<p>So in our “cold war film festival” last year, we watched this documentary called “16 in Webster Grove” about high school juniors in pretty small, middle class town…early 60s I think. This was legitimately filmed, in that time period, not right now or something. </p>
<p>Anyway it was amazing. Could have been that community today in so many ways, except because of the time period they were so much more open about a lot of it. The kids talked about being under immense pressure, the parents were hovering. Very interesting watch. A lot has changed, but deep down a lot of things are still the same. I don’t know where this documentary can be obtained, our teacher had rented it somewhere.</p>
<p>I got my 10th grade yearbook out last night. I thought that if I looked at all the faculty, I would recognize whoever was my social studies teacher. Well, I guess I really DIDN’T take Social Studies Freshman or Sophomore year. Just US History in 11th grade and a semester of government in 12th.</p>
<p>I suppose almost all of those teachers are at least retired, if not deceased, but I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to all of those who taught typing on manual typewriters, “business machines”, as well as all the welding, shop and drivers ed guys. </p>
<p>Looking at the yearbook also confirmed that Calculus was not taught at all in the school when I was there…not even PreCal…I guess they didn’t think any of the 3200 students were capable…and the only physics was combined with chemistry as “PhysChem.”</p>
<p>One more thing about girls’ athletics: The yearbook made a big deal about how the first two girls’ sports had been started that year-track and tennis. Title IX-coming just two years later-must have come as quite a shock.</p>
<p>Final thing: There are actual pictures in the yearbook of students smoking in the “Stadium Club.”</p>
<p>I’m guessing I had the oddest high school experience here.</p>
<p>Class of 74. Private California “alternative” boarding school.</p>
<p>I have no idea what was required. Took the PSAT and SAT once each with no studying. NMF, 700’s on verbal 500’s on math. Still got into Princeton. Can you believe it.</p>
<p>ECs were theater, dance, literary magazine. Prom also had Jimi Hendrix.</p>
<p>Took a class in Futurism. We went to Union Square and displayed a 6 foot high tea bag we had built as sort of a “happening”. They wanted me to take Calculus senior year but I refused because I truly hated math. I would have been the only girl.</p>
<p>Spent a semester living with 8 other kids in a house in SF, interning as a teacher at a public school.</p>
<p>Took the sats once. Noone I knew took them twice. I got a 920, which I thought was good back then. I got into Temple (which I went), Penn State, Beaver College (where I wanted to go, too much $) and LaSalle. Back then everyone in my high school pretty much went to Temple. None of my friends except one lived away at school. And noone went to a private school that I knew of.</p>
<p>I had lunch everyday (my son in his whole high school 4 years) will have no lunch. I had sewing, typing and home economics. And in my senior year my science was psychology. In 11th grade I had Chemisty CT, that was chemistry for kids who hated science. And in my senior year I had an advanced art class where we messed around all year. Its amazing how different it all is now when I think back on it.</p>
<p>And my senior year we cut the first two classes and went to Country Club for breakfast, and then showed up for third period in home room. How did I get away with that?</p>
<p>Class of ‘78. Respected public school in MI. Took the usual college prep line-up: 4 years each of math, science, language arts, social studies, foreign language. Counselor was the boys’ basketball coach, and he was useless for anything other than coaching basketball. Parents encouraged us to work hard, but they didn’t know much about college admissions or financing. No AP classes offered at school that I recall. The hardest class I took was Project Advance English, a program through Syracuse U for which we received college credit (which didn’t transfer to my engineering school). It was incredible!! I wish the rest of high school had been so challenging. Took ACT & SAT once each — did very well, although I wasn’t aware at the time that my scores were so good (no one bothered to explain any of that to me). Anyway, I did my homework, played a couple sports, worked at McDonald’s, watched my little brother while parents worked, etc. — got all A’s (except for one B somewhere along the line). No final exams EVER (A in class = no final exam). Applied to one college & was accepted. Went there because it was a good school & I could afford it. Slammed into the brick wall that was college for my first year, then figured it all out & ended up with a decent gpa.</p>
<p>Life was much less complicated then … at least it was for ME!! Maybe if it was harder, I’d be rich. Whatever.</p>
<p>Alu mom, I was part of the alternative school movement as well, in California when there was apparently a great deal of money for public education in the early '70s. Though I spent my first 3 years of HS at ‘regular’ schools, I was eager to be accepted at Community Centered HS, where we were to have some school based classes, as well as going out into the community for our education. I had community based ceramics with a potter, photography in someone’s studio, music lessons and more music at the community college. A little English and Political science at the home school. Marched for peace in San Francisco, helped organize a peace festival. Though I wasn’t part of it, some of the students built a geodesic dome as a summer school project, as one of our school buildings. Academics? Luckily had some of those my first years of HS. I later caught up with academic classes, especially sciences, in the community college system. Curiously, or perhaps not so, in that year off, I gained a passion for learning, absent before, that has never really left me. I dreamed of going to a ‘good’ college, had no money for it, so remained a dream. As my peers did, I went to the community college, lived at home and later a state school. I took the SAT only to go to the state school from community college. A friend from NY looked at my scores and gasped as they were quite good. I had no basis for comparison, and didn’t matter, regardless. Until I went to nursing school years later, knew nothing of financial aid, and what might be possible. </p>
<p>In terms of academics, that could be seen as a wasted year. Participating, it was the best thing I’d ever done, high spirited, full of joy, inquiry, a sense of community I had never before experienced. I needed that time.</p>