In junior high, we always had one six week period devoted to dance, 99% of it was square dancing.
Seeing as I grew up in Texas, I never questioned it. Granted, no one I knew square danced, but I assumed people in the rest of the state did.
Jeez, I hated having to square dance. Adolescence was a dorky enough time as it is without having to add that to the mix. Strangely, several boys in my class really seemed to enjoy it… David Berkowitz, John Hinkley, Mark Chapman…
Which has been going through my head as I read this thread… like I need that.
We only did it in 5th grade then again in 9th grade. And just square dancing (no other kind.) As one of the ugly, unpopular kids in school, it seemed like just a way of having that point driven home in gym class (which was already hellish enough.)
I think I’m the only person here who didn’t have to learn square dancing in school, and I’m the only person who likes doing two related dances (English country dance and contra). Maybe there’s a connection.
I wouldn’t say I learned square dancing, but I do recall an extremely disgruntled nun attempting to teach those complicated yet folksy moves to a small group of us in sixth or seventh grade. We were the few who were not in Glee Club, and so something had to be done with us during that long, horrible hour each week. I’d completely blocked it out until just now. Thank you so much for bringing it all back.
Hey, neighbor! I grew up in suburban Baltimore, too.
I don’t remember doing it in elementary school, but I do remember learning square dancing in Junior High.
Our gym classes were segregated for that, too, so it was all girls. At that time (mid-late 70s), we wore these hideous yellow dress things, with bloomers underneath, rather than shorts and t-shirts for gym, so I can only imagine how bizarre the whole thing must have looked.
In my mind, my square dancing PE session made some sense…
We had it for a few weeks, in 5th grade, and we were told it was to get ready for the 5th grade square dance (our first school dance).
Aside from it being some kind of excercise, I believe it was a socializtion tool, and probably the least offensive (to parents, nothing romantic or naughty about it) dance that could have been had. Square dancing sort of forces you to have a partner, do the moves, have some coordination… All of which you’ll need to succeed at future dances.
I figured they did it as a “breaking the ice” tool for us kids in our awkwardness.
It all made sense to me, at least in the way it was presented. YMMV
Okay, so obviously at some point in our nation’s history some Grand High Physical Education Curriculum Committee sat down and decided that, gosh darn it, our youngsters need to know how to square dance. The question then becomes, what were they smoking?
Perhaps we should start a support group. This may be the common ground that allows all people in this country to come together and be at peace with one another. Survivors of Childhood Square Dancing Trauma. We could meet on alternate Wednesdays at a skeet-shooting range and use old 45s of “Oh Susanna” and “Red River Valley” as targets. I’ll bring the cookies and punch.
Square danced from elementary school through junior high. At the junior high level, it was a combination of square dancing and mountain stomping. Years later, I’ve done some charity work and one event involved a rummage sale at a local church. It included square dancing as one of the activities, and wouldn’t you know it, I was chosen as the Pastor’s partner. I so very much didn’t want to do it, but it ended up being a ton of fun. I was actually laughing out loud by the end.
I loved the parachute activities as a kid. My favorite was either making the giant mushroom or bouncing balls on the surface, trying to reach the gymnasium ceiling with them. Oh wait, and we played Jaws, too. A few kids were “it” or Jaws under the chute, and the rest would be holding the chute taut while their legs were underneath. One pull from Jaws, and the victim would go to a rug-burning death of giggles.
I sort of see why. It’s obviously useful to teach people to dance. And what dance? Anything ballroom-like would be a disaster (touch a boy/girl? ick! hold at all close a boy/girl? ick ick ick ick!). So lets do something with lots of stamping, room to see your feet, something where you can follow other people, recover from errors…
However, seeing how bitter everyone is, perhaps they should rethink.
Of all the dances a school could teach, I could see them choosing the most fascist type. You want to do dance moves? You will do the ONES WE SAY and WHEN WE SAY THEM!!!
I learned to do the Virginia Reel and the Texas Star back around 1981 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fifth grade PE. Most of us seemed to think it was pretty fun at the time.
As to why – square dancing (AFAIK) is the official folk dance of the United States. That’s the only reason I can come up with.
I loved square dancing in school. It was fun, something I could be good at, and a great social equalizer. Did I mention it was fun, and I was good at it? It involved coordination, timing, rythm and everyone had to learn it at the same time. The popular kids who grew up playing football had no advantage over the unpopular non-football playing kids.
The girls and boys, and cool kids and uncool kids had to play nice together, get physically close with, and actually touch each other. And guess what? They didn’t get cooties and it didn’t hurt physically, emotionally or socially.
Unlike segregating the boys from the girls and making them play football and emphasizing the fact that yes, the uncool kids really are uncool. The cool kids don’t like you, don’t want to play with you, and make you feel like shit for being forced to play with you. Apparently for good coach reinforced reasons, if you had no interest in football and/or sucked at it.
Did I ever use my “skills” again? Sort of. Years later, stationed in Germany with the Army a country boy friend of mine dragged me out to a local square dancing club. I was able to pick it up quick enough to join in and not feel like a total klutz, and it turned out to be a lot of fun and a great way for Americans and Germans to socialize and have fun together.
I am completely and totally baffled.
Early 90’s. Grade 5, gym class, we learned to square dance.
I went to an all-girl’s private school in Montreal, where, I assure you, there is no culture of square dancing. Since we were all girls, no socialization reasons, either.
Errr.
a few mintues spent rummaging through memories
Considering I went to six different elementary schools (scattered about the US), you would have thought that I would have come across this ‘square dance’ people seem to have done in elementary school…
…but the closest memory I have is similar to Fern Forest’s: learning a dance in class in my elementary school in Hawai’i, to perform for some kind of ‘ra ra, let the parents oo and ahh’ stuff. (In my case, it was a simple hula.)
I do remember doing ‘The Hokey Pokey’ a lot, since it was simple, catchy, and got us kids moving about. But I don’t remember ever doing a square dance.
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FWIW, I learned square dancing in about the 5th grade and I’m Canadian. IIRC, I also had ballroom dancing (Waltz, tango, foxtrot etc.) but that may have been high school PE.
I love contra and square dancing. I wish we had done them in school, but all we learned was the Electric Slide. An old roommate of mine, though, who went to school outside of Philadelphia had to participate in competitive square dancing all through high school. Wierd. I’ve always thought that one of the best things about contra/square dancing is that it’s not competitive. You don’t lose the Virginia Reel.
I thought it was just us! I remember doing it all the way through 4th grade at least. I just asked my boss and she said she did so as well (she lived in So Cal) in 7th and 8th grade.
So weird.
When I was in junior high (1996-1999), we had to do square dancing. We may have done it several years, but the only time I can remember is during sixth grade when we did 1-2 weeks of it. This was in preparation for a week-long camping trip with other local schools where one of the activities was an all-school square dance. Girls and boys mingled, and I remember everyone thinking it was a little lame, if not particularly offensive. We also did the parachute thing, though in slightly younger grades.
Does anyone remember a warm-up exercise done to an embarrassingly bad song called “Chicken Fat”? The lyrics were somewhat like “Take that chicken fat back to the chicken, go you chicken fat, go away! Go, you chicken fat, go!” We did this in grade school gym. Ugh.
I went to grade school in Norristown Pennsylvania (just outside of Philly) in the 60’s and I also learned square dancing. I don’t recall what grade but I was pretty young; maybe 3rd or 4th grade. It sticks in my mind because I got to hold hands with a little red-haired girl that I had a crush on (no Charlie Brown jokes…).
I don’t recall doing anything like the parachute thing, but I googled “parachute dance” out of curiosity and found some links, here are 2 of them:
It’s mentioned about halfway down the page, Date: 12-4-01.
This page mentions a supposed link to child psychology, in the fifth paragraph.