The seven charter inductees from 1992--dodgeball; Duck Duck Goose, Giants, Elves, and Wizards; kickball; Musical Chairs; relay races; Steal the Bacon--are joined in the Hall of Shame by six new, equally deserving members. The major elements of an activity or game which have been identified as criteria for inclusion into the Hall of Shame follow. (To qualify, a game or activity need only possess one of these elements.)

* Absence of the purported objectives 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." [scare quotes because scientists can't agree if "fun" exists or not --Fussbett]

* Lack of emphasis on teaching motor skills and lifetime physical fitness skills.

* Extremely low participation time factors.

* Extremely high likelihood for danger, injury, and harm.

LINE SOCCER

In each round, teams line up on opposite ends of a court, and the teacher calls out one or two previously assigned numbers. The corresponding players from two teams dart out, attempt to gain control of the soccer ball in the center of the playing area, and have about one minute to try to score a goal by kicking the ball through the "wall" of players remaining at the opposition’s goal line.

In one class, three students neither touched the ball nor ran the length of the gymnasium floor. Students are put on display in front of their peers in a pressure situation which also demands highly valued skills and competencies, and this sets them up for potential embarrassment and ridicule. There is also the strong possibility that one of the better players out on the floor will gain control of the ball and kick it toward a student who is ill-equipped to stop it or get out of the way.

MESSY BACK YARD

Students are divided into two groups, and each side is assigned to one half of a court (i.e., basketball or volleyball) while separated by a net or barrier at mid-court. Each group has 15 to 50 foam discs, Nerf balls, plastic bowling pins, and assorted other objects. On the teacher’s signal, the students begin to throw the objects over the net to the other group’s side. Students may catch or pick up any object thrown over to their side and throw it back. The action is fast, furious, and borders on the maniacal. The game consists of several rounds and the object is to clean up your "messy back yard" and to have the fewest objects on your side when the round is ended (usually after about a minute) by the teacher’s whistle. When the round ends, each team counts all of the objects on its side and the team with fewer objects gets a point for having the "nearer" back yard.

First, can a second grade class accurately count 50 or 60 objects in less than 5 minutes? Actual physical activity is absolutely minimal. Second, because the action is so frenzied, objects continue to fly over the net for at least 15 seconds after the whistle has sounded, rendering the first minute absolutely meaningless. Third, this game is almost completely mindless. Students are told to throw all of the objects back over the net as fast as they can, but actually the best strategy is to collect everything that is thrown over to you and then to wait until one second before the round ends before bombarding your helpless opponents with 100 assorted balls, discs, and bowling pins. But because the teacher almost always ends the round without any warning or regard to how much time has elapsed, actual thinking does not help the players at all and is usually a hindrance. Combine all of the fore-mentioned with the inevitable 200-decibel screaming that goes on in such a game (twice as loud as a Guns N’ Roses rock concert), and you have one of the all-time champion Hall of Shame members.

RED ROVER

In our considerations for the Hall of Shame, we could totally ignore the fact that Red Rover is astonishingly dangerous because it has so many other inappropriate elements which qualify it for enshrinement. Other than standing for 15 minutes and holding hands with each other, there is virtually no physical activity for anyone (even if Johnny got called over and captured every time, he would only be running and crashing for about 3 out of every 45 seconds of game time), and no motor skills whatsoever are taught or reinforced. Apart from the highly specious claim that the game develops teamwork and sportsmanship, Red Rover also does not seem to incorporate any of the major objectives in physical education. Red Rover should "be eliminated not only from the United States, but its territories, the entire North American Continent, the world and the known galaxies"

SIMON SAYS

This elimination game, like other Hall of Shame members Tag and Musical Chairs, has one important element which is missing from the other two: teacher deception.

The problems are obvious with this game: early elimination of unskilled players; singling out students for ridicule; playing until there is a "winner"; low participation time factors; and low amounts of fitness-related activity. But the major problem is that the teacher is doing his or her best to deceive and entrap students--and then punish students when they are caught. Psychologically, this may be the rough equivalent of teaching students about the dangers of electricity by jolting them with an electric current if they touch the wrong button. As teachers, we have so much power--to do both good or harm--that we must always honor the faith and trust the students place in us. A game like Simon Says has the potential to do much more harm than good.

SPUD

This is a bombardment-type game in which the object is similar to dodgeball: try to hit, hurt, and humiliate another classmate with a thrown object. Call me a spoilsport, but I object to a game in which students serve as human targets for their classmates.

SPUD generally ends up as a contest among the better athletes in the class who play for the "benefit" of the others. The essence of SPUD for most of the students is lots of squealing punctuated by 4-second sprints every minute or so (a participation time factor of about 6%). There is limited activity, little running, less throwing, but lots of danger as the stronger students throw the ball at the heads of one another in an attempt to give them "letters." There must be better ways to promote running, throwing, and listening skills.

TAG

...all too often, tag games are organized as classic elimination games (like Musical Chairs) in which students supposedly develop their quickness, thinking skills, and fitness. Under some farfetched apocalyptic premise (e.g., Space Invaders, PAC-man/woman, Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars) [what kind of 1994 was this exactly?! --Fussbett], one or two students are "it" and run around the playing area trying to capture/mutilate/kill everyone else in the game (the runners). When "it" tags a runner, the runner is now captured/mutilated/killed and out of the game. All of the tagged runners go to a holding area and watch the rest of the game until only one runner remains untagged and becomes the winner. The winner is now the new "it" and the game continues in this fashion for several similar rounds. What usually happens is that the least skilled or least attentive students are the first to be caught and eliminated, and then they spend the rest of the time it takes to produce a "winner" by sitting on the floor as "losers" with little to do but watch their classmates. Elimination games like Tag or Simon Says are essentially self-defeating, because the students who are least skilled and fit are usually the first to be caught, banished, punished, and embarrassed, and then given almost no opportunity to improve. The next time they play, those students are likely to be the first ones out again.