We had a a designated outdoors smoking area, on a sloping bit of ground in between the main school building and the smaller building which served as our music and band hall. The smoking area was nicknamed by everyone (including the teachers) as “Butt Hill.”
I don’t know whether we were allowed to leave for lunch, or whether nobody ever stopped us, but those who could drive (and their passengers) did.
The only school trip we took was in 9th grade (Washington DC natch, met our congressman, Charles E. Bennett). You could leave campus–if you were a junior or senior IIRC. Smoking area was out back, on the lawn overseeing the river, and I did know some overachievers who did skip a semester or maybe even two during senior year-in some cases tho they took college-level courses for credit. Never got or was even offered a phone line (my sister was 4 years younger).
New poll coming up for high school cliques…
The Nerds and Brains is probably closest. There wasn’t really a “Gamers” clique in my high school 40+ years ago, but if there had been, I would have been in that.
Nerds/brains/gamers/stoners. I’m not sure anyone else was playing D&D at our high school (or junior high), so it was especially weird.
I was in a backpacking/rock climbing clique.
At both of my schools (family moved), you automatically failed if you had too many absences from any class, regardless of whether you needed the credits. You could fail a class that you didn’t need and still graduate, as long as you attended.
There was a work program which allowed seniors to leave at lunch time (if their morning classes met graduation requirements) and go to a part-time job. But I think only twenty or so people were allowed to do it.
I was in the hippie clique (not an option in the poll but which was made up of the theater, music and art kids). A lot of them smoked pot (I didn’t at the time) but it was a separate group from the stoners, who were more the “bad” kids. Somehow my senior year (72), the hippies and jock/cheerleaders flipped places and we became the popular kids, which upset the order of how at least our high school had always been. We held the class offices and ran things. This was sometimes contentious because the jocks really resented their loss in status. Seems not a lot has changed after 50 years.
Yeah, I’m a none of the above.
To me, it greatly depends on what being a member of a clique means. Like, I was an active participant in high school theatre for years. Is that all I need to be part of the corresponding clique? If not, what else?
Yeah, I chose the same option. I would ask if they’d considered it (which is not the same thing as suggesting they should do it) but it is their choice.
It is, however, hilarious. And the father doesn’t know!
Thank you for extending my humiliation.
My pleasure.
By “designated smoking area”, are we talking about it being officially designated?
Because there was a tree across the street from the school where everyone went to smoke, but there was no Smoking Area sign posted.
mmm
In my high school, there were essentially only 2 super-cliques, that were both comprised of the sub-groups in the poll list. What they were each called depended on which group you were in. The Groovies were the in-crowd and the Burnouts was everyone else by default. If you were a Groovy, you called yourselves the Brew Ha Has and the Burnouts were Mallers/Maulers (a double entendre reflecting the tendency to hang out at the mall and also the preponderance of metalhead girls among the Burnouts. Referring back to an earlier poll, we did have a smoking area, and hanging out there automatically put you in the Burnouts. Stoners, band kids, theater kids, weird kids were all lumped together. The Groovies gathered on the other side of the school where you would find the jocks, the rich kids, and the social climbers. Interestingly the only sub-group that was equally represented in both cliques was the nerds. The Groovies had the social standing in town, but the Burnouts had the numbers. Looking back on it, it was really just a reflection of how well-off your family was. Planning for my class’ 40 year reunion has begun and the people who plan on attending are almost exclusively Groovies. Shocking.
Ours was officially designated, complete with a sign and a set of bleachers. There was also a steel drum trash can that inevitably got set on fire in the winter, and it was also where you would go if you wanted to play hacky-sack or try your luck pitching quarters for lunch money.
We had several designated smoking areas for students. Teachers sometimes used them, but they usually stuck to the teachers lounge where students weren’t allowed.
A lot of the listed cliques didn’t, or couldn’t, exist when I was in High School in the '70s.
For instance- we had ‘comic book nerds’ but but not specifically Japanese comics. Except for Astro Boy cartoons, did they even exist outside Japan back then? I don’t think anyone knew the words anime or manga.
Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, and G-Force were all very popular when I was a kid in the 70s - they all derived from anime and manga, even though we didn’t know those words at the time.
Star Blazers too (adapted from Space Battleship Yamato).
I was just about to edit my post. G-Force and Battle of the Planets were the same series. I was conflating Battle of the Planets with Star Blazers