Nothing Simple About Football

Damini runs a race at Sports Day

As recently a year ago, Damini went to a regular school. She was the only child with special needs in her class, and I would accompany her in case there was ever need for facilitation between her and the proceedings of the school day. Most of the time, I would end up watching the class in progress from the sidelines, my services not needed.  

Out of all her classes, games period was especially interesting.

Nowhere else do gender biases manifest more starkly than on the playing field: after the initial warm up, the boys would head straight for the football field as it if were their birthright. The girls grabbed various other kinds of spheres – handballs, basketballs, etc. There was usually a tentative bunch that looked like they wanted to challenge the boys for the football, but would ultimately end up taking a spare and playing their own docile version of the game.

Damini, however, would automatically join the boys. She would start with enthusiasm, running along with every one.  But after she got a couple of chances to kick the ball, she would hang back and slowly withdraw completely from the field to one of the benches on the sides. I would be there to coax/urge/bully her back into the game. A lot of the time she just put her foot down and said, “I finished”.

Throughout the various activities that account for physical education, there would be at least 4 or 5 other kids who, like Damini, seemed to cling to the sidelines, looking like they would rather be elsewhere.

On the surface, there seemed to be no difference between the involvement, or lack thereof, of the other kids in the activities from Damini’s. Yet there was a difference.

When the boys chose to play football, it was because they “liked football”. When Damini did so, it could have been for any of the following reasons:

The ‘boys’ were playing the game.

She had played the game the previous week, so she automatically assumed that she had no other choice.

She knew I would push her into playing something regardless.

She didn’t know how to assert herself and say “I do not want to play any of these games.”

She liked football.

Sack Races at Sports Day

The other kids knew the basic objective of the game: to score a goal.

For Damini it was all about the act of kicking the ball and saying “yesss”. For everyone else, gaining control of the ball and moving it towards the opposing goal post was an easy fact to grasp. Damini would wait for the ball to come to her, and if it had even a little momentum behind it, she would duck in self-preservation. The direction of the kick was completely inconsequential.

The difference between Damini and her peers was especially stark where the concept of being a team member was concerned. At its most superficial level, this involves being able to identify the others in on one’s team. At a fundamental level is the notion of one group of people pitted against another in competitive spirit. This concept completely eluded Damini,  so while everyone was running together after the ball, working in tandem to keep the it within the team’s possession – passing it to the right people, protecting it from the ‘enemy’, getting it to the goal – she just ran along with the general crowd.

When the other kids chose not to play, it was a matter of lack of interest, ability and/or stamina. But it was a decision based in comprehension. When Damini withdrew from the game, it was because it required her to grapple with too many concepts and people at any given moment. She was in way over her head.

           

However, she loved track and field activities. They were repetitive with just one idea involved [run or jump], and only herself to contend with. Best of all, she got cheered on at the end!