The Sesame Street of yore not suitable for kids.

[Bernard_Monsha]

Evidently being ice to your neighbor and having quirky characters who do not have the personality of a cabbage is bad for todays kids. The article itself is quite funny.

Sweeping the Clouds Away (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin)

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old “Sesame Street” is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper “Elmo’s World” started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”

Which brought Parente to a feature of “Sesame Street” that had not been reconstructed: the chronically mood-disordered Oscar the Grouch. On the first episode, Oscar seems irredeemably miserable — hypersensitive, sarcastic, misanthropic. (Bert, too, is described as grouchy; none of the characters, in fact, is especially sunshiney except maybe Ernie, who also seems slow.) “We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now,” she said.

Snuffleupagus is visible only to Big Bird; since 1985, all the characters can see him, as Big Bird’s old protestations that he was not hallucinating came to seem a little creepy, not to mention somewhat strained. As for Cookie Monster, he can be seen in the old-school episodes in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble (“om nom nom nom”). Originally designed by Jim Henson for use in commercials for General Foods International and Frito-Lay, Cookie Monster was never a righteous figure. His controversial conversion to a more diverse diet wouldn’t come until 2005, and in the early seasons he comes across a Child’s First Addict.

The biggest surprise of the early episodes is the rural — agrarian, even — sequences. Episode 1 spends a stoned time warp in the company of backlighted cows, while they mill around and chew cud. This pastoral scene rolls to an industrial voiceover explaining dairy farms, and the sleepy chords of Joe Raposo’s aimless masterpiece, “Hey Cow, I See You Now.” Chewing the grass so green/Making the milk/Waiting for milking time/Waiting for giving time/Mmmmm.

[Leader Desslock]

That's just so sad.

Yeah, heaven forbid we treat kids with any level of respect and include references or situations they might recognize from real life. Yeah, we can't have that. Just because Sesame Street helped me teach myself to read before I was 3 years old, we wouldn't want to leave that sort of thing just lying around. No... kids might get wrong ideas and stuff. That'd be terrible. :rolleyes:

I swear, if some people had their way, children would be raised in an isolation pod, free from any contact with reality until they were 21.

[HSaabedra]

Today's incarnation of Sesame Street is braindead compared to the genius of the older episodes.

I feel sorry for the kids that will never know the joy of seeing Monsterpiece Theater simply because soccermoms are themselves mindless zombies that are easily controlled by mass media. Sesame Street taught me basic concepts while I was bedridden from the age of two to seven due to surgeries and I wasn't expected to read beyond a fifth grade level.

I'll be buying these DVDs as a show of my appreciation to PBS and Jim Henson. Anyone see the Mister Rogers dealing with assassination? That's educational.

[Animematt55]

I loved it when cookie Monster would gobble up his pipe!

[Holy Knight]

I call heresy.

Sesame Street was indeed genius and even though I no longer recall seeing a single episode, I am told me and my brother used to watch them hours at a time.

I am only relieved that my own kids will not suffer from overprotection. I'd rather teach them to independently learn to spot the edits from pure life experience in order to get to know the differences between a cocoon fantasy world and reality.

[GreatNekoKoneko]

...people think into too much. i still love Sesame Street and yes, in the future, i will tell my little kids that Sesame Street is the mutha-effin SH*t.

[goddessofanime]

Are you kidding me? Sesame Street, along with other shows from back in the day like Electric Company will always rule. Especially the early days.

And if I ever have children, I will purchase every friggin' dvd of the classics like SS and Muppet Show to say, 'this is how it's done'.

[Animematt55]

I call bull****
yup yup yup yup yupyupyupyupyuypuyupyup

[GreatNekoKoneko]

Are you kidding me? Sesame Street, along with other shows from back in the day like Electric Company will always rule. Especially the early days.

And if I ever have children, I will purchase every friggin' dvd of the classics like SS and Muppet Show to say, 'this is how it's done'.

...my point exactly.

[Bernard_Monsha]

I'll be buying these DVDs as a show of my appreciation to PBS and Jim Henson. Anyone see the Mister Rogers dealing with assassination? That's educational.


Captain Kangaroo did the same thing, except he was even around for the JFK assasination. Mr. Green Jeans owned all.

[HSaabedra]

Captain Kangaroo did the same thing, except he was even around for the JFK assasination. Mr. Green Jeans owned all.

Jerry Haynes (Mr. Peppermint to those in the Dallas area) was actually the first to cover the assasination, but unlike Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, did not directly deal with the event on Peppermint Place as a matter of course.

[Leader Desslock]

^2 To be fair, I always wondered about Mr. Green Jeans. I don't know what it was I wondered, but I remember wondering.

I remember telling my mother that Mr. Rogers was terribly condescending, too. I said something to the effect of, "I don't know why kids would watch his show, 'cause he just talks down to you all the time like you're an idiot." I might've been four years old.

Okay, so here's a show I grew up with: My Back Yard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93fXvtMChls). Yes, that's pronounced "Yahd". If you want to hear what my native accent would sound like if I hadn't eradicated all traces of it, here 'tis. Yes, it's a silly show, but Eddie Driscoll was sort of like Bangor, ME's answer to Milton Berle. He could be just as off-color, too. He didn't water down the humor for the kiddies; he played it straight, knowing that when the kids got older, they'd figure out what else he meant, and why Mom and Dad chuckled louder than you thought the joke merited.

[goddessofanime]

that sounds like Captain Noah. (Philly kiddy personality from 60s-80s)

[Bernard_Monsha]

that sounds like Captain Noah. (Philly kiddy personality from 60s-80s)

We had Cowboy Bob, who had a horse named George that was not potty trained and bit kids.

Another great children's host was Soupy Sales who told kids to send him money from their parents wallets in the sixties and had a topless dancer appear on set.

[Leader Desslock]

Another great children's host was Soupy Sales who told kids to send him money from their parents wallets in the sixties and had a topless dancer appear on set.
That was a priceless moment in children's television history.

[Undrave]

I got a show design by educators and financed by the ministry of education.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8INEVWqoRbU
(It was designed in the 70s but stayed on for quite a while...started kinda cheap)

And a show with a screechy voiced alien puppet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvi_8XgATZs

[ToyMachinist_86]

Its obviously due to the gentrification of the inner city. drive out the yuppies!!:$%&#!:

[Tuna]

I really enjoyed the sarcastic, almost sardonic tone of the piece - I was actually laughing...
XD

...and nothing beats The Great Space Coaster (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddm5bQeKvg), though...
;)

[fujyoshi]

I swear, if some people had their way, children would be raised in an isolation pod, free from any contact with reality until they were 21.

actually that's probably the way I am right now, my mom doesn't even think I can get a job and keep one. She says my horrible social skills will get me knifed or some crap. So then I said "yeah why don't you just keep me in isolation for the rest 'a my life, it'll probably work better" and that's currently why I almost never leave my house but for anime(if that) or I'm forced out a' the house being told that I need to come out. Yeah I pretty much know first hand what over protective caring for your children is like because what I'm 18 and never had a job, was watched and spied on mostly through highschool, was assumed to be dumb in elementary and middle school, placed in boces, and a whole bunch 'a other crap.

wow I just think that that crap is annoying though because that's basicly just people that have something wrong to say about everything which is annoying.

[Evil_Koala]

I like Oscar. *****, I LIVE IN A ****IN TRASHCAN.

[Trefellin]

I remember very little about Sesame Street but I do know that I loved Oscar. I think I remember him having a swimming pool in his trash can but I'm not sure. Now that I think back, the street is pretty inner city looking.

In today's world there is too much paranoia about the safety of children. The media scares parents to get viewers. This smothering of children damages their independence. I always hated being treated like an idiot.

[Bernard_Monsha]

I remember very little about Sesame Street but I do know that I loved Oscar. I think I remember him having a swimming pool in his trash can but I'm not sure. Now that I think back, the street is pretty inner city looking.

In today's world there is too much paranoia about the safety of children. The media scares parents to get viewers. This smothering of children damages their independence. I always hated being treated like an idiot.

Oscar's trash can was made on Gallifrey.

[The Million Dollar Prons]

So wait, the Sesame Street DVDs are censored?

(cancels pre-order)

[Leader Desslock]

Oscar's trash can was made on Gallifrey.
So THAT's what the whining sound was every time he opened the lid. It was the materialization sequence. I wondered. That explains Oscar's strange goatee and the little "dolls" he had of children who'd gone missing in the neighborhood. It's all so clear, now.

[Daishikaze]

This over-protective crap needs to stop. I'm really tired of this sort of thing

[Magami No ER]

Show kids the original '85 Sesame Street movie starring the lost Big Bird and his then still imaginary friend Snuffy, and their might be some hope yet.
I recently watched it, and couldn't believe how different it felt from what remains of SS now, the fact that it's over 20 years old aside (I have watched a broadcast or two of current SS episodes on occasion for nostalgic purposes...didn't work very well). I know for sure that it wouldn't be acceptable to mess with uncaring social workers now, even if they were finches.

[Ariel Tsuki]

Oh, Bernard, why do you make me cry? ;_; Why?

Yes, Sesame Street when I was growing up was awesome, especially Cookie Monster's Monsterpiece Theater.

Tell me I wasn't the only one who basically said "F*** THAT S***!" when I heard they were making Cookie Monster eat anything other than cookies. It's like a Falcon Punch in the ovaries for me since I LOVED Cookie Monster (I even had the doll).

But ever since Elmo, who I ABHORRED since I was little, basically became the main character. Gawd, I still hate the little red bastard to hell.

I agree that parents severely underestimate their kids more and more these days. Most cartoons dumbed down and PC'ed to hell.

If they're not edited, I would buy these DVDs for my kids and raised them according to their individual mental and emotional growth.

[The Million Dollar Prons]

Am I the only one really disappointed to hear the classic Sesame Street DVDs apparently suck ***?

[Leader Desslock]

Tell me I wasn't the only one who basically said "F*** THAT S***!" when I heard they were making Cookie Monster eat anything other than cookies.
I expressed a similar sentiment, but in politer language. And knowing me, more verbose language. -_-;

But ever since Elmo, who I ABHORRED since I was little, basically became the main character. Gawd, I still hate the little red bastard to hell.
I look forward to the day when Elmo immolates himself in the middle of Sesame Street to protest the war. If he does that, he'll have my respect. Until then, he's just trebuchet ammo, as far as I'm concerned.

[tenshi_a]

I wonder how different 1969 Sesame Street was from the 1980s Sesame Street I watched...

And I wonder why exactly people might think that it would be a bad thing that it looks inner-city. I mean, I grew up in a fairly run-down area and didn't find that automatically traumatic...?

Mostly what I remember in Sesame Street was the pinball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgocE-JfWFI) animation. Pinball machines were one of my favourite things. ^_^

That and the Typewriter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tpbDOaZVI). Sometimes I still walk around going "noony-noony-noo" without noticing.

...and I eat cookies going "nyom nyom nyom".

Yeah, mostly what I learned from Sesame Street were sound effects. And that "aqua" means "water" in Spanish.

I think I already learned the alphabet from Dr Seuss. ^_^

And yeah, I've hated that Elmo guy since he turned up. I don't understand how it's now "wrong" to express your grouchiness, but ok to be fake and annoying and... saccharin. Bad influence on children, that Elmo...

[Soluzar]

And yeah, I've hated that Elmo guy since he turned up. I don't understand how it's now "wrong" to express your grouchiness, but ok to be fake and annoying and... saccharin. Bad influence on children, that Elmo...
Yeah, exactly. It make me cringe that Elmo is the most beloved character of all. Personally I used to adore Oscar, he was one of the most real characters. I also loved Bert and Ernie and the Cookie Monster. I agree with everyone who said that it was terrible when he started eating other foods.

Last but not least I still to this day have a special place in my heart for the Count. As tenshi_a will confirm, I still occasionally put on his voice when counting things. It's one of my earliest childhood memories. Hahahah! Two of my earliest childhood memories! Hahahah! Three of my earliest...

OK I'll stop.

[Fobb]

This...is madness...


What the hell is this world coming to? Not even Sesame Street is sacred anymore...

I would make a witty comment on who they'd decide to snipe next, but with the way things are going it'd probably just end up happening...

[Old Ape Face]

This...is madness...


What the hell is this world coming to? Not even Sesame Street is sacred anymore...

I would make a witty comment on who they'd decide to snipe next, but with the way things are going it'd probably just end up happening...

Barnie is organizing his own liberal army.

[VidelCoolGirl]

Super Grover FTW.

[blackknight]

That's just so sad.

Yeah, heaven forbid we treat kids with any level of respect and include references or situations they might recognize from real life. Yeah, we can't have that. Just because Sesame Street helped me teach myself to read before I was 3 years old, we wouldn't want to leave that sort of thing just lying around. No... kids might get wrong ideas and stuff. That'd be terrible. :rolleyes:

I am not certain whether that was slight exaggeration or not, but I must say that it would not surprise me in the least if you did learn to read at the age of 2.

I threw some telephone survey lady a curve ball when she called trying to enlist support for the "protection" of America's children. I asked her what was so difficult about the buttons marked "Channel" and "Power" on the remote control that parents could not control what their kids watched.

One does not edit a classic. I hated when Spielberg replaced "terrorist" with "hippie" in the re-release of ET. This is more of the same BS. A small minority of people expect Big Brother to protect them from what they don't want to see, thus sapping the general public of their free will. It has to stop.

[Leader Desslock]

I am not certain whether that was slight exaggeration or not, but I must say that it would not surprise me in the least if you did learn to read at the age of 2.
That actually wasn't an exaggeration, sad to say. I was the "weird little alien baby", according to my sister. I didn't talk at all, then one day, I started speaking in whole sentences, with clear diction. Nobody knows why.

We have pictures of me playing with Scrabble letters in my high chair. You know that bit they did on Sesame Street where they sounded out words? Like "C... At... Cat!.... C.... Ar.... Car!" Basically teaching phonetics? Yeah, I used to do that along with the show, with my Scrabble letters. In my high chair. My parents thought I was just mimicing the show until they saw me spelling words that weren't being shown. I could read very basic "**** & Jane" books at age 1.5, if they were held in front of me. By age 3, I was reading the funny pages and comic books. By age 4, I spent hours poring through encyclopedias and dictionaries. By age 6-7, I read Jaws and (until my mother noticed and took it away) The Graduate.

AND THEY THINK THAT SESAME STREET IS HARMFUL TO CHILDREN?!?! Gods, more children should be subject to that level of educational harm, don'cha think? How else are they gonna be able to read The Graduate at age 7? Do you want to limit them to the film version only? Geez!


Of course, the side effects of learning to read at such a young age are a little quirky. I honestly do NOT remember ever not being able to read, so I cannot actually fathom the concept of illiteracy. I make a very poor teacher when it comes to reading, because I cannot connect with my students at all. The other quirk is that I get enourmously stressed when someone reads to me. No reason, really. I just ... it makes my blood pressure rise. I can't stand it. It's always driven me nuts.

[blackknight]

I'm almost afraid to ask what grade they wanted to put you in when you started school.

I was reading the newspapers at age 4, as well as being at a 2nd grade level. I attribute this to an inquisitive mind, but maybe Sesame Street was at work as well.

[tenshi_a]

Of course, the side effects of learning to read at such a young age are a little quirky. I honestly do NOT remember ever not being able to read, so I cannot actually fathom the concept of illiteracy.
Me too, the nearest I can get is walking into an East-Asian specialist supermarket (Chinese/Korean/Thai etc) and finding I can't read half the things on sale, and am just working out what everything is by what it looks like. But then, I'm still looking at words with the expectation that if I knew what the characters meant I'd be able to read them, I've never experienced what it is to look at words and feel like it's some completely impenetrable thing and always will be.

I was also able to read at a very young age. I don't remember much of being very young, though... apparently when I started primary school I wanted to borrow a copy of "The Hobbit" to read and the librarian stopped me and said "you can't possibly read that", and made me read out a random page of it to them before they were satisfied I'd be able to read it. -_-; I wanted a copy because I was stuck in the text adventure version of "The Hobbit" and gamefaqs hadn't been invented yet. :P

[Soluzar]

I'd like to join the club of people who don't consciously remember not being able to read. When I was young there were countless TV shows dedicated to teaching kids how to read, and lots of book+tape combinations with cute characters to encourage a young child to learn literacy skills.

I assume they were intended for a child somewhat older than I was at the time. I have no idea at what age I started actually reading books independantly. All I know is that by age four I was already reading books intended for older children and teens.

I remember clearly that when I was first put into school they told my parents I already had an adult reading age, and that there was no provision in the school system for that. I actually got put into a 'special school' as a result of that, but it was special in the sense that it was for slow children. The system failed me, I'd have to say. Because I fell outside the normal range, they put me in the place you put kids who fall below the normal range, and I hated every second of it.

By the time I was age ten I somehow got transferred back into a mainstream school and found that to be unbelievably boring too. By this time I'd started programming my family's Acorn Electron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Electron) and from this I developed an excellent grasp of simple mathematics and logic. The classes in school were either things I already knew or things that I would never grasp, such as art and music.

There's just no way I would have ever learned a thing about art or music except in the technical sense. It's not in me to be good at either of those things, and I consider it yet another failure of the school system that these things remain mandatory until about 14 years old.

When I entered secondary education (Junior High, for you Americans) I found that at least I was able to apply myself to learning something, because there were classes on science, history and geography, or on other subjects that I'd not already learned. There were of course yet more classes in those baffling subject areas which would be a permanent mystery to me, but my growing grasp of theory was enough to ensure that I was not considered to be stupid.

Needless to say, classes in the subjects I was already well versed in remained somewhat interesting. I was regarded as a troublemaker in those classes, because the teacher doesn't like it if you know the answer without having been told.

Before too long I found myself under attack, as the 'smart kid'. I think maybe I was not as smart as I seemed. If I had only demonstrated less competance, I might well have been more popular. Maybe if I had excelled at some kind of sport, but as you all know, geeks don't tend to do that. School became a living hell. After a while I became the habitual target for all the traditional kind of school pranks, and to anyone here who thought that kind of thing was fun, I'd just like to say that you automatically lose my respect the second you advance that kind of an opinion.

I eventually ended up finishing school with some of the worst grades possible, because I gave up caring. It's hard to care in an environment like that, where every day you're just scared to think what might happen to you next. Suffice to say that the term 'pranks' in this context is as euphemistic as most of you know it must be. This started out being about Sesame Street, but I think it brought up a few old memories that were better off left buried.

[The Million Dollar Prons]

I remember not being able to read or write. I first mastered writing the letter A when I just turned six. You all are nerds.

[Soluzar]

I remember not being able to read or write. I first mastered writing the letter A when I just turned six. You all are nerds.
Tell me something I didn't know since I was 12?

[The Million Dollar Prons]

Tell me something I didn't know since I was 12?

In America the Labour Day is the first whatever of September is National Day, but in a lot of countries it's the first day of the fifth month.

[tenshi_a]

Needless to say, classes in the subjects I was already well versed in remained somewhat interesting. I was regarded as a troublemaker in those classes, because the teacher doesn't like it if you know the answer without having been told.

Before too long I found myself under attack, as the 'smart kid'.

It wasn't until universty that I first encountered someone who could disrupt a class and gain dislike purely through being too smart. And this was in one of the top 10 universities in the world, on a computing course, so geekiness / nerdiness doesn't come into it. We were all computer nerds.

There was a guy who seemed to be mentally... odd. Eccentric... isn't the exact word. He was only interested in certain things and hated everything else, and hated having stuff he already knew repeated to him. He'd come into lectures to... well, he didn't mean it but it was almost like he was heckling. He'd answer every question, pick holes in things the lecturer was teaching... He would always almost shout, and was really easy to bait into pointless anti-Microsoft fanboy arguments, which people had for fun because it was so easy.

It seemed... not impressive, but selfish and immature. It felt like he treated the degree course as being for him and him alone, disregarding there were other people in the lecture theatre who didn't know all this stuff yet. The rest of the class is just picking up this stuff and he's like the know-it-all answering questions so the lecturer assumes we got it and whizzes ahead and we're all sitting there feeling dumb and we don't get it yet, all we know is we hate the guy who made the lecturer rush ahead, that smart-***. Ordinary people don't hate nerds for their interests, they hate them for the fact they seem keen to put a barrier between the level of the dumb and the level of the smart. To hold everyone else down, keep themselves ahead.

So yeah, aggressive smartness can be antisocial behaviour in class.

I don't remember what happened to that guy... I think he quit the course early...? Or maybe he was actually on a physics course and was only taking computing modules to fill in his time...? I don't remember...

[Soluzar]

It wasn't until university that I first encountered someone who could disrupt a class and gain dislike purely through being too smart.
Oh wait... let me clarify one thing, because I'm a little uncomfortable with the turn this has taken. I wouldn't have said that I could disrupt a class by being 'too smart', far from it. I was never the type to speak up in class unless requested to do so. I think you've got the wrong idea entirely. It's quite simply that when a teacher in my school asked you to answer one of their questions, they didn't like it if you were able to give an answer that they didn't teach you. The other people in the class also dislike it intensely if you answer a question that the teacher thinks they should be able to answer and most of them can't.

What I'm trying to say is that in school you have no choice but to answer questions. I never really tried to make any trouble for myself, but it's hard to avoid. Teaching in my school was based on humiliation. It was that way for everyone, whether smart or dumb or somewhere in between.

I was generally the first one to be called upon to answer questions, but I didn't choose that. I suppose it would perhaps have been better to claim that I didn't know the answers, but that would just have led to a lot of sarcastic comments and browbeating and I didn't fancy that either.

I wonder if there were schools where the teachers didn't treat every class as a power game and a chance to show how superior they were to a bunch of young teenagers? I would quite like to have attended such a school.

There was a guy who seemed to be mentally... odd. Eccentric... isn't the exact word. He was only interested in certain things and hated everything else, and hated having stuff he already knew repeated to him. He'd come into lectures to... well, he didn't mean it but it was almost like he was heckling.That's horrible. It really seems like he came into the course with the deliberate intention of making enemies. I know that type too, and I can only say that there's a difference between being deliberately anti-social, and just being disliked because you're different.

When I said that I came to school already knowing that a lot of that which I was supposed to learn, I don't mean that I made myself obnoxious because of that. Instead I worked through it all the same as everyone else... I was just bored, and hoping for something new.

He'd answer every question, pick holes in things the lecturer was teaching... He would always almost shout, and was really easy to bait into pointless anti-Microsoft fanboy arguments, which people had for fun because it was so easy.
Oh wow. That seems pretty stupid. I don't see the point of getting drawn into that kind of an argument, really. The vast majority of people will always use Microsoft products, there's no point at all trying to change anyone's mind. Even though I don't really like MS stuff, I use it myself, because most software is created for Windows.
It seemed... not impressive, but selfish and immature. It felt like he treated the degree course as being for him and him alone, disregarding there were other people in the lecture theatre who didn't know all this stuff yet.
I can imagine how that would be annoying. I really wouldn't want you to think that I was that kind of a person. In fact, through college and university I used to basically do about six times my workload because I was doing my best to help other people out when the lecturers had failed to make something clear.

That is to say, I was being asked for help. I remember clearly that the entire class at college despised all but one of our lecturers because they were fond of telling us that we would fail, and that we were worthless. They were the kind of lecturers who would put up a slide on the projector, and tell us to read it while they went and took a coffee break. When they got back, they would ask some difficult questions, and then proceed to lambaste and humiliate anyone who failed to comprehend their slides completely.

So yeah, aggressive smartness can be antisocial behaviour in class.I think you've definitely taken the wrong impression from what I posted. We grew up in very different areas, so I imagine our schools were very different too. If I've not made it clear so far, I should point out that the school I attended was well-known for extremely poor grades. It was accepted at the school that one should do the minimum of work in class, and absolutely no homework at all. I'd say that in almost every class I took, less than 20% of students turned in their assigned homework.

Teachers came to expect this, and basically didn't bother to do much teaching. Their accepted role was to teach those who did not wish to be taught, and of course it would not do to try excessively hard in that situation. They accepted the situation because it demanded less of them, and the students where happy with that.

It was enough to make you a target if you just did the work you were assigned to do. You remember I said that I left school with poor grades? That's because I learned the really easy way to become less of a target. Just don't do any work, and you won't be noticed.

[Undrave]

Soluzar your secondary years sound like they sucked twice as bad as mine, and mine sucked ('cept for the last one when I got a pretty darn good bunch of friends and was even accepted by the people in the school bus).

I don't recall teachers being this mean-spirited in my secondary schools.

[Soluzar]

Soluzar your secondary years sound like they sucked twice as bad as mine, and mine sucked ('cept for the last one when I got a pretty darn good bunch of friends and was even accepted by the people in the school bus).
The last couple of years were OK. Once I decided to just do like everyone else, it was only sucked a little. Of course, that meant I had a lot of work to make up as soon as I left school, but at least then the people around me were at least somewhat friendly.

I don't recall teachers being this mean-spirited in my secondary schools.
I think it has a lot to do with dissapointment and dissillusionment. Imagine that you study hard to become a teacher, and then you work hard in your chosen profession, only to discover that you've ended up at one of the worst schools in the city. Imagine that 80% or more of the students you're assigned to teach are just completely disinterested in learning anything. Imagine that you're basically teaching a class which refuses to learn no matter how hard you try.

You'd quit trying too, right? You'd become bitter and sarcastic in time, as you grew older and realised that the easiest way to earn a crust was to just do the minimum required of you and ignore the fact that you were having no effect. It seems at least possible that you would.

You'd come to hate the students, wouldn't you?

In my whole time there I can maybe remember about four teachers who weren't like that. They were all wonderful people who didn't deserve the kind of treatment they got from their students. They tried really hard to make classes interesting, but what can you do when half the class just wants to throw things at each other instead, or break stuff?

Two of them quit before I left. Of the other two, one could clearly be noted to try less hard every year, and only one actually continued to care right up until the end. There's a limit to what any one person can do. I suppose there were always a few in the art and music departments which were pretty decent too, but lets face it... I had absolutely zero aptitude for those things and as such I never really got to know the teachers. They would always concentrate on the students who had potential in those areas, and rightly so.

If you want to know how bad my school was, let me give you some indication. The music department had a whole bunch of expensive equipment stolen one year by students. The art department got burned down by students, and several priceless works of African art which were part of a teacher's private collection were destroyed. You'd come to school each year and find that most of last year's new teachers had quit out of sheer disgust. We had about three headmasters during my time.

The sad thing is it wasn't even the worst school in the city.

[tenshi_a]

That's horrible. It really seems like he came into the course with the deliberate intention of making enemies.
Ah, but he probably didn't. He wasn't aware of the presence of any of us enough to regard us as enemies. Well, not until someone brought up Microsoft.

I think you've definitely taken the wrong impression from what I posted. We grew up in very different areas, so I imagine our schools were very different too. If I've not made it clear so far, I should point out that the school I attended was well-known for extremely poor grades. It was accepted at the school that one should do the minimum of work in class, and absolutely no homework at all. I'd say that in almost every class I took, less than 20% of students turned in their assigned homework.
I attended this school (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/education/school_tables_1998/england/8404099.html), did I leave in 1994 or 1995? I can't remember. Anyway, the earliest league table results I can find was in 1995, 26% of the pupils achieved 5 GCSEs. If I was in that year one of those people was me. Kids started fires in class. Kids got busted by the police for drug dealing. Kids stole computers from the IT department and keyboards from the music department. Kids assaulted teachers as well as each other. Kids kicked holes in the asbestos walls so the room would be closed that afternoon. The teenage pregnancies and the HIV panic. Huge fights between us and South Stanley school every few weeks. I was considered a giant, being 5'6" since the age of 12, was taunted for being a lesbian until the time I assaulted a guy for standing me up on a date (at which point I gained a new reputation as someone who carries bricks in her schoolbag, which I didn't), had the only Southern accent in a County Durham school and people in that area automatically hate non-locals, and I was easy to spot being semi-Chinese in a predominantly viking-descendant blue-eyed blonde-haired area. And had hair that stood up 6 inches no matter what I did. But I was lucky, you're right; we didn't have so many hateful teachers so much as we had pedophiles and alcoholics. They were friendly enough. Perhaps a little too much so. I pulled the race card to try and stop the bullying since it was a form of bullying that the police could stop. Now instead of chanting "there ain't no black in the Union Jack" at me, they just called me "BIG HAIR". -_-; The man who was head teacher at the time, couldn't exercise power over the students or the staff. He's now dead, wasn't that old either... half the school got burned down a few years back, too.

School is hell for everyone. Simple as that.

I didn't get entered for the exam in GCSE I.T. because the lecturer was sure we'd all fail and didn't want the school league tables to look even worse than they were going to be anyway.

I have "BSc (Hons)" after my name now. ^_^

It was enough to make you a target if you just did the work you were assigned to do. You remember I said that I left school with poor grades? That's because I learned the really easy way to become less of a target. Just don't do any work, and you won't be noticed.
You caved in too easily. What you're supposed to do is study solo for your exams and get some qualifications anyway to say a big "screw you, despite your efforts I'm better than you tried to make me" to your school, the teachers, and the pupils. You take your well earned qualifications and use them to escape the hellhole which is the area you grew up in.

[Soluzar]

You caved in too easily. What you're supposed to do is study solo for your exams and get some qualifications anyway to say a big "screw you, despite your efforts I'm better than you tried to make me" to your school, the teachers, and the pupils. You take your well earned qualifications and use them to escape the hellhole which is the area you grew up in.I admit, that would have been a better response.

[Caster13]

first Santas cant say "Ho ho ho!" now this.

i remember "mothers" wanting to get rid of Big Birds belly because it influences obesity. nothing is acceptable anymore.

meanwhile they watch MTV and crap at friends' houses and listen to rap. and they pick on SESAME STREET!?

[Undrave]

Man I had it easy at school XD

True I went to a private school from my third year of secondary school onward so I have no idea how the public system looked like...but even there Quebec doesn't have a dangerous school system...yet.

I guess these shows wouldn't fly today either huh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhCxYKpZIzM
GASP! Evolution! Wars and violence in the past? No wai!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2fhXotC4J0
GASP! Implied sex!

[tachibamaboi]

before i watch sesame street because of bigbird..but...nyah! now, i dont watch it anymore I'd rather to watch nickelodeon, cartoon network and disney channel... love it! that's why i bought stilleto2 (http:www.sirius.com/freeradio) so i can listen my favorite game program and live broadcast channel in nickolodeon, cartoon network, disney channel. take note it's a commercial free also...kinda awsome think so?

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!many thanks!
Images are not allowed as a signature, added through a post or not. -CHAR
tAchibAMaboi

[The Million Dollar Prons]

Stop spamming my AN on my Thanksgiving

[Caster13]

^^ your gonna be banned very soon.

AN is getting bombarded by a lot of stupid people joining.

[Little Relly]

i just have two words to say to the people who are saying these things............bull sh*t

sesame street should be respected!! it taught so many of us great things and they're just ruining it for future generations. so i say, bull sh*t