"Jean B." > wrote in message
...
> Julie Bove wrote:
>
>> I never took geography or history.
>>
> How does anyone graduate without taking those things? Isn't history, at
> least, mandatory everywhere?
>
> Thinking about a lack of geography classes makes me think of people who
> confuse Australia and Austria (etc.).

History wasn't mandatory when I was in school. Social Studies was. That
did include history but a wide variety of other things. I learned what I
thought was a lot about Native Americans. I have since read books as an
adult that truly horrified me. Some of the tribes were extremely violent.
That was all skipped over in school. We learned about what sorts of foods
they ate, how their clothing was made, about their religion, how they were
mistreated by the white people, and how they were much more likely to be
alcoholics than the rest of us.

We studied the Mayans and other Indians. Not sure why the focus on Indians
but they came up many times over the years. We also learned about various
ethnic groups such as the blacks so I guess there was some history in there
but it was all very cherry picked information that we were given. Mostly
how various groups were put upon and social injustice. How women were
considered to be lesser than men.

We studied alcoholism and drug abuse. I had to write reports on alcoholism
sooo many times that I just fished out the first report I ever wrote and
used that, just rewriting some of the sections and checking quickly at the
library to see if any new books had come out on the subject that I might
use. They hadn't so, easy peasy.

We studied religion. For the life of me I do not know what. Separation of
church and state and all. We touched on politics but not enough to be
meaningful. There was a presidential election that year though. And that
was the same year that we were divided into groups (not of our choosing) and
we had to work as a group to devise the perfect society. I walked home
fuming over that one! No matter how you sliced it, it was going to be a
losing proposition. I knew that from the git go but seemingly no one else
did, but the teacher who of course kept mum about it until the very end when
we had to give our presentations.

We had to make up a big poster with the name of our society and draw what it
looked like. Was it an island? A little part of a bigger country? A
mountain? How did the people get their water? What kind of jobs did the
people have? What did they look like? What kind of transportation did they
use? What did they eat?

Of course I got saddled with a group of stoners. Keep in mind that this was
during the 70's so I was surrounded by stoners. But these were idiot
stoners. I gave precious little input into the whole thing except to point
out why these things that they proposed would not work. Seemed each group
had a person or two like me in it and the whole thing wound up becoming a
bunch of people arguing, which likely was the whole point of the idiotic
assignment. I did agree to make the poster. I can't remember the name of
our society but clothing was optional, any and all recreational drugs were
legal, alcohol was legal for all ages and nobody worked. They didn't need
to work because they used no money on this island. And there were no
vehicles there either. Everybody just walked and somehow miraculously just
ate, drank and smoked up all the free stuff that was available to them. I
am sure I am leaving out vast details but that pretty much summed up what
they came up with by using their pot soaked brains. Ah, the 70's!

As I said prior, there was a history class available when I was in high
school. I did try to get into it but I could not. I don't know who
decided who went to what class. We had 7 periods in those days. 2 of them
were free periods. No study hall. No real need to study because there was
so little homework. At least I rarely had it. I did my work quickly and
finished out the rest of my classes by reading a book or writing poetry or a
story. In some classes were weren't allowed to read books so that's why I
wrote.

I hated having the free periods. We had a closed campus. So I was stuck
sitting on the grass and waiting for my next class to start. We did have a
school library but it was a joke. I only went in there if it was raining or
too cold to be outside. There were very few books in it and all of them
severely outdated. I remember there being reference type books and some
magazines but I don't even think there were novels. I never checked a book
out the whole time I was there. But somebody must have because there was an
after hours book drop and somebody once put a pigeon down it. That created
quite a stir!

Anyway... I had to talk to the school principal and get permission to take
extra classes. I worked in the office and also on the school newspaper.
Those were pretty boring things to do but it was better than sitting in the
grass. Of course my free periods never came at the time that my friend's
did.

These days things are different. Washington State history is a graduation
requirement. If anyone comes here from another state, they won't graduate
until they take it. Which might have to be taken over the summer and paid
for by the parents. There is also some other history that is required.
When I was in school, not much was required. Not even math. I do think we
had to have one business course and then either shop (wood, metal or auto)
or home ec (cooking or sewing), English and some science. Also P.E. up
until the 10th grade. In Jr. High we had to take art and music. I also
took a class called Family Living. I can't remember what category that came
under but it was a required category and the other things in that category
didn't sound appealing. This class was an easy A for me so it wasn't a big
deal.