"cshenk" > wrote in message
...
> Julie Bove wrote:
>
>> I did try to make a few replies but could not. I didn't want people
>> to think I was ignoring them.
>>
>> I took Social Studies which covered dating, psychology, religion,
>> tons of stuff about Native Americans and their plight, alcohol and
>> druge abuse, family structure, gender differences, ect.
>
> I seem to recall social studies but middle school. Pretty sure 8th
> grade was last of it?
>
We had it every year except for Kindergarten. We had choices for Social
Studies in the 12th grade. I chose History as I liked the teacher and he
brought he dog to school. He named the dog Hector so he could say, "When
Hector was a pup..."

Alas, I did not get that class. I was assigned to Contemporary World
Problems. I'll never know what those were as we never addressed them.
Instead we colored flags and maps, previewed films for his Pre-Voc (Special
Ed) class, or were simply given an early release. Every day we begged to
learn something. The teacher was always vague about that.

We stormed the Guidance Counselor's office and begged to be put in another
class. Nope couldn't do it. Couldn't do it when our parents called either.
But when my brother was assigned to the same teacher the following year,
they did assign a different teacher when my dad complained.

I find it very sad when kids are eager to learn, but the teacher puts in
little to no effort.

Angela was in a tap class when she was around 9 or 10. That class really
wanted to learn. Every week they'd ask, can we do it faster? And they did.
The funny thing was, the most advnced class, 16-19 year olds was after her
class. Many of those people were in there just to socialize and didn't put
much effort into learning. It was funny to hear their comments. Such as...
"We're supposed to be the advanced class but they're better than us!"

That was the year that the teacher dropped the ball so to speak. He allowed
two of the advanced students to choreograph the recital piece. They picked a
song about basketball from the movie, "High School Muscial". The kids mostly
dribbled and passed mini basketballs around and wore basketball uniforms.

The problem? It didn't show off their tap skills at all and trhey all
stuggled with the basketballs as none of them were basketball players. Plus
the fact that they had mini balls and not full sized ones.

Both the kids and the parents complained. As in... We don't want to just go
out there and put on a cute dance. We want to show what we've learned! So
the teacher re-choreographed it to involve the balls just in the beginning
part. The rest wass tap. It was very impressive!

> After that it was other things like world history and a wasted (to me)
> year of USA history of which I recall only the interesting parts of the
> civil war and revoluntionary war.

In the 5th grade, we learned about the various states. I chose to do a
report on Kanasa and Oklahoma. Easy for me because I had lived in Kansas and
my dad had lived lived in Oklahoma. We had to memorize the state capitals.
Being the smart ass that I was/am, I asked the teacher why we needed to know
this.

He looked at me and said, "Picture this. You're an adult. You're in a bar. A
guy walks up to you and asks you what the capital of Vermont is. What do you
reply?" My reoply was something like... Sorry sire. You're not my type. I
have better things to talk about than state capitals! I also remember a big
portrait of Nixon on the wall. The eyes seemed to follow us. And that we
were told that one had to be 35 to run for president. We were not discussing
politics. Some student said that some other student should run for
president. The teacher said he couldn't and then told us why.
>
> Probably the most interesting class ever was one in 'The Bible as
> History' in college. It was not a religion class, but one that delved
> pretty deep into pre-christian times of the middle east then later
> christian up through the middle ages and the impacts of clashes of
> christians and islam.

I never took anything like that. My friend took Sephardic Judaism in college
and took me as his date to their potluck. They were supposed to bring
suitable foods. I remember things like hummus, vegetables and fruit. He was
stunned that nobody touched his chicken and broccoli casserole. I did try a
bite given my aversion to broccoli, I didn't like it. I do remember someone
asking him what was in it. It had some kind of cream soup.

I had a Jewish roommate at the time. I didn't know much of Jewish dietary
law then. I only knew that he had his own shelf in the refrigerator. If he
used the oven, he only only used foil pans. He used disposable plates, cups,
etc.

I did not realize that combining meat and dairy was a big no no until I had
a birthday party for Angela. One neighbor was Jewish. I followed her
guidelines to a tee, including buying the meat from a kosher deli and
keeping the meat separate from the cheese in the fridge. I even bought new
platters to serve the food on.

So... My friend obviously did not research the Jewish dietary laws very well
for that party.