On Friday afternoon I was walking near my old jr. high (a middle school now), which was having a dance that evening. I was curious as to what music was going to be played. Back in my day, we had some pop music, but also some "alternative" stuff - typical '80s music. What did I hear? A lot of ghetto music, along with what passes for contemporary pop -- music you might hear at an [import] auto show, but now being played in a middle school. Plenty of bump and grind music; that sort of physical contact probably isn't allowed at school, but why not? The music is already corrupting the young. From what I saw, there is no longer any dress code. I think the dances used to be semi-formal when I was at the school - dress shirt and slacks, coat, and maybe a tie too. I could be wrong about the tie. But now, anything goes. I saw a group of boys walking along the field towards the dance, and they looked like wannabe thugs with their ghetto wear. I bet there were no dresses on the girls, though some may have been wearing some form of a skirt. This is supposed to be a good school in a middle-class suburb. It would be too much to expect the school to step in and teach them something about traditional dances (along with the rituals and values they represent). No square dancing here. How can you trust the degenerates in charge of the moral formation of students? "FAIL." And what do the parents think of this? Those who allow their children to go to such dances can be called permissive.

I once was in a math classroom in the 95-6 school year. Standards of behavior had fallen, as the students were so talkative during the lesson. We would never have done that in our day. What a let-down.



VFR: A dress code and its effects, 1957 - there is a mention of
Diana West.