Dialogue: Sport takes spitting from yuk to wowie

By JOE BENNET

Spitting Through the Ages with reference to the liberalising influence of professional sport - a learning module developed by the Social Studies core-curriculum NCEA committee. Notes for teachers are provided in brackets.

Introductory Background.

Today we live in an enlightened age in which people are free to spit. (Encourage cheering. Teach words to International Hymn to Social Studies.

If the teacher is confident of maintaining order, s/he can write the words History and Geography on the board and encourage students to spit at them.

Teachers should be especially attentive to the needs of female students who may feel a vestigial reluctance to engage fully in this activity.

Their efforts may be encouraged by the distribution of prizes in the form of vouchers for morning-after pills, but to avoid fostering any form of competitive environment it is essential that prizes be awarded at random.

On no account should teachers reward or even praise the accuracy or volume of the spit, however impressive.)

But enlightenment is a modern phenomenon. Things have not always been so good.

In the late 19th century (see Classical Studies) public places were supplied with spittoons into which men spat. (Opportunity for cross-curricular link with workshop technology - homework project, make a spittoon and fill it.)

Women did not spit. Masculocentric society idealised women as Madonna figures without bodily functions whilst using them as domestic drudges.

In other words, women could not use a spittoon but were useful for cleaning them out. (Be aware of possibility of male students swooning, overcome by a sense of inherited guilt.)

Under paternalist conservative regimes of the early 20th century even masculine spitting fell out of favour.

It was judged to be unsightly and a health hazard.

The resurgence of the public spit in recent years has been fostered in no small measure by the proliferation of professional sport.

The sporting spit began with baseball. Baseball is played in the USA (do not attempt to teach the term USA. Countries are covered by Geography, which is no longer taught for cultural safety reasons.)

Baseball players chewed tobacco (at this point it is compulsory for teachers to administer Health Education unit 3.1, ending with a class chorus of "Morons, morons, all smokers are morons") and the tobacco (second verse plus chorus with triangle - see Music Appreciation unit standard 6.7a "You don't have to be able to sing or play an instrument to be a really rich musician and besides, Beethoven was a fascist") tasted so foul that the baseball players acquired the habit of spitting out the juices.

When the baseballers died from tobacco-poisoning (students beset with grief and/or joy must be sent immediately to the school counsellor. Do not attempt counselling without proper training) soccer players adopted the sporting spit and spread it around the globe.

Spitting has since been adopted by players of most sports and all sexual orientations and has become a symbol of virility. (Should any student query the word virility, administer Health Education unit 6.2 - condoms, the use of and the ability to talk about frankly in a non-gender-specific environment. Show applicator video. Reinforce with learning tools package 3.7.)

Cricket, that notorious bastion of colonial repression, was of course the last to embrace spitting but in recent years cricketers have made great progress.

Bowlers spit constantly. (Show enclosed video, The Great Australian Gob.) Batsmen have encountered difficulties, due to the grill across the front of their helmets, but research to overcome the problem continues.

Case Study: the fine imposed in the year 2000 on the Australian fast bowler Mr Glenn McGrath for spitting at a West Indian batsman.

The match referee who imposed the fine was an Englishman by the name of Mr Subba Row.

Appropriate attitudes can be fostered by inviting students to make mock of Mr Subba Row's name - for example, brother of the famous Death and so on.

It should be stressed that Mr Subba Row is an anachronism (Teach this word vigorously by citing examples of other anachronisms such as literacy, dignity under pressure, accepting responsibility for one's own life, multiplication tables, manners etc.)

Netballers of both genders have been slow to adopt the art of spitting.

Historically, netball has been dominated by women, therefore confirming that socio-political indoctrination can take years to eradicate from the psyche.

(Possibility of multimedia research project and presentation on netball's stronger spitters. Good material is available on the Gay Netball website http://www.gay.dunk. It may be appropriate to bring in the transgender facilitator on the teaching staff for peer support purposes.)

Extension modules.

Students could experiment by mixing spittle with organic vegetable dyes to create a form of ink. This could serve as introduction to Learning Module 4.1 Writing a Coherent Essay (see Ancient History).