"Gary" > wrote in message ...
> Julie Bove wrote:
>>
>> History wasn't mandatory when I was in school.
>
>> We did have a school library but it was a joke.
>
>> 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.
>
>> When I was in school, not much was required. Not even math.
>
> No history or math required? Give me a break. You never graduated HS,
> did you?

I certainly did. In 1977. Went on to community college then dropped out.
I took math up until the 9th grade. It was not required after that. The
only history I remember offered was in high school. Only one teacher taught
it. I can't remember his name now but he was a runner and had a dog named
Hector. Hector was a girl. She wore a bandana and came to class with him.
I tried like hell to get into his class but could not.

I was assigned to take a class called Contemporary World Problems. Several
of my friends were in there too and we would have had no issues had the
teacher actually taught us something. Anything! A few times he had us clip
specific articles out of the newspaper only to have us never do anything
with them.

Each day it was the same. He'd say, "I'd like you to review this movie for
my Pre-Voc class." That was what they called the Special Ed class in those
days. And he'd put the movie on for us. Often it was a movie we had seen
countless times before. Like Nanook Of The North or The Blue Men Of
Morocco. Always the same results. Sure Mr. G. We think they might like
the movie. But when can we study things for OUR class? And he'd say that
we'd get to them.

After the movie or sometimes there wasn't even a movie, he'd tell us we
could go to the library. For what? Who knows. And then he'd leave. Where
did he go? Who knows! So my friends and I would stay in the room and play
Hangman on the chalk board.

We all went to the guidance counselor and told her that he wasn't teaching
us and we wanted out of there. She said she could do nothing because the
other classes were all full. Our parents called the school. Still stuck
there.

Then when my brother was assigned to the same teacher and also to an English
teacher I'd had who essentially taught us nothing but had us do oral
reports, demonstrating how to do things and spoke constantly of the boy's
school where she used to teach. They didn't know what forks were, you
know... My dad called right away and insisted that my brother be taken out
of those classes. And he was! I guess by then they'd heard enough
complaints.

I had another Social Studies teacher who never really taught us anything but
at least he could be entertaining. But every day was the same thing with
him too. He would tell us that his dog was named Brandy. Then one of us
would ask him why? And he'd reply that it was because she was a little
licker (liquor). And then we'd all pretend to laugh because clearly he
thought that was hysterically funny. Then someone would ask about his wife,
his kids, his neighbor, his car, his dinner from the night before, whatever.
And he'd just go on and on, talking to us.

One day, some of us got there early. It was very common for the teachers to
dismiss us early. But because we had a closed campus, we had nowhere really
to go. So we went to our next class. And he wasn't in there. Someone got
the idea to unscrew the light bulbs. So we did. Not all the way. We left
them in there. Just unscrewed enough so they wouldn't come on. That got us
out of class! He freaked out when they wouldn't come on and had to call the
janitor. Of course we monitored all of this and it took the janitor until
two more classes to figure it out and put it all right. Didn't take us long
to do the unscrewing because we all did it at once.

Once in typing class, I single handedly removed as many of the letter Q keys
as I could before the teacher got there. I stowed them in a drawer in her
podium. We were learning the Q that day among other letters. But since so
many of us didn't have one, she just dismissed us for the day.

Other things that got us out of classes were frogs, partially or fully
dissected or not being put in drinking fountains. Certain types of
graffiti. I didn't get to witness this but only heard about it. There was
an elderly teacher named Ms. Bloomer. I think she taught English. Someone
wrote, "Bloomer is wilted!" on the wall just inside the exit door. Our
school was all on one level with a mostly open plan. But this particular
area was a "quad" meaning that you went inside one door where four
classrooms were housed.

Well... She never made it out the door. I was told that she became so
hysterical when she saw the bad thing written about her that she smacked
right into the wall, fell over and they had to call for medical assistance.
Not sure the 911 system was in place yet. But the whole quad had to be
cleared out to make way for the medical people.

That story sounded so silly that I didn't want to believe it but the whole
school was talking about it and I saw several people point to the exact spot
on the wall where the bad thing had been written.

Sometimes people got duct taped to poles. This was one of the initiation
rituals for boys. AFAIK it never happened to a girl. And I never saw the
actual act happening but eventually we would hear the cries of help. They
always taped the guy high enough up so that his feet didn't touch the
ground. This would get us out of class if we were close enough to hear the
cries of help because of course it was upsetting to us all, fearing that we
might be the next victim. So the teacher would usually let us go so we
could think about it.

Then there was the biology pond. A small, murky, greenish thing that stunk
to high heaven. People were thrown into it as an initiation. They'd then
drag their wet and stinking selves into the nearby biology room (which
happened to be my class) for help. They left behind such a stench that we
had to evacuate the classroom as least until the dripped water could be
cleaned up.

I was never initiated in any way but when I went to the pond to collect
water for our Ecosystem, I managed to fall in. I earned the reputation of
being the only person ever to have gone into the water by her own devices.
I was probably also the only one stupid enough to collect water from it.
And our fish only managed to live for about two weeks before they died.

Then there were the fire alarms. Sometimes they were planned. Sometimes
accidents and sometimes deliberate. When the fire alarm was pulled, it
squirted out a liquid of some sort that wasn't obvious in regular light but
could be seen as purple with the right kind light. Maybe it was a black
light. Not sure. This is how they caught people setting it off on purpose.
But once after my friend's brother did it accidentally in the wood shop
class by catching it with the long handle of a broom. He didn't get in
trouble for it because it truly was an accident but that led some people to
use that same sort of technique on purpose. Sometimes they managed to
escape detection. Sometimes not.

And once there was a bomb threat. That left us standing outside in the rain
for a couple of hours.

Then there were two guys who were always playing jokes and doing dumb
things, including rolling a real bowling ball down Main Street which is a
really steep street. Amazingly, no one was injured and even the fountain in
the middle of downtown was spared.

Somehow they got a hold of some mannequins. The first one was placed in the
Vice Principal's chair. They had made it up to look like him. Even that
glasses. That was kind of funny but it didn't get anyone out of class,
except perhaps for them while they were being spoken to.

But the next one was bad They had a naked female mannequin and they put it
along with a toy rifle in the back of a pickup truck. They drove the truck
up to the window outside of the Pre-Voc class. I have no clue what their
intent was next. But one of the Pre-Voc students saw it, screamed and told
the teacher that she though a lady had been shot out there. The police were
called and we were all evacuated to the other end of the school until that
was all sorted out.

It didn't really take much to get out of class in those days. Or even to
stay in class and do nothing. We played our own on the fly version of
Trivial Pursuit one year in English class. The teacher even had us looking
for silly trivial questions. How many Tic Tacs are there in a pound of Tic
Tacs? That was my question but I don't remember the answer now. How many
steps are there to so and so's classroom. That could have one of two
answers. Either none, because the school was all on one level and there
were no steps anywhere or...the actual number of steps you'd have to take to
get there, which of course could vary depending on your stride.

Much of these things would never take place today. The schools have too
many things in place to prevent them from happening. We had one truant
officer at the school. She walked around looking for people who were trying
to leave. And we all did leave. Even though we had a closed campus, we
could easily get an excuse to leave. For instance, I was in Deca and I
would just tell the teacher that I was going to look for things for the
display window or some such thing. Boom. Gone for 2+ hours because that
class was a two hour class and ran into my lunch time too. By then, I
sometimes had a car and two of my friends owned their own cars. We'd go out
for lunch or hang out at the mall.

And if we didn't have a pass? All we had to do was ask the truant officer
what kind of candy she wanted. There was a 7-11 across the street and she
loved candy bars. Plus she wore a bright pink coat and could be spotted a
mile away. I think she was very near sighted too because she didn't seem to
notice too much of what was going on.