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Changes at High Schools. Now vs back in the day.. (1 Viewer)

parasaurolophus

parasaurolophus

Footballguy
My son goes to school in the same city as I did. He attends the school that was our rival, but it is built pretty much identical and has the same rules, always has. My son is going to homecoming this weekend. His date is from a different school. In order for her to attend as his date a form needed to be filled out. It was a contract. She needed to sign it, her parents needed to sign it, her principal even needed to sign it. All stems from a few years ago when some students from another high school attended the dance and started fights that led to some injuries. As you can imagine, there was a lawsuit. 

When I attended we had 7 class blocks a day. My son has 4. So classes that I took all year, he now only takes for a semester. 

You are not allowed to wear hats at sporting events. Not even school hats. The only exception is for outdoor games he is allowed to wear a plain winter hat.

There is assigned parking. Each space (with the exception of a few blocks for guests) has a number painted on the ground. You must put a sticker on your car with the matching number.  A van patrols the parking lot and it is taken very seriously when a car is in a spot without that sticker during school hours. I remember my parking pass was stuck to a cassette case so I could move it from car to car depending on which friend had access to a car that day and we just took whatever spot was open.

I went to high school when flannel was popular. There are some girls I went to high school with I would have liked to see wearing what girls wear today. When the weather is nice and I drop my son off I have to shake my head. Sorry homer, no pics. 

Others?

 
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Smoking is no longer allowed. We had a place called the dust bowl, where teachers hung with students and smoked in harmony. 

I didn't smoke but it scared me as a freshman to walk by all the metal dudes 

Athletics are played at a much higher speed and level. 

 
We have a male cheerleader for our local HS. And yes, he is very much on the feminine side in everything he does. And he doesn't get made fun of.  I snickered when I saw him doing his little cheers because....well....that's how I am and how I grew up.  My fiance turned to me and said this is the new world. Not sure what to think of this new world...

 
What is this new computer thing kids these days are learning on?  You mean they replaced typewriters?

 
Wife works at a similar school that I went to. They have 8 kids out for the year with fractures from team sports and had to cancel the rest of the lacrosse season and they got a special waiver to play freshman for football but only in reserve in case someone is injured. 

Never remembered a single fracture in 4 years. Or really any major injury. 

 
Oh. And it isnt unusual at all for parents to drop 5 figures on club sports and coaches.  Plus promotional videos and film crews.  Really. 

 
We had an outside courtyard where students and faculty could smoke.  These days, smoking anywhere on school grounds at any time is verboten.  

High school football was popular when I was in high school...  they even charged admission to attend, and the stands were packed not only with parents and students, but with regular townspeople who had no kid in school at the time.  It was a social event every weekend during the season.  And a lot of alumni would come back to see the annual Thanksgiving day game.  These days, at my daughters' high school, there is still no admission charged and those who do attend all have a kid on the team.  And a lot of those who do have a kid on the team still don't attend.   And the Thanksgiving day game is sparsely attended with no alumni bothering to attend.  

On the school lunch front, there were few choices.  You either liked what they made for the day or you went hungry.  My daughters high school offers many choices daily, including a full salad bar.  

 
My daughters play HS sports and the teams do this thing where they buy each other "Psych bags". They are full of candy and their favorite treats. They are assigned someone and they do it to psych each other up. Never seen or heard of that before. 

 
I had "open campus" for lunch.   Too many auto accidents resulted in closed campus for lunches.    Gun rack in pickup with a your rifle or shotgun.   Smoke hole where the shop teacher and other vo - tech teachers smoked right along with the students.     Teachers physically removing kids from class.     Doobie for under 5 bucks. 

 
Copeman said:
We have a male cheerleader for our local HS. And yes, he is very much on the feminine side in everything he does. And he doesn't get made fun of.  I snickered when I saw him doing his little cheers because....well....that's how I am and how I grew up.  My fiance turned to me and said this is the new world. Not sure what to think of this new world...
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sound like you are sure.

 
johnnycakes said:
We had an outside courtyard where students and faculty could smoke.  These days, smoking anywhere on school grounds at any time is verboten.  

High school football was popular when I was in high school...  they even charged admission to attend, and the stands were packed not only with parents and students, but with regular townspeople who had no kid in school at the time.  It was a social event every weekend during the season.  And a lot of alumni would come back to see the annual Thanksgiving day game.  These days, at my daughters' high school, there is still no admission charged and those who do attend all have a kid on the team.  And a lot of those who do have a kid on the team still don't attend.   And the Thanksgiving day game is sparsely attended with no alumni bothering to attend.  

On the school lunch front, there were few choices.  You either liked what they made for the day or you went hungry.  My daughters high school offers many choices daily, including a full salad bar.  
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Football varies by the school.  I officiate High School football and have seen probably 50 different schools in NC and MD.  Some schools 50 people, other schools 5000.  These schools in the MD/DC area could have that kind of attendance and only be 6 miles apart.

 
Good f'n luck skipping school.  When I was in HS, I would forge doctor notes with my dad's signature and skip school with ease.  Now, if my son is so much as tardy to a class, I get an email, phone call, fax, airplane flyover, etc.  I'm sure they will figure out a way to ditch class, but it'll need to require some serious tech savvy or knowing somebody who can run interference for you.  

In the 80s/90s the denim mini-skirt was perhaps the greatest invention for adolescent boys.  Today, the denim mini-skirt looks like a nun's flock in comparison to the short shorts worn by female students and not all of them should be wearing these short shorts.  But here's an oddity - I don't see the gals that should be more modestly dressed having any sort of self-consciousness about their dress.  They are quite comfortable in their extra skin.

And I think another poster touched on this too, but being gay is really no big deal at all.  I am right certain I have two gay guys on my HS coed soccer team and they are pretty flamboyant.  This would have been openly mocked and ridiculed in 80s/90s in Texas but today in Oregon, this flamboyantly gay behavior is met with a shrug and the same high fives given out to everybody else for good play.  It's quite nice to see, honestly.  

Oh, and the HS football games are definitely different.  Most games I watched in HS were ground and pound and relatively slow moving affairs.  Today, the spread offense and rapid style play is the norm.  I call it the Chip Kelly effect as you'll see big poster boards with pictures on the sidelines like the Ducks use as offenses rush to the line to snap.  Lots of passing attempts.  I think our HS QBs would pass at max 15 times a game and usually operated out of the option.

Good thread.

 
Oh, and I don't think kids shower at school anymore.  I think somewhere along the way we realized as a society that it was ####### CREEPY to make adolescents shower in front of gym teachers who handed out towels to nude teenagers.  

 
Heroin is now a thing that HS students do.

My old hs has many more racial issues than it used to.

All around pretty depressing.

 
AcerFC said:
Smoking is no longer allowed. We had a place called the dust bowl, where teachers hung with students and smoked in harmony.  
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johnnycakes said:
We had an outside courtyard where students and faculty could smoke.  These days, smoking anywhere on school grounds at any time is verboten.  

High school football was popular when I was in high school...  they even charged admission to attend, and the stands were packed not only with parents and students, but with regular townspeople who had no kid in school at the time.  It was a social event every weekend during the season.  And a lot of alumni would come back to see the annual Thanksgiving day game.  These days, at my daughters' high school, there is still no admission charged and those who do attend all have a kid on the team.  And a lot of those who do have a kid on the team still don't attend.   And the Thanksgiving day game is sparsely attended with no alumni bothering to attend.    
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The smoking section is a big change.  We had one right off of the cafeteria.  When I explain to people that where the cafeteria is now used to be the smoking section, the usual reply is "Smoking section!?"

My school had a big hill behind it, and as a freshman you had to avoid seniors before school, during lunch and after school, or you would end up in a big trash barrel being rolled down the hill. I would wager nobody has been rolled in at least 20 years.  The last time it happened the roller was arrested and charged with assault.

Thankfully football Fridays are still big around here.

 
I feel like I went to school in the Roosevelt admistration it is so different today...with one exception...the band kids now are exactly like the band kids back in the day...zero changes to that demographic...

 
Security. Can't just walk into a school. You need to give them your ID, be buzzed in through security doors and given a pass to wear. 

I was in 10th grade when Columbine happened. Lots of changes were instituted then. Drills for lockdowns. Only doors you could use to get in the school were the main doors (we used to sneak in/out of gym doors and the other doors behind the music wing all the time). 

The school where my kids will go one day is a local football powerhouse. $15 to get into a game. Ridiculous. 

Re:tight pants and fatties - yeah, big girls wore baggy clothes when I was in school. Now they were virtually the same clothes as the skinny chicks. Also are more kids fat now than 20 years ago?  I kinda assumed this generation raised on more organic/healthy food may be less chubby but I don't see it. 

Seeiousness of academic/sports success. Maybe it's cause I grew up in a smaller town and now live in an affluent suburb but holy #### do kids get pressured to excel above their classmates. It's nuts. We just did our best, worked hard, had fun. 

 
My kids actually got to the same high school I attended.  There are startling differences.

-I remember in shop class, a kid lipped off to the teacher.  Now this was late 80s, so he had the long hair, jean jacket, metal t-shirt, you get the picture.  The teachers response was to grab him by the hair, drag him out in to the hall, and chew his butt out.  I don't think that would fly these days.

-Girls clothes.  I sure went to school at the wrong time.  Holy cow what kids wear these days.  But, apparently Rachel from Friends high wasted jeans are coming back, that is not a good thing.

-Electronics, outside of graphing calculators were not allowable in school.  Now the officially unofficial policy is you can constantly be listening to music or playing games on your phone, but you must have one ear bud out, or over the ear headphones can only cover one ear.

-Male athletes are jacked compared to when I was in high school.  GB so many hormones in the food.

 
mr roboto said:
Seeiousness of academic/sports success. Maybe it's cause I grew up in a smaller town and now live in an affluent suburb but holy #### do kids get pressured to excel above their classmates. It's nuts. We just did our best, worked hard, had fun. 
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:goodposting:  My wife and I are pretty easy going about grades as long as our kids are working hard but they put so much pressure on themselves it's crazy. I was a slacker in school by comparison, if I didn't get an A it was no big deal now it can lead to meltdowns.  :loco:

 
The academic crush is too much these days on kids wanting to go to college.

i graduated HS in 1987 and we had 4.0 GPA as the goal. This. along with a few extracurriculars, pretty much got you into a decent college.

Now it all about AP courses and a 4.7 isn't good enough. You must have a complete resume as a high school student. You musf have dozens---no hundreds of hours of community service. Heaven forbid if you don't have a good "life story" to go along with this as well--dad in prison, mom died of disease at an early age or you were homeless. And this still doesn't guarantee you a spot. 

 As a senior I was drag racing my Mustang and getting drunk, but still getting good grades. So I was fine.  Watching the toll it took on my daughter last year as a senior… She could've never  afforded to take her eyes off the prize for more than a day 

 
WhatDoIKnow said:
Only knew a couple of kids that "maybe" smoked weed.  We drank a lot.
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Certainly one thing that has changed. I went to HS in New Orleans and I was in a bar every weekend from sophomore year on.  Drugs were everywhere (weed, ecstasy, LSD).  Kids now - not so much. 

 
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Kraft... said:
:goodposting:  My wife and I are pretty easy going about grades as long as our kids are working hard but they put so much pressure on themselves it's crazy. I was a slacker in school by comparison, if I didn't get an A it was no big deal now it can lead to meltdowns.  :loco:
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Spent a weekend with my buddy who lives in San Francisco and has a daughter in 10th grade (another in 8th grade).  The competition there is fierce.  His daughter has 3 hours of homework a night and the parents are just applying all sorts of pressure on their kids to get into a good college - not just college.  They bus kids in from all over the Bay Area into his daughter's college prep school so there is really no cohesion or sense of community.  HS is like a job for these kids.  No thanks.

 
General Malaise said:
Spent a weekend with my buddy who lives in San Francisco and has a daughter in 10th grade (another in 8th grade).  The competition there is fierce.  His daughter has 3 hours of homework a night and the parents are just applying all sorts of pressure on their kids to get into a good college - not just college.  They bus kids in from all over the Bay Area into his daughter's college prep school so there is really no cohesion or sense of community.  HS is like a job for these kids.  No thanks.
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SI?

 
I went to High School in the 1970s. I don't have kids or grandkids, so I have no idea how things are done now. But here are some differences I imagine there are:

As a few have already posted, there were smoking areas for kids. Both were right where the buses emptied. The teacher's lounge - holy crap, when one teacher would open the door it looked like the place was on fire.

Open lunches. We were in the country, so it's not like we could go out to eat, but the guys with awesome stereos would move their cars to the front of the school and crank music. 

A dude brought a gun to school and showed it in the cafeteria. He got the crap beat out of him by other students. He was expelled but, as far as I can recall, no cops ever showed. I doubt he was actually gonna shoot anyone, as he was dumb as an oyster - he was driving in Junior High.

A few that may be more specific to my school and my own experience:

My grandmother taught English at my HS for 40 years and had retired a couple of years before I got there. I knew most of the teachers from before I got there because I would see them at parties she threw. I think that made things both easier and harder on me.

I knew who the gay teachers were, and those who got high. Some were obvious and some were not. 

After my Junior year, I needed 1/2 a credit to graduate. I could have done that in summer school, but I wanted to play out my Senior year so I had one class in the Fall that meant something and all of the rest were either me being an aide or gym classes. I somehow procured a pad of early release forms and may have sold each for a buck while I signed an AP's name. I also had keys to the soda machine to count the change supporting the athletic department (no comment on the result).

 
General Malaise said:
Oh, and I don't think kids shower at school anymore.  I think somewhere along the way we realized as a society that it was ####### CREEPY to make adolescents shower in front of gym teachers who handed out towels to nude teenagers.  
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Back in my day, it was the norm that any movie about high school included a couple of gratuitous nude scenes, usually in the girls locker room.  Those days are over.  Thanks Creepy Gym Teacher Guy! 

 
Courtjester said:
The academic crush is too much these days on kids wanting to go to college.

i graduated HS in 1987 and we had 4.0 GPA as the goal. This. along with a few extracurriculars, pretty much got you into a decent college.

Now it all about AP courses and a 4.7 isn't good enough. You must have a complete resume as a high school student. You musf have dozens---no hundreds of hours of community service. Heaven forbid if you don't have a good "life story" to go along with this as well--dad in prison, mom died of disease at an early age or you were homeless. And this still doesn't guarantee you a spot. 

 As a senior I was drag racing my Mustang and getting drunk, but still getting good grades. So I was fine.  Watching the toll it took on my daughter last year as a senior… She could've never  afforded to take her eyes off the prize for more than a day 
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I really hate that aspect of HS. I really feel like sending my kid to votech school and have him learn a trade 

 
Everyone drove drunk when I was in HS (‘87), kids rarely do these days from what I understand. Thank goodness.

Way more pot smoking now.

At my HS if two guys fought in school the principal brought them to the gym, gave them boxing gloves and they duked it out to exhaustion. Just the three of them, no other witnesses, and that was the end of it. I was in there once, great memory. Obviously would not fly today.

Most kids apply to 10+ colleges, often double that. I applied to 4 which was about average.

 
Everyone drove drunk when I was in HS (‘87), kids rarely do these days from what I understand. Thank goodness.

Way more pot smoking now.

At my HS if two guys fought in school the principal brought them to the gym, gave them boxing gloves and they duked it out to exhaustion. Just the three of them, no other witnesses, and that was the end of it. I was in there once, great memory. Obviously would not fly today.

Most kids apply to 10+ colleges, often double that. I applied to 4 which was about average.

 
parasaurolophus said:
You are not allowed to wear hats at sporting events. Not even school hats. The only exception is for outdoor games he is allowed to wear a plain winter hat.
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:confused:

 
Athletics are a lot different.  In HS in the late 80s-1990, we were encouraged to play 3-4 sports per year (I played 3 - football, basketball, volleyball).  Now kids are pushed to focus on one sport year round.  This starts before HS but continues through there and is amplified by club teams.  I personally would have been fried and ultimately unmotivated had I been forced into the same sport all the time.

I went to school with a guy who ended up on the PGA Tour and would be recognizable to serious golf fans.  He was the star of the golf team but also lettered in basketball and soccer. 

 
Keith R said:
Athletics are a lot different.  In HS in the late 80s-1990, we were encouraged to play 3-4 sports per year (I played 3 - football, basketball, volleyball).  Now kids are pushed to focus on one sport year round.  This starts before HS but continues through there and is amplified by club teams.  I personally would have been fried and ultimately unmotivated had I been forced into the same sport all the time.

I went to school with a guy who ended up on the PGA Tour and would be recognizable to serious golf fans.  He was the star of the golf team but also lettered in basketball and soccer. 
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I really hate this and it's a detriment to the kids more often than not.

 
I would be honestly shocked if there were more drugs now at mine... marin county, CA mid 80s... somebody actually grew a couple pot plants on campus- but would usually get the best stuff from their parents (parent dope was always the best). coke everywhere along with hallucinogens, plus X was still legally prescribed (and in a lot of parents' med cabs). most of the kids were high most of hte time. most of the liquor stores in SF (right across the bridge) didn't card- even the laughably youngest looking freshmen... so booze was everywhere too.

I haven't been back around that HS in a looooong time, but I wonder if the usual millennial stuff would hold true- more involved helicopter parents, less mature/capable kids? but probably more aware of sex stuff via the internet.. playboy didn't quite prep you the same way as what's out there now, I'm sure.

 
Brony said:
Back in my day, it was the norm that any movie about high school included a couple of gratuitous nude scenes, usually in the girls locker room.  Those days are over.  Thanks Creepy Gym Teacher Guy! 
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Porky's!!!

Dan Lambskin said:
Probably a lot less pubic hair nowadays 
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"I never seen so much wool. You could knit a sweater!!!"

 
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