Back to School thoughts; K and 12
With the new school year dawning, the sight of a group of elementary school children lined up and being marched somewhere or other, all holding onto a rope, has become returned. I do not remember hanging onto rope, but I do remember, and I do know, that elementary school is all about lining up, getting into a line, taking an inordinate amount of time to up yourselves collectively into a line — head anywhere, you need to be corralled into a line. What took the place of the rope, which — I suppose — has no purpose of existing unless you are marching into the busy downtown of a city, so I’m freed of that contraption — for at least one grade and one teacher was the phrase “Zip your lips while you’re on a trip”, which — in addition to a quick flurry of exaggerated zipping noises seems to lead to a single minded focus, one foot in front of the other — to the lunch counter or music room or recess or wherever.
Toward the other end of the K through 12 spectrum, I have to admit to not really understanding these kids’ fashions.  Why are they not wearing something different from what was worn by us a decade ago? I believe we have had twenty years where, to one degree or other, baggy pants — low-slung and everything — have been spot-able in some corners of groupings of teenagers.  I pick the “twenty years”, massaged a bit — (to tell the truth, 20 years back brings us to the age of — what? Acid Wash?) — for the point of asking: At some point, don’t the kids move onto something different just for the sake of rebelling against what their parents wore as teenagers? (Interesting to note the renewed interest of various blue-hairs in policing such fashion, which may be exhaustion at the tedium as anything else.)