-- On HIGH SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2007

[Oldfisti]

Not everything was wonderful way back then.  yes, times have changed.


alfisti - you're showing your age.  You'll have to show up to DIMBY with 2 bottles of the good stuff!!

(to redeem yourself - otherwise, screw off!!)

I've got it scheduled and the good stuff I will bring.   

[IZ]

WTF?!  I was looking at this exact same clip right before I came to this thread?!   




Herm..I graduated a couple years after you.  "Normal" times didn't end with the Class of '87.   Somewhere in the 90's is when it changed and then ..like others have already stated..Columbine an 9/11) There were fights all the time in school in my school.  I never saw a cop once or any outside "forces" coming.  The school handled the situations.  Everyone lived and turned out fine.

I've worked in several high schools over the past few years, you should see the hightech equipment they have in there now!  Current one has 2 cops..one with a police dog.   Who, by the way, was off school grounds and searching through buildings in my area on Thursday!       

[Popeye the Sailor]

Goddamnit, make the beast with two backs making a logical response every line in the original post.
I wish we lived in `57, when it was so nice outside.

But we don't.

Eh, I figure if the 50's were so great, we wouldn't have gotten the 60's out of 'em.



Think about it-dating with no sex? I'd turn to drugs too.

[factorPlayer]

I hope no one is actually fooled by those trite, simplistic comparisons  - the real world is a little more complicated than that.

There are perfectly good reasons schools don't allow firearms, don't let kids settle differences with uninterrupted violence, and don't turn a blind eye to parents that beat their children. 

It may seem like schools overreact to things these days, and may times they do, but that's because they are keenly aware of the far greater consequences of underreacting. 

[Mother]

yes

the lawsuit

[duc_fan]

In my personal experience, the shift happened between '87 and '97.

In the early 90's, one of my buddies brought his BB gun to class for show-and-tell.  The teacher complimented him on safe handling (keeping finger off trigger, pointed down & away from people, etc), and used it as a teaching moment on safe practices with firearms.

Today?

He'd have gotten keelhauled and his parents lambasted as violent lunatics if they even asked to bring a BB gun to show-and-tell.

It started changing sometime in the early-to-mid 90's, then I would agree Columbine was a catalyst for further restriction.


Anyway, I prefer the old-skool ways of personal responsibility & accountability.  My older coworkers are always surprised to find out I'm only 25... last time we were out shooting pool and discussing music, they all concluded I was born in the wrong decade.    One coworker believes I have an "old soul."


fP... dude, not even gonna start. 

[redxblack]

Eh, I figure if the 50's were so great, we wouldn't have gotten the 60's out of 'em.

+a zillion


there were plenty of good things about the 1950s, but there were plenty of bad things as well. I don't want to draw political lines, but think about repression and segregation then draw your own conclusions.

High Schools are really sad. I work in one. When kids fail, the teachers are to blame. When kids come to an ELEVENTH grade class with a THIRD grade reading level, the ELEVENTH grade teacher is to blame. When you toss a kid out of class for disrupting, the principal decides to hear the kid out and you have to justify your actions to the point where it's easier to just pretend the kid isn't making it impossible to learn. It takes a dedicated professional to fight that fight every time and too few have the patience after dealing with 130 different personalities on a daily basis and trying to get them to pass an 8th grade level test administered to a 10th grade class with a 4th grade reading level. I can't imagine someone wanting to go into this profession - it's a no-win situation because there's really no personal responsibility. When it's not working, it's the teacher's fault, but when the teacher has a solution, they're ignored for the high-priced ex-teacher consultants who have research on their side.

(end rant, and remember - this is the far left perspective!  )

[Jarvicious]

+a zillion


there were plenty of good things about the 1950s, but there were plenty of bad things as well. I don't want to draw political lines, but think about repression and segregation then draw your own conclusions.

High Schools are really sad. I work in one. When kids fail, the teachers are to blame. When kids come to an ELEVENTH grade class with a THIRD grade reading level, the ELEVENTH grade teacher is to blame. When you toss a kid out of class for disrupting, the principal decides to hear the kid out and you have to justify your actions to the point where it's easier to just pretend the kid isn't making it impossible to learn. It takes a dedicated professional to fight that fight every time and too few have the patience after dealing with 130 different personalities on a daily basis and trying to get them to pass an 8th grade level test administered to a 10th grade class with a 4th grade reading level. I can't imagine someone wanting to go into this profession - it's a no-win situation because there's really no personal responsibility. When it's not working, it's the teacher's fault, but when the teacher has a solution, they're ignored for the high-priced ex-teacher consultants who have research on their side.

(end rant, and remember - this is the far left perspective!  )

Agreed.  A number of my friends (including my bro in law) and they vaguely equate modern teaching with glorified babysitting.  They don't have to plan lessons.  All they need to do is read off what the district is telling them to read just so the children can make the higherups look good on standarized tests. 

Regarding the segregation and repression, I'm glad that it's no where near the level that it used to be but it's still evident.  My Sr. year was characterized by a intracity gang fight at a football game (two schools from across the same town - i.e. rival gangs) which preceded 7 of those students getting expelled.  Shortly after, Jesse Jackson and his coalition came roaring into town followed by Mathew Hale and a contingent of the KKK which ended up as two days off of school for us and the remainder of the semester spent with metal detectors and FBI snipers on the roof. True, there is a fine line between over and underreaction, I just hope someday we'll be able to straddle it. 

[duc_fan]

High Schools are really sad. I work in one. When kids fail, the teachers are to blame. When kids come to an ELEVENTH grade class with a THIRD grade reading level, the ELEVENTH grade teacher is to blame. When you toss a kid out of class for disrupting, the principal decides to hear the kid out and you have to justify your actions to the point where it's easier to just pretend the kid isn't making it impossible to learn. It takes a dedicated professional to fight that fight every time and too few have the patience after dealing with 130 different personalities on a daily basis and trying to get them to pass an 8th grade level test administered to a 10th grade class with a 4th grade reading level. I can't imagine someone wanting to go into this profession - it's a no-win situation because there's really no personal responsibility. When it's not working, it's the teacher's fault, but when the teacher has a solution, they're ignored for the high-priced ex-teacher consultants who have research on their side.

(end rant, and remember - this is the far left perspective!  )

Were you kidding about the "far left perspective"?  Because I come from a "far right perspective", and I don't think your assessment is off-base.  I don't know if you and I see eye-to-eye on the cause and effect, but I think your assessment of the current situation is realistic.  Sadly so.

I think what you observe is the symptom of our society's drift away from enforcing personal responsibility and accountability starting at a young age.  Kids need to be punished when they misbehave, they need to be taught there are consequences to their actions, and parents need to be parents instead of handing their children off to someone else for rearing.

My personal opinion is this shift away from personal responsibility is a result of the "Me generation" philosophy of selfish indulgence that started in the 60's.  This was not crushed or pushed back against, and then the selfish started having and raising kids of their own while further diminishing the sense of responsibility imparted to their children.

Hopefully I didn't cross a political line there... that was intended to be an observation on society in general.  But, if my track record holds true, it'll probably generate another sh!tstorm of controversy. 

Okay, back to work.

[jdubbs32584]

<snip>

I think what you observe is the symptom of our society's drift away from enforcing personal responsibility and accountability starting at a young age.  Kids need to be punished when they misbehave, they need to be taught there are consequences to their actions, and parents need to be parents instead of handing their children off to someone else for rearing.

<snip>

+11ty billion.

I was in high school from 98-02. Fights, gangs, kids being incredibly disruptive in class, and I went to one of the better schools in the county. These kids had no parents around and talked back to any authority figure they could find. They had no respect for other students or teachers.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

[Popeye the Sailor]

We never had any problems with disruption in class, or gangs, or fights.


I suppose private school does have its benefits.

[redxblack]

private schools have the option to turn people away and GENERALLY have more involved parents. Parents and the ability to read are the two biggest determiners for success in education. If you have those two, even a couple years of bad teachers can be overcome. If you don't have those two, even great teachers will likely still fail. I'm not saying that to point fingers or defend poor teachers (they make my job harder), but to vent a bit as a member of a denigrated profession in a failing society.

and bibleboy - I remember from the failed experiment of the politics subforum that we have VERY different political ideologies. On that political compass thing, I was in that lower left quadrant pretty deeply. Still, individual personal responsibility is absolutely essential for any kind of social organization. we might differ on how that should get instilled/patched/compensated or on the causes of the failures to attain it, but we'd probably agree on more core values than we'd disagree.

[ducpainter]

Politics do not exist here...

so stop talking about them. 

[duc_fan]

We never had any problems with disruption in class, or gangs, or fights.

Neither did I...

but I were home edjumacated. 

[Popeye the Sailor]

Neither did I...

but I were home edjumacated. 

You were stuck in a house with a number of other teenage boys and there weren't fights?


Do tell.