When you're little, you always hear that cheaters never prosper, but as you get older, that turns out to be an obvious crock of shit.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
quote:
Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, `Doc absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
Even to little kids, it's obvious that cheaters prosper from the first time the teacher rewards the cheater and gives the honest kid detention for tattling.
What kind of fucking moron does that? When I was in school, no one was ever punished by the administration for "tattling," nor have I heard of it.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage was naked while typing this:
What kind of fucking moron does that? When I was in school, no one was ever punished by the administration for "tattling," nor have I heard of it.
quote:
`Doc got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Even to little kids, it's obvious that cheaters prosper from the first time the teacher rewards the cheater and gives the honest kid detention for tattling.
First time I've ever heard of this happening
quote:I pretty much grew up with it. Then again, most of the teachers only gave a crap about students whose parents were in the PTA, and most of the parents in the PTA hated my family due to religious differences. So I have a pretty cynical view of authority figures. My parents taught me to be honest. School taught me that honesty and deceit are equally punishable.
Bloodsage is attacking the darkness!
What kind of fucking moron does that? When I was in school, no one was ever punished by the administration for "tattling," nor have I heard of it.
quote:
Verily, `Doc doth proclaim:
Even to little kids, it's obvious that cheaters prosper from the first time the teacher rewards the cheater and gives the honest kid detention for tattling.
You went to a fucked up school, I've never heard of such a thing.
quote:A highly reputable public school in an upper-middle-class conservative suburban district.
When they turned on the Infinite Improbability Drive, Blindy. stammered,
What the fuck school did `doc go to?
Decking one bully in two punches got more of them off my back than four years of seeking help from the people in charge of my safety.
quote:
Karnaj startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
Interesting read.When you're little, you always hear that cheaters never prosper, but as you get older, that turns out to be an obvious crock of shit.
On topic: I wonder how much they got paid to state the obvious so blatantly. Of course cheating can be a rational choice.
But that has nothing to do with the fact that it should be harshly punished whenever found out. I get oh-so-sick of the stupid, sloppy reasoning that says because people will inevitably do bad things, that said bad things should become allowed and accepted.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Nobody really understood why Bloodsage wrote:
What kind of fucking moron does that? When I was in school, no one was ever punished by the administration for "tattling," nor have I heard of it.
As a slightly related idea, my parents and most of my family have always punished "tattling." I'm not sure why; but it seems an effective way to encourage people to work out their own problems.
quote:
`Doc thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
A highly reputable public school in an upper-middle-class conservative suburban district.Decking one bully in two punches got more of them off my back than four years of seeking help from the people in charge of my safety.
Yeah...Can't say I didn't have the same situation in school.
Some communities have particularly stratified social groups, which extend to their kids. In the Pitt County, North Carolina district, it went a bit like this:
1. Middle schools don't matter. Nor do elementary schools. Elementary schools are most numerous. The process (if your parents haven't already started) of finding your proper social caste will start in elementary school. Some children will transfer out of the system (IE Move, or go to a private school), while most will move to the nearest middle school. All middle schools in the system older than twenty years were probably pre-desegregation black high schools.
2. Middle schools are where cliques start forming. Jocks, Preps, and the Outsiders will be divided into their proper castes. Marginally, the Special Ed kids form a fourth caste that occasionally brushes against the other three castes. It is okay for Jocks and especially Preps to victimize Outsiders, ostensibly because Preps are better and Jocks are sort of like the brutish pets of the Jocks class. Preps are usually the children of priveleged individuals...their family are rich landowners, farmers, bankers, local, state, or even occasionally federal politicians. Jocks garner attention for schools much in the way gladiators in the Roman Empire garnered attention for their owners. Outsiders of any stripe (nerds, druggies, burnouts, Yankees, fat kids, quiet kids, whatever) are prime targets. In a sort of pack mentality, the more individuals you dominate in Middle School (so long as they're of acceptable target selection), the higher your social placing.
3. High school is where it counts. JH Rose High School in Greenville, NC is where you go if you're lucky enough to have the most recent round of redistricting go in your favor, if your parents are wealthy enough that they can get a "workaround" (bribery in direct or indirect form, like uniforms for the football team, etc), if you can be "grandfathered" in (meaning not that you went there last year and continue this year, but rather that your grandfather is something special, or if you are of obvious athletic ability and aptitude. JH Rose gets preferred funding out of the Education coffers, it's populated with movers and shakers, it's got teachers who could be making a comfortable living as college professors, and it's got academic funding. If your parents are middle-class enough that they could in theory make trouble by taking this situation to court or otherwise cause trouble, or are in the lesser echelons of the upper strata of county society, you go to DH Conley High School. It is the second best, and is obviously the rival for JH Rose (and Rose trounces Conley in all aspects because everything is tipped in Rose's favor. Conley NEVER beats Rose at ANYTHING). If you're black, dangerous, or otherwise unable to make a reasonable case for why you should be cared about, you end up at North Pitt. If you've ever been convicted of a crime, no matter how small, and your social strata can't protect you, you will end up at North Pitt, which is a bit like being used as a suppository for a cow dying of rectal warts.
Now. That having been said, what is it that happens to kids in middle school? Victimization. You'll be victimized by your social betters. And they will get away with it. Even if they throw the first punch, you will be suspended and they'll be warned. Even if THEY cheated off YOUR test, even if YOU have the ongoing A average and THEY have the D+ average, YOU will be accused of cheating. YOU will spend inordinate amounts of time in In-School-Suspension when you don't bend over and let people walk all over you, and they will be in class as normal.
If you're SMART, you'll fight back. You'll take that In-School-Suspension rap. You'll fight back and do your time in ISS. The big guys will go after you first and you take them down and then everyone else will sense blood in the water and soon you'll be defending yourself on the bus from the whole wrestling-baseball-football social team. If you're lucky, and you beat off your assailants, you get the much vaunted prize that any Outsider wants: They will leave you the FUCK alone.
The only OTHER way to get that prize is to roll over and take it long enough that you aren't interesting anymore.
Then you go to high school and whoever you were in middle school counts socially because members of the same social strata who went to different middle schools will put the word out about you. If you're a dangerous Outsider, chances are the Jocks and Preps will leave you alone. And so long as you have no intentions of class jumping, you'll be fine.
How things are SUPPOSED to work and how they ACTUALLY work in places where the old system of things still exists are very different.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
whole lotta stuff.
I'm sensing some pent-up aggression?
quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Stuff
If you want them to leave you alone, you can always style youself as a Columbine kid, and then no one wants to fuck with you. Just have to remember how to play mind games.
When I moved from MI to AR in the 8th grade, I started in Deth's "Outsider" caste, because that most closely resembled the kind of people that went to my old school. . .and as a bit of a protest against all things Arkansas. But I noticed something: the jocks and the popular kids got all the pretty girls. So instead of whining and crying about the unfairness of it all, I quit smoking, tried out for a team, and moved up to the "Jock" caste.
It's not hard; one just has to choose one's preferred style. And don't tell me how hard it is where you are/were; if I can do it after moving from Michigan to Arkansas, it can be done anywhere.
I'll also point out that jocks aren't stupid. Hell, most of the top athletes at my school were also right up at the top academically.
School is a mini-trial for life. If you choose not to fit in and do well there, it's really no one else's fault.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Bloodsage who doth quote:
Meh. It's not impossible to change "castes" if you don't like the lay of the land at the bottom. You just have to do what it takes to fit in.
The problem is that arbitrary physical characteristics that cannot be changed are frequently a part of what it takes to fit in. In my experience, untreatable acne was bad enough to ostracize me for pretty much my entire early life.
However, my stance is that you really do not want to be a part of such a caste anyway. If you enjoyed it, well, just be glad you didn't have any deal-breaking physical characteristics I guess. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 05-24-2006 at 07:48 PM.
I guess I was lucky. The only thign Ir eally hated about high school was how pointless homework was when I was able to ace the tests and sleep through class. Now I realise that the homework was essential for the slower students.
The funny thing is now Im considering a career in teaching.
quote:
Maradon! Model 2000 was programmed to say:
The problem is that arbitrary physical characteristics that cannot be changed are frequently a part of what it takes to fit in. In my experience, untreatable acne was bad enough to ostracize me for pretty much my entire early life.However, my stance is that you really do not want to be a part of such a caste anyway. If you enjoyed it, well, just be glad you didn't have any deal-breaking physical characteristics I guess.
I knew of a guy whos entire face was a giant pimple pretty much. He managed to fit in just fine.
quote:
Bloodsage said this about your mom:
I quit smoking, tried out for a team, and moved up to the "Jock" caste.
Was there really that little to do in Michigan that you started smoking before 8th grade?
Or was it just more common in the good old days?
quote:
Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Maradon! absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
The problem is that arbitrary physical characteristics that cannot be changed are frequently a part of what it takes to fit in. In my experience, untreatable acne was bad enough to ostracize me for pretty much my entire early life.However, my stance is that you really do not want to be a part of such a caste anyway. If you enjoyed it, well, just be glad you didn't have any deal-breaking physical characteristics I guess.
Being ugly or grossly fat or scarred can certainly pose a barrier, but it's not insurmountable.
As for the charge of being shallow and secretly hating myself, I have to dive right into blasphemy and state baldly that I'd much rather hang out with the "Jocks" and "Cheerleaders" and "Preps" than the "Nerds" or "Geeks" or "Outsiders" or whatever. Frankly, there are no more stupid prejudiced people among the first group than the second, and the first group tend to be people focused on success and action instead of cultivating a victim mentality and blaming all their problems on society.
The bottom line, though, is that people are people, and the whining nerd who thinks cheerleaders are all horrible people on the inside just because they're pretty is just as bad as the stupid jock who thinks anyone with a GPA over 2.0 is a stuck-up Einstein trying to show off.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bent over the coffee table, Vorbis squealed:
Was there really that little to do in Michigan that you started smoking before 8th grade?Or was it just more common in the good old days?
We lived in an extremely rural area. There were days in the winter when the school bus either didn't make it to my place to pick me up, or couldn't get me home in the afternoon (and I'd have to walk quite a ways cross-country). That, and smoking was a lot more common in adults back in the day, and less frowned on.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
For reference, the difference between a jock and an athlete is that the jocks tend to be less intelligent and more aggressive. Many of the ones I knew dropped out of school, while others joined gangs. If not for them, I wouldn't have realized our area even had gangs. One even invited me to a gang fight after I decked him in gym class. I told him I was too busy, which was technically true.
quote:
Bloodsage had this to say about Pirotess:
We lived in an extremely rural area. There were days in the winter when the school bus either didn't make it to my place to pick me up, or couldn't get me home in the afternoon (and I'd have to walk quite a ways cross-country). That, and smoking was a lot more common in adults back in the day, and less frowned on.
You wern't a yooper, were you?
quote:
Reynar's account was hax0red to write:
You wern't a yooper, were you?
What's a yooper?
quote:
Verily, the chocolate bunny rabbits doth run and play while Reynar gently hums:
You wern't a yooper, were you?
Nope. Central MI, out in the boonies. Not too far from Hell, as a matter of fact.
~~~
Pved: a Yooper is someone from the Upper Peninsula, or UP, or UP-er.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage's tombstone read:
[...]Pved: a Yooper is someone from the Upper Peninsula, or UP, or UP-er.
Ah.
Is there some kind of entertaining stereotype to go with that?
quote:
Bloodsage had this to say about (_|_):
Nope. Central MI, out in the boonies. Not too far from Hell, as a matter of fact.
Sounds like Arkansaw was an upgrade.
quote:
Verily, the chocolate bunny rabbits doth run and play while Pvednes gently hums:
Ah.Is there some kind of entertaining stereotype to go with that?
Yeah. Think the Swedish Chef from The Muppets.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
So quoth Pvednes:
Ah.Is there some kind of entertaining stereotype to go with that?
Hicksville is an appropriate name for most of the tiny towns in the UP.
Think...stereotypical hillbilly southerners, except less of an accent and they ride snowmobiles.
Another fun fact, most native yoopers call those of us in the lower penninsula "trolls", because we live under the bridge.
quote:
Bloodsage had this to say about Cuba:
Yeah. Think the Swedish Chef from The Muppets.
Now that is a good one =)
Kinda like the normal bodybuilders and the grotesque bodybuilders.
quote:
Bloodsage's fortune cookie read:
We lived in an extremely rural area. There were days in the winter when the school bus either didn't make it to my place to pick me up, or couldn't get me home in the afternoon (and I'd have to walk quite a ways cross-country).
I know I'm late but; 'Uphill both ways' right? 
quote:
Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Kinanik absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
I know I'm late but; 'Uphill both ways' right?
Damn straight! Not to mention carrying water out to the barn for the horses at 4:30 in the morning because the pipes were frozen, or chopping wood to heat the house after school.*
*No, I'm not kidding.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
quote:
Karnaj startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
Jebus, was Michigan even a state when you were growing up?
Yeah, but they still had the mandatory coonskin cap dress code in schools. 
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
And now, we sprinkle Mr. Parcelan liberally with Old Spice!
You guys had some strange childhoods. No wonder you grew up to be such failures.
At least we're grown up, schoolboy. Oh snap. You got frohwned. And so on.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
I would shoot the shit with the jocks and hang out with some of the cheerleaders, I had preps talk to me about whatever they were doing on the weekend or had done and they seemed to think that my opinion was somewhat important, and I hung out regularly with the outsiders.
I still wanna know how the HELL that happened, 'cause I was expecting HS to kick my ass. Turns out that while I may not have been the most respected student in school, I could fit in just about anywhere and get in on anything I wanted.
Hell, about the only trouble I had was a senior year fight. Even then, that was a clear cut case of someone wanting to climb higher up the totem pole.
Out of curiousity, what DOES happen to some fat beaner who takes a swing at someone bigger than them in the middle of a class, and gets held off and left windmilling? I never did find out what happened to him beyond the expulsion, but I assume that he probably vanished into the depths of humiliation...
