High School.

[CandiCame]

I always wondered how many years they tried before it failed. The nice part was if you went to homeroom and were marked present, you could leave and come back for end of the day homeroom where your attendance was checked again. For whatever reason, teachers in classes never checked. You could also be late because there were no doors. You could sneak in from anywhere. I had horrible attendance.

I'm having difficulty picturing this. The way you described it I thought it was like a one-room schoolhouse, but now it sounds like there are different rooms, because you can leave and come back without someone noticing, which seems like it would be hard to do in an open plan like that.

 

[Que]

I'm having difficulty picturing this. The way you described it I thought it was like a one-room schoolhouse, but now it sounds like there are different rooms, because you can leave and come back without someone noticing, which seems like it would be hard to do in an open plan like that.

Think of it more like over-sized corporate cubicles. Ill defined 'walls' that are really just minor obstacles in a giant, sound reverberating maze. It was like studying in the school cafeteria.

Some walls visually, but nothing that blocks sound. If anything it seemed to amplify and direct it.

 

[1sickbastard]

I'm having difficulty picturing this. The way you described it I thought it was like a one-room schoolhouse, but now it sounds like there are different rooms, because you can leave and come back without someone noticing, which seems like it would be hard to do in an open plan like that.

I had the same sort of thing a few years in jr high & early high school. It was, essentially, a modern office cubical environment except the cubes were large enough for 20-30 students. But all the cubes had access choke points so the authority figures could catch kids sneaking in late.

 

[Jennifer]

Think of it more like over-sized corporate cubicles. Ill defined 'walls' that are really just minor obstacles in a giant, sound reverberating maze. It was like studying in the school cafeteria.

Some walls visually, but nothing that blocks sound. If anything it seemed to amplify and direct it.

This. With one big main hallway going down the middle.

So I could be in social studies and hear and see the film I was going to see next period in English. They did group the spaces by subject. Kind of. They redid the school the year after I graduated.

 

[Jennifer]

I had the same sort of thing a few years in jr high & early high school. It was, essentially, a modern office cubical environment except the cubes were large enough for 20-30 students. But all the cubes had access choke points so the authority figures could catch kids sneaking in late.

Ha! Not ours. People would crawl around to sneak in. We had no real sides or back. And no one ever called a late person out to the teacher.

 

[1sickbastard]

Think of it more like over-sized corporate cubicles. Ill defined 'walls' that are really just minor obstacles in a giant, sound reverberating maze. It was like studying in the school cafeteria.

Some walls visually, but nothing that blocks sound. If anything it seemed to amplify and direct it.

It wasn't as bad as the cafe. Lower ceilings with sound-proof tiles & the dividers had acoustic material to help dampen the ambient noise. In jr high, the library was smack dab in the middle of the main room, so the stacks also helped dampen the sound.

The only rooms that were entirely enclosed were the science rooms, the foreign language rooms, the voc-ed rooms, and band.

 

[Jennifer]

It wasn't as bad as the cafe. Lower ceilings with sound-proof tiles & the dividers had acoustic material to help dampen the ambient noise. In jr high, the library was smack dab in the middle of the main room, so the stacks also helped dampen the sound.

The only rooms that were entirely enclosed were the science rooms, the foreign language rooms, the voc-ed rooms, and band.

Our only closed room was for in school suspension. Those suckers were behind glass walls of a fishbowl.
I guess we had a band room somewhere, too.

 

[Que]

It wasn't as bad as the cafe. Lower ceilings with sound-proof tiles & the dividers had acoustic material to help dampen the ambient noise. In jr high, the library was smack dab in the middle of the main room, so the stacks also helped dampen the sound.

The only rooms that were entirely enclosed were the science rooms, the foreign language rooms, the voc-ed rooms, and band.

The original school was in a still being built neighborhood so some genius thought a bunch of 1970's 4 and five bedroom houses would have about 1/2 the kids it did. It was built like a giant bomb shelter. All concrete, no windows at all. mounds of earth piled up to sort of insulate it. Roof vaults from there so the basic shape was a huge irregular polygon...sort of a dome. Maybe four entrances. The only enclosed spaces were the offices. They need to be able to concentrate, you see.

Probably won some sort of award.

 

[Jennifer]

The original school was in a still being built neighborhood so some genius thought a bunch of 1970's 4 and five bedroom houses would have about 1/2 the kids it did. It was built like a giant bomb shelter. All concrete, no windows at all. mounds of earth piled up to sort of insulate it. Roof vaults from there so the basic shape was a huge irregular polygon...sort of a dome. Maybe four entrances. The only enclosed spaces were the offices. They need to be able to concentrate, you see.

Probably won some sort of award.

Even our offices faced the cafeteria. We were fortunate enough to have private bathrooms. Everything was carpet except the cafe. Not sure about windows. 2 entrance/exits at weird places, far off from the office. Not very fire safe!

 

[1sickbastard]

The original school was in a still being built neighborhood so some genius thought a bunch of 1970's 4 and five bedroom houses would have about 1/2 the kids it did. It was built like a giant bomb shelter. All concrete, no windows at all. mounds of earth piled up to sort of insulate it. Roof vaults from there so the basic shape was a huge irregular polygon...sort of a dome. Maybe four entrances. The only enclosed spaces were the offices. They need to be able to concentrate, you see.

Probably won some sort of award.

In AZ, I can understand some of the why. Earth is decent insulation and windows are opportunities for thermal loss. But moreover, Tucson (Motham AFB as well as the Titan ICBM silos), the Phoenix metro area )state capital) and the west valley (Luke AFB) would have been logical targets for nuclear strikes.
But let's get real. Of all the different architectural styles the US has spawned, the era between the late 1950's to the mid 1980's gave us some of the ugliest public buildings ever vomited forth from an imagination.

 

[Que]

Even our offices faced the cafeteria. We were fortunate enough to have private bathrooms. Everything was carpet except the cafe. Not sure about windows. 2 entrance/exits at weird places, far off from the office. Not very fire safe!

Fire drills were always a little sobering. You could see the line forming and that the line formed faster than the exits would allow.

I had no idea I had ADHD back then, but no windows killed my soul. Until that school I never realized how often I would do the thousand yard stare while doing a calculation in my head. Staring at an ugly wall to do it was jarring.

I learned to tune out noise. Every afternoon about an hour and and a half before school let out they would announce silent reading time. It was supposed to be for 1/2 an hour. I would put my book in my lap and my head on the desk. Often, someone would have to let me know the time was up, because I would not notice the sound level was back up. Once, I ended up locked in the school because school ended and the place cleared out and I read on.

I had to sneak out past the office entrance.

 

[Jennifer]

Fire drills were always a little sobering. You could see the line forming and that the line formed faster than the exits would allow.

I had no idea I had ADHD back then, but no windows killed my soul. Until that school I never realized how often I would do the thousand yard stare while doing a calculation in my head. Staring at an ugly wall to do it was jarring.

I learned to tune out noise. Every afternoon about an hour and and a half before school let out they would announce silent reading time. It was supposed to be for 1/2 an hour. I would put my book in my lap and my head on the desk. Often, someone would have to let me know the time was up, because I would not notice the sound level was back up. Once, I ended up locked in the school because school ended and the place cleared out and I read on.

I had to sneak out past the office entrance.

I'm jealous. I cannot tune out noise. I'm a horrible sleeper. I sleep with a fan blasting for white noise.
I think the school did that to me. I love silence now.

 

[lemonbread]

I barely went to highschool and when I did I stayed off the radar. I never accomplished anything. Didn't even go to prom. No one from those years probably even remembers me.

 

[smoothg103rd]

I couldn't go to a school like that. I have to be able to really move around. I dropped out this renaissance program because we was only on 1 floor. The floor was in a square and when you switch classes your next class is right next to the one you just left. I liked to be able to move around. I also went to Twilight (Night School) for no longer than a week. It was at Westside but you were only able to use about 2% of the school. In a little corner part of the school there was two classes and a bathroom. So when your first class was over you will walk two feet across the hall. If you had to go to the bathroom you had to work 2 feet across the hall. Plus it's only about 10 people in your class. You cannot go nowhere else but them three places. A security guard sat at a desk in the middle of the hallway to make sure you didn't go nowhere else. I snuck out one day and never went back. I had more fun in the Youth House school then I did there.

 

[CandiCame]

Yeah, that's fucking horrifying. No windows and shit?

I went to a high school that they had built just a couple years before I went. Appalachia, and Ky in particular had gotten so stupid that the government stepped in and built a bunch of schools and then had government people come and just sit in the back of the class like the men in black, just staring at the teacher. We, being asshole children, knew that they were from the FBI and that we were white children and therefore still had humanity, so we learned really fast that the FBI is not allowed to ignore bomb threats so we'd sneak out and go to one of the businesses that were about a half hour walk from the school, and call in a bomb threat. The first few classes ruined it for everyone... now they lock you in the building.

Apparently those MIB people are still there, because I talked with them when I went to register my little brother. So... I guess they stay forever? If your school district is so shitty that it needs them. They never seemed to do anything. I've subbed in that school and they don't help in any way. They just sit in the back of the class scribbling in a notebook. They do that for a random hour during the day and then just leave. I'm kinda curious. What are they doing?

 

[CandiCame]

I couldn't go to a school like that. I have to be able to really move around. I dropped out this renaissance program because we was only on 1 floor. The floor was in a square and when you switch classes your next class is right next to the one you just left. I liked to be able to move around. I also went to Twilight (Night School) for no longer than a week. It was at Westside but you were only able to use about 2% of the school. In a little corner part of the school there was two classes and a bathroom. So when your first class was over you will walk two feet across the hall. If you had to go to the bathroom you had to work 2 feet across the hall. Plus it's only about 10 people in your class. You cannot go nowhere else but them three places. A security guard sat at a desk in the middle of the hallway to make sure you didn't go nowhere else. I snuck out one day and never went back. I had more fun in the Youth House school then I did there.

I like that they had open floor plans and cubicles and we had armed guards. Wait, no... not that, the opposite of that. Think it's bullshit. I think it's bullshit that they had open floor plans and we had armed guards.

 

[CandiCame]

I barely went to highschool and when I did I stayed off the radar. I never accomplished anything. Didn't even go to prom. No one from those years probably even remembers me.

My mom and my (then) girlfriend forced me to go to prom by screaming and crying and guilting. I hated it. She looked gorgeous but I think we danced one dance and then sat at a table with our friends and made out until teachers came and told us not to, then waited until they left and made out again. It wasn't memorable. We could have stayed home and done that on the couch without having to rent the tux and buy the flowers and pictures and shit. I mean, it wouldn't have been so bad, but at the time I worked at a shitty water park (that is now shut down because of how unsafe and shitty it was) and it cost me like a month of salary to go sit at a table.

 

[smoothg103rd]

I like that they had open floor plans and cubicles and we had armed guards. Wait, no... not that, the opposite of that. Think it's bullshit. I think it's bullshit that they had open floor plans and we had armed guards.

We had on site cops. The security guards patrol the hallways and cops just in case something serious happen. After school it be about 10 cops outside the school. Two or more in every direction. After school is when the more serious shit happens. Talking about this is making me reminisce on a lot of shit.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

My high school was different than most because it didn't have walls. Literally. It was some failed 70s attempt at an open concept learning where instead of 4 separate classes they had one big room with 4 teachers and everyone together. It didn't work, so they used movable wall and filing cabinets and partitions to separate areas. You could still easily see and hear all of the other classes.

I swear it gave me ADD.

OK, carry on with your fight.

That was exactly what happened to me in 5th grade. We moved to Arizona and a brand new school with orange and yellow walls outside and no walls inside. First and only time I seemed to flounder. They also eliminated all letter grades. Instead there was a continuum that the teacher marked with an X. there were five dots. My parents, unlike my ditz of a 5th grade teacher, could see that one end of the spectrum was an A and the other end an F. She marked me right down the center. All "C"s essentially.

Mom went down to see her to find out why a Straight-A student was having so much trouble adjusting. I had moved almost every grade so "adjustment" was never an issue.

Mom left frustrated and it was her that labeled the teacher a ditz. The teacher could not understand the new "grading system" or what the random X's she used signified.

The good news was I astounded the 6th grade teacher. Out in the portables, at least I could only hear one other classroom going on. I had absorbed the lessons for 5th and 6th grade the year before, so they had to find other things for me to do.

I was in High School at the time (end of the 60s) and the way the grand experiment worked out for us was 9-week courses. Some of the courses, in theory were really cool, but in reality, most of it was overview and because you had the same teachers, you had no real expertise in most of the courses although the combined golf and archery class were kinda cool, at one end of the practice field you had archers loosing at golfers at the other end who were furiously hacking balls back towards the archers.

 

[CandiCame]

We had on site cops. The security guards patrol the hallways and cops just in case something serious happen. After school it be about 10 cops outside the school. Two or more in every direction. After school is when the more serious shit happens. Talking about this is making me reminisce on a lot of shit.

That's how it was at our school too, but my dad was a cop so I never got in trouble because nepotism. The drug dog, Noel, I had known since she was a puppy. If I was in a classroom and she came in, she would come over and nuzzle me and my presence would fuck up the investigation.

Somebody shot her and pissed me right off. She was the sweetest dog ever.

 

[smoothg103rd]

That's how it was at our school too, but my dad was a cop so I never got in trouble because nepotism. The drug dog, Noel, I had known since she was a puppy. If I was in a classroom and she came in, she would come over and nuzzle me and my presence would fuck up the investigation.

Somebody shot her and pissed me right off. She was the sweetest dog ever.

If you shoot a police dog is it the same as shooting a cop?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

If you shoot a police dog is it the same as shooting a cop?

To Candy it is.

He anthropomorphizes them...

 

[CandiCame]

If you shoot a police dog is it the same as shooting a cop?

Yup. Which is kind weird but I seriously did love that dog. And it's not like I fucking love cops or anything. She was a genuinely sweet critter.

But they never caught the guys who shot her. She wasn't shot on the job, it was a drive-by while she was playing in her yard. Some pillhead pissed about the fact that drug dogs exist. I, like everybody else am like 90% sure I know who it was, but there was no proof.

 

[CandiCame]

To Candy it is.

He anthropomorphizes them...

That's true. In fact, I like some dogs more than some people. She mighta been my favorite person on the force.

Edit: Legally, tho, it's true as well, if the dog works on the force.

"Chapter 525. Riot, Disorderly Conduct, and Related Offenses (Refs & Annos)
Assaults on Service Animals

§ 525.200 Assault on a service animal in the first degree

(1) A person is guilty of assault on a service animal in the first degree when he intentionally and without legal justification or lawful authority kills or causes physical injury to a service animal to the extent that a service animal becomes physically incapable of ever returning to service.
(2) Assault on a service animal in the first degree is a Class D felony."

 

[CandiCame]

I just noticed that our laws are written with male pronouns. I'm no lawyer but that seems fucked up. Like if I were a chick and I killed a cop dog I'd bring that up. Then I'd go to girl jail all Orange is the New Black because the judge would absolutely not give a shit about pronouns. But still.