After School Special: 1st is the Worst… Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Posted by jukeboxhero in FACT, I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, bad hair.Tags: Battle of Hastings
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I am hoping to make this a regularly weekly post. As a high school teacher I have the benefit of witnessing the newest, boldest, and flat out most awkward trends that the kids be flossin’. Sometimes they remind me of myself or other kids from back in the day and sometimes they horrify me. All in all I would not give up my profession for anything in the world. Working with these not-yet-humans is rewarding, hilarious, mind numbing, and painful wrapped into one. Enough about that. You probably just want to know how young they start drinking at now anyway… or if there is still such a thing as Home Ec. class… or if wearing overall shorts with one buckle clasped is still cool…
The truth is that I have no clue where to begin. Do I start with how they dress, what music is most prominent, what the biggest difference or similarity is between this generation and the last (or my own). I’m not sure. That’s where you come in. I’ll play your typical lazy teacher and ask you what YOU think, hmmmmmmm? I’d like to know what you want to know about these vulgar emo induced spazbags. So as this is the first post of hopefully many to come, your homework is to ask a question, comment on some trend you don’t get, or relive your fantasy of telling your 9th grade teacher where to go and how to get there.
The Go-Gettah,
Mr. J
HW: 1-27 odd, SYW. Detention: Suss, Bowdenx3
Detention? I told you, my dad’s signature looks exactly like my handwriting. So I don’t know why you think I forged it on this “C-” Social Studies test.
What was the inspiration for the Battle of Hastings tag?
Just one of those dates/battles “you should know” things I remember from high school. Nice tag for a history teacher.
This isn’t solely restricted to highschoolers, but I have the impression that it is gaining in popularity there…
Shortly after I got to college, I noticed a trend starting. It seemed to originate with the “mature students” and then trickeled its way down to their children who were in elementary, junior, or high school.
This trend is … the rolling bookbag.*
What annoys me most about this is that these people have no common sense when dragging these things behind them. They blindly march forward while their luggage pummels shins and small children behind them.
The most infurating thing is what happens when they get to an opening that is too small for their book-luggage. They attempt to use the book-luggage as a battering ram and just roll over/through it. It’s almost as though there is some sort of connection between the wheels and the ground that cannot be broken to LIFT IT UP.
*take note book-luggage defenders, I do not care how heavy your books are.
Also from the department of the old man who has nothing better to do but bitch.
* Why I hate it when people misuse the word “osmosis”.
* Myspace, the new home of parents who have midlife crises, and their children who are retards.
Ever seen the Bayeux tapestry in Normandy that shows the Battle of Hastings and the lead-up to it? It’s pretty amazing if you ever get to that region of France.
One of the guys I work with has a rolling bookbag and it’s prety weird to see. How lazy can you be? It just looks retarded, grow a pair and get a briefcase or messenger bag.
I blame it on Osmosis Jones.
I’m only 2 years removed from high school, so i’m kind of interested to see what you guys point out. I wonder if any of the things we did were trends that pissed you all off.
what gets me is, in college, they think that you don’t notice them sitting there texting their buddies. listen dipshit, i spent a lot of time preparing a way to talk about the content without dryly lecturing, working on activities, drawing out parallels with their daily lives, attempting to inspire them to think critically about their world…but you would rather have the following alleged conversation:
what r u doin
nuthin u
nuthin
oh, and fuck you for not getting my “magnum, p.i.” reference and making me feel old. jerkwads.
man. i feel better.
My wife ia a high school teacher. I think the trend that she hates most is when kids get a hold of some of the teachers’ cell phone numbers and call them and threaten to rape and kill them. Well, that and chewing gum in class. It’s a toss up.
oh ya, I hate text messaging too.
You would think for someone who makes their living being a computer nerd I’d be down with these tech things.
Damn kids. What with their pet rocks, flying discs, hula hoops, snap bracelets, and pogs, they’re driving this country straight into the ground.
No one should ever have a suitcase on wheels, unless they’re using it to transport a ventriloquist dummy. Then it’s acceptable.
Ventriloquism, however, remains unforgivable.
On a side note, I’m trying to bring back the tight-rolling of jeans. And slouch socks. And K-Swiss. And then maybe Greg will start returning my calls. Ye Olde Homecoming King doesn’t seem quite as regal with the Blockbuster nametag on.
I hear leg warmers are back in style. The thing about really old fashion trends re-emerging is that it makes me feel … really old.
I’m curious as to how kids carry their backpacks these days. In middle school we’d only use one strap no matter how heavy it was. Then in high school it was cool to use both straps like you’re supposed to. I’m sure its like a sine curve that changes every couple of years. And do kids still carry backpacks or are the rollers or messenger bags in vogue?
Yes, I just compared backpacks to a sine curve.
Stupid real life teaching getting in the way…
Here’s my question: When I was in high school, my friends and I (and I’d say the population at large) had a deep appreciation of not only our culture, but that of the previous generation. I was as likely to listen to some Zeppelin as I was to some R.E.M. Today, kids still have a healthy appreciation of a previous generation, but instead of being influenced by the Gen Xers, they’re taking their cues from the boomers, still listening to the Boomer music and ignoring the brilliance of the music of the 1990s. What the hell happened?!?
Wow… lots to work with. First of all I should tell you that not only kids, but now annoying teachers trudge around with the luggage. On the same topic, most kids in the high school I work at literally use no form of backpack. If they do, it is one of those Adidas or Nike sacks with yarn attached. This is one of the most mind numbing aspects of the hallway… it is no longer, “Hey your new LL Bean backpack is nice but it takes up 4 square miles of space,” it is, “Why not think about purchasing a backpack so you can transport things like homework, cleats, or weed.”.
Myspace casues more problems than PMS, family problems, depression, and Bin Laden put together. The drama has got to stop.
I’ll also ditto the parts about cell phones that you guys mentioned.
I thank you for the fuel… I can gear my next few posts towards your questions and comments. Exactly what I had hoped for so nice work!
Flashbacks! Flashbacks! I went to a K-12 school and my junior year, all of a sudden, everyone in grades 3-6 had a “rolly bag.” The hallways of my quaint all-girls school sounded like Terminal B at Philadelphia International. They caused all the problems you mentioned, so after the fourth one I fell over in the hallway, I wrote a nasty editorial about them for the school newspaper. No less than half a dozen teachers and administrators pulled me aside after the editorial came out to thank me for “speaking out.”
Oh, well as a high school teacher, I dislike the fact that they have no respect for private property. If it’s on my desk, it’s not yours. You can’t just pick it up and claim it as your own. If a teacher doesn’t nail down the objects they wish to keep in their classroom (i.e. the classroom phone), then they get taken. So far this year, I’ve had two phones stolen, one phone broken, the remote control to the VCR taken, the batteries out of every electronic device removed, and my iPod stolen by some kids who were caught cheating on a test (it was given back the next day once they learned the classroom consequences of their actions). Of course it doesn’t end there, but I’ll end there.
One more thing. I dislike how the students’ sex lives are open books. If I have to hear one more time how many times my students have gotten laid/high/drunk/fill-in-blank-here the previous night, I think I’m going to vomit. No wonder half of my students end up pregnant at some point during the year.
And then there’s taking pictures during class with their cellphones…but I’ll save that for another day.
I hate this on your behalf, because it sounds like your kids have more active social lives than I do.
They think they have more active social lives… but I imagine that dry humping after smoking a filterless cigarette doesn’t appeal to most of us.
speak for yourself.