enjoyable, challeng­ing, and successful learning for allstudents. Teachers need to con­tinue or begin to think in terms ofthe children they are teaching andnot what activity can keep a class ofchildren "busy, happy and good"(Placek, 1982). Our instructionshould be geared to meet agegroup needs while allowing for theindividual differences within anygroup of children.

ReferencesBarrett, K., & Williams, K. (1991). Reac­

tions to COPEC'S developmentallyappropriate physical education forchildren. TeachingElerrumtary PhysicalEducation, 4(2), 5, 11.

Bredekamp, S. (Ed.). (1987). Deoelopmen­

tally appropriate practice in early childhoodprograms servingchildren lJinh throughagp 8. Expanded edition. Washington,DC: National Association for the Edu­cation ofYoung Children.

Bredekamp, S. (1991). Redeveloping earlychildhood education. FArly ChildJwodEducation Research Q!iarterly, 6, 183-197.

Cratty, B. (1979). Perceptual and motor

development in infants and children.(2nd. ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall.

Elkind, D. (1989). Developmentally ap­propriate practice: Philosophical andpractical limitations. Phi Delta

Kappan, 2a, 113-117.Gallahue, D., Werner, P., & Luedke, C.

(1975). A conceptual approach to movingand learning, New York:John Wileyand Sons.

Haubenstricker,j., & Seefeldt,V. (1986).

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Kessler, S. (1991). Alternate perspectiveson early childhood education. EarlyChildhood Education Research Q!.tarterly,6,183-197.

Placek,j. (1982). Conceptions of successin teaching: Busy, happy or good? In.T. Templin &j. Olson, Teachinginphysical education, pp. 46-55.Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Roberton, M. (1984). Changing motorpatterns during childhood. In j. Tho­mas (Ed.), Motordeoelopment duringchildhood and adolescence; pp. 48-90.

Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co.Ross,j., Pate, R, Corbin, G, Delpy, G, &

Gold, R (1987). The national childrenand youth fitness study I: What are kids

doing in school physical educationprograms? journal ofPhysicalEducation,Recreation & Dance, 58(9) 78-84.

Seefeldt, V. (1979). Developmental mo­tor patterns: Implications for elemen­tary school physical education. In C.Nadeau, W. Holliwell, K. Newell, & G.Roberts (Eds.), Psychology of motorbe­haviorand sport, p. 317. Champaign,IL: Human Kinetics.

Wickstrom, R. (1983). Fundamental moue­

ment patterns (3rd ed.). Philadelphia:Lea and Febiger.

Wikgren, S. (1991). 'Developmentally ap­propriate physical education'-A movetoward consistent quality. TeachingE/.

ementary PhysicalEducation, 2(4), 1, 4.Zaichkowsky, L., Zaichkowsky, L., &

Martinek, T. (1980). Growth and devel­opment: The childand physical activity.St. Louis: cv. Mosby Company.

Steven Grlnesklls an assistant profes­so, In the Department of HPERatMoorheadState University, Moorhead,MN56560.

JOPERD/August 1992