Field day for the heat
So, at one point during High School, the school district decided to switch from the traditional school schedule, with each class once a day, to what was termed “block scheduling,” with each class in a longer period every other day. I think the justification was that the new schedule would be “more like college,” which is bullshit because, as everyone knows, in college you don’t even have to show up for class unless there’s a test.
But whatever. In the end, it didn’t make much difference and certainly wasn’t a big deal or anything to get worked up over. Unless, of course, you were just waiting for something to get worked up over, in which case it was as good as anything, there being no war in those days.
Thus it was that a proportion of the school’s “oddball element” — your stoners, your pending dropouts, your rich suburban hippies, and your greasy dunces — came to protest a passing and insignificant pedagogical fad.
Meetings were held, issues were raised, and in the end, everyone decided that the thing to do would be to have a walkout. Not only could they stick it to the man, but when it was over, they could all go home and get high. It would be the perfect protest — just like the sixties!
None of this was a secret, of course, so when the day came, the school administration, in a fit of hyperbole, put the school on “lockdown” with a dramatic announcement and had a couple of bored cops standing outside. The walkout made it as far as the front door, at which point it was broken up and everyone involved was given extended detentions. One arrest was made, though for what I can’t imagine. Block scheduling went ahead as planned, the main result being that now students could slack off for as much as 225 minutes at a stretch, and boy did we ever.
I should reiterate that the people involved here were among the least likely to be affected by block scheduling. These weren’t honor students deeply concerned that their education would be harmed by a poorly conceived approach to secondary education, who had carefully studied the issue and exhausted every other approach. No, the people involved here were the pick of the deadbeats, protesting for protest’s sake. I imagine that the planning process went something like this:
“Dude, block scheduling sucks. Those nazis in the administration just want to oppress us.”
“We should have a protest, yo! Man, that would be awesome! It would be all like the sixties and shit!”
“I can bring my Buffalo Springfield CD!”
“Yeah, and after it’s over, we can all go over to my step-dad’s house and get high!”
“Yeah!”
Even more than Medicare, I think that my parents’ generation’s most harmful gift to mine was the idea that student protests are both cool and effective. In a way, the school board brought the walkout on themselves, by giving 1960s antiwar protests and hippies in general such a prominent place in the history textbooks. They even make it look fun and righteous, as well as effective. If student protests can End the War and Bring the Troops Back Home, after all, then surely they can get the school board to go back on block scheduling. And after it’s done, we can all go home and get high — just like the sixties!
Antiwar protests didn’t end the Vietnam War — Richard Nixon ended the Vietnam War because he (and the type of person that votes for Nixon) realized that it was a bad idea to begin with. So with block scheduling — phased out after a couple years because it was a waste of time. Get it in your heads, pasty faced peace creeps, and get off the sidewalk.
{democracy:23}