Damn this thread has evolved.
I'll keep it simple.

The public schools (at least in the States) strip you of many of your civil rights. And there's nothing you can do about it. Just dance with a girl, I loved social dance in high school.

OK. Is it discrimination?

Are they giving you a lower grade because you danced with a partner of the same sex, or are they giving you a lower grade because you disobeyed the instruction to dance with a partner of the opposite sex?

If you're learning formal ballroom dancing, then your gender matters to how you dance. The man leads, the woman follows (yes yes, backwards and in heels, yadda yadda yadda.) As a man, learning to dance means learning to lead. If you dance with another man, either you or he is not learning the skill you are supposed to be learning.

They can easily take turns, whether it's girls or boys dancing together.

No, no, no. High School isn't about altering the things to accommodate individual preferences. High School is about learning, go along to get along so you'll be ready to kiss ass in the corporate world.

That said, it's not discrimination if everyone has the same orders.

Muahahaha...that's the price I paid then. Learning how to kiss corporate ass never took with me.

Its this type of thinking that is killing American youth and turning them off of school. America school's are absolutely horrible and are only going to get worse because they make it boring so you can prepare for the "real world" instead of actually learning and making the material interesting.

It is pathetic.

Pathetic maybe, but not new. They've been that way for about 60 years. I believe it was the boomers flooding the system that started it and the rush to the burbs sealed the deal, for the cities and burbs.

Before WW II going to college was rare and if the job you were shooting for only required an 8th grade education that's when you quit school. Parents felt that was normal. Post war GI Bill parents saw education would bring more wealth and wanted their kids to go that route.

Child labor was more universally frowned upon in most areas and plus there was initially a shortage of jobs. Keep the kids in school through 12th grade and see if they could make the cut for college, buck up the local sports teams and keep them out from underfoot.

I personally think we should redo the education system to stop producing drones and start making free thinking individuals.

Ooh, Open School Time :D








(my kids go to an Open School)

Open schools are great--I went to one for elementary school. I could never understand why more schools didn't use the same model.

I don't either. i have noticed that several of the local charter schools are adopting an open schooling approach.

I know you're not that old, so I'm not sure where you come up with this. Too sweeping a statement, perhaps. It certainly is not true for my family--both my parents (Mom, too), had college degrees before WWII. Perhaps they were in the minority, and I don't think it really makes much difference for the discussion here in the thread, but be careful of absolute statements.

There's no question that our school system sucks, though.

Yes, they were in the minority. Prior to the GI bill created a ton of college grads, the expense of college was far beyond most families unless the really set their mind to it and made sacrifices.

It was the exception, not the norm, partially because we didn't live in a technical society and there weren't that many jobs that required a college degree. Teaching, some scientific positions, lawyers, Doctors, maybe some accountants. Cities had separate High Schools for teaching trades, commerce and those headed for higher education.

By the late 50's all these grads had a dream of their children doing better and college became a more common goal. Tremendous leaps in technology meant more jobs for chemists, engineers, and scientists plus a surge in the number of lawyers and Doctors to service all the boomers.

By the time you get up to the eighties, companies wanted people they were going to train to have a bachelors degree before they would even consider them. There's a lot of college grads waiting tables and selling used cars

Yes I'm talking generalities and I can cite exceptions to, but I know I've got the trends right.

I'm confused. Are you the same Ibram who posted this in the why I'm happy today thread?

Girls aren't so bad as dance partners anymore, eh?