=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I Am The Only Way To Go! ------------------------ Well. I was just reading through a local net and noticed some people discusing a F.U.C.K. realese, Shockwave's "Chocolate Lovin at McDonalds" (because of the racisim in it). Anyway, it got me to thinking about how I have been hearing my American Litature teacher talk about how some people local to us want to get some book baned for some lame reason (is there ever a good reason to ban books?) So, I won't take you through another "People who ban things should go kill themselves because they have no respect for anything, and people who don't have respect for anything are close minded assholes who should be killed because it is people like THEM who are the reason the world is a bad place to live in" file, cause there was already one. What I am going to talk about here is how people who are close minded, and have a stong drive that what they are doing is right, can be extermly dangerous. I attend school at Littleton High School in Littleton, Colorado. Some of you may have heard this name before because of the 'Direction 2000' program that originated from it. I personaly liked this program for many reasons, and disliked it for a few. The main reason I liked it was because course credits were no longer required. They gave you a book, with a list of 'Demonstrations' that you had to complete. Now, there were some bad points to this. Some of the demonstrations you HAD to complete (unless you went in front of the school board and gave them a valid reason why you would not be able to do that demonstration) were crossing the line between home and school. Things like Ethics, Community Involvment and Personal Arts. If you gave the school board a valid reason they would then 'waiver' it. This meant that you neither passed it, nor failed it, you simply didn't have to do it. For the ethics demo, (Which was easy, and anyone with half a brain cell could complete in their freshman year, and did) all you had to do was receive a certain situation from one of your teachers, and then you would write up an essay on what you would do in that particular situation, what you think would be the wrong and right thing to do. Not extremely hard. Except, I personally think (and so did a lot of kids who went running to their parents like little kids) that the school should leave teaching ethics up to the parents and/or the church (if you attend one). Now, Community Involvement. What you had to do for this one is 30 hours of community service, for a proficient, and 50 hours for of community service for an excellent. Isn't community service for criminals and people who like to 'clean up the earth' or those that have nothing better to do? I personally do not think (and so did a lot of kids who went running to their parents like little kids) that a school should make us clean up the community, or else we don't graduate from high school. As you can tell, after 1 1/2 years of high school (when this whole program was thrown out the window) I had a total of 0 hours of community service. Finally, Personal Arts. This one isn't bad, in fact, i loved it. Here they made you attend 2 plays performed anywhere (and since we have good actors at our school, it made it actually fun to complete), and then you had to write up an essay on each play saying what you thought it was about and how it relates to a current event. Not hard at all, but still, some people didn't like having to do that, since plays are a 'Non-School' requirement they thought that it was 'unfair' to make them do it (and so they all ran to their parents AGAIN). But, despite my whining I would like to tell you what was so good about this program. You have just been made a Freshman of a High School, you are given a book and told that you have to complete all of the demonstrations listed in it before you can graduate (no time limit that I can recall). In order to do some of the graduations you would have to take certain classes (and still have time to take all the fun classes like Computer Applications where we get to sit in a class and use windows for 46 mins (and listen to a teacher who thinks he is god of computers but doesn't know a programing a language higher than Basic) whoa NOW THAT was a FUN CLASS! (bit of sarcasim in the tone of my voice), or Engineering classes where we play with legos, a robot arm and build electronic boards that make lights flash and neato stuff like that). But, if you knew all the material you didn't have to take any classes (wow). So, if you knew everything, you could just sign up for a bunch of fun classes, get all A's, finish all your Demonstrations in your first semester and then graduate High School (no crappy GED here). So, this would be the PERFECT program for all those people I see on BBSes "Yeah, I am the most inteligent person in the entire universe, and I know all the stuff already, but am forced to sit through boring classes teaching the people around me better then the actual teacher". Now, who do you turn all this stuff into? Well, your EAP teacher of course. Here is the story on EAP clases and teachers. Every monday between 4th and 5th hour we would have a class called 'EAP' this lasted 25 mins (totally screwing up the schedule on mondays (and a lot of kids went running to their parents!*^&!%(!*& Fuckin' lamers)). What we did in EAP was talk with our EAP teacher (we had the same teacher until we graduated, unless we complained that we didn't like the teacher and requested a new one, about our progress and then they helped us on what we needed help on, and advised us throughout High School. Say for example, the swimming demonstration, you needed to either take a swimming or diving class, or take a swimming test (so you wouldn't have to take any swimming classes at all). You would get a proficient, or excellent (depending on how well you did on the test, or your grade in the class). If you wanted to take the test (so you didn't have to take the class) your EAP teacher would tell you when the next testing was, set up an appointment with one of the swimming teachers, or give you the "I didn't want to take a class and I didn't like the sound of the Swimming test" because you have to swim 500 yards non-stop, float for 30 mins, and do some other weird things (what does putting pants on your head have to do with swimming?). Now, i can swim and all, but for 500 yards non-stop? I don't think so. Now, you have heard about Direction 2000, the main points about it, and the good/bad things involved it in. I want to tell you why we don't use it anymore. The idea was thrown around the table starting in 1987 (think thats right). It was first implemented on the class of '95. When the program came into effect it was VERY disorganized and they weren't really prepared for it, but they had to have some guinea pigs to test on. They continued this program into the Class of '96 (my class) and then into '97. While I was in my Sophomore year there was a lot of arguments coming forward about this program. Apparently this type of program was nothing new, schools all around the country had been using demonstration type things for graduating, the only reason Littleton High School got more of the glory was the fact that they gave it a name, totally threw the credit system out the window and then made sure everyone knew about it (thats what I was told). Well, you might have seen all the times I said "and then the kids ran to their parents". Well, some school in another state had one of their students and her parents sue the school because she thought it was "Unfair to make a student do community service in order to graduate" (power to you). With all these kids around my school running to their parents, the School Board and Staff got very worried, especially when the election for a new School Board was right around the corner (middle of my sophomore year). Well, this election was quite publicized around my area, and Denver in general, because there was a 'Back to Basics Slate' running (I hate that term, this is High School, if you want basics go back to Elementry School). There are 5 people in the School Board, if at least 3 of the 5 people on the slate won, then Direction 2000 would probably go bye-bye. But if only 2 of them won, then Direction 2000 would most likely be safe until some lamer sued the school for giving them an education. Now, the problem with this election is that their was NO organization for the people who were running for Direction 2000. So, of course, 3 of the 5 Back to Basic people won (It seems those back to basic people really had some brain after all), and 2 of the previous School Board people won and stayed where they were. If you tallied the votes, Direction 2000 vs Back to Basics, Direction 2000 won, but alas, organization just wasn't in their vocabulary. So now we have this school Superintendent (Mary Chavez) rated the best in the nation. Principal (Tim Westerberg) rated one of the best 3 principals in the nation, and School (Littleton High School) rated one of the best 8 schools in the nation, is about to become one of the most fucked up. Why? Because of paranoid people, the book burners and back to basic fuckers who think they are doing the right thing (I think they should study McCarthyism a little more), but, since they can't look past their own fucking nose they don't know what the students want. There was, for about a month, the hope that the School Board would allow students to choose if they wanted to be on Direction 2000 or the Credit System, but they decided that would be to much trouble and threw that idea away. So now, we have a school (who just 1 month earlier was considered one of the best in the nation) in total choas, trying to get all the credits where they belong, making sure students were on track, etc.. The Superintendent quit because she was being pressured by the 3 Back to Basic people on the school board. What does all this say? This 'Back to Basic' attitude is not just localized around here. There are many people that think change is bad, and that everything has to stay the same or we will be thrown into a world of chaos. These people need to take a look around at how chaotic this world is already, and its because we have been doing the same thing for years now, while everything around us has changed. These people are living in a fantasy world where they think their way is right and every other way is wrong. There are MANY different types of people in this world and MANY different types of ideas (Which is why Anarchy will only work with small groups of people, Anarchy can never be used on a wide scale). If you want a society to work you have to make up ways to respect almost all ideas equally. This seems to be something the people in power are incapable of doing. The people who want this world to go in a backwards direction have power. With that power they can point the finger and take care of the people opposing them. It can be the witch trials and McCarthy all over again. Rage-303 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = Questions, Comments, Bitches, Ideas, Rants, Death Threats, etc etc... = = Internet : jericho@netcom.com (Mail is welcomed) = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = Chemical Persuasion 203.324.0894 Celestial Woodlands 214.252.6455 = = Ionic Destruction 215.722.0570 Hacker's Haven 303.343.4053 = = E.L.F. (NUP) 314.272.3426 Misery 318.625.4532 = = Dungeon Sys. 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