Are you kidding? They barely teach it in high school.
Yes, it really does. It’s just another thing pointing out what a big loser you are because you don’t have any friends. Bad enough when it just seems to happen that way; when the school REQUIRES you to advertise your loserdom . . . well, it doesn’t do anything for your interest in academia, much less your self-esteem.
I thought part of the point of school uniforms was to help equalize students, so that kids without the latest cool clothes don’t stand out, and those who have them don’t get to show off; everyone is equally dorky. With Twin Day, you get to look dorky AND show that you coudn’t get anyone to dress up with you. Why not just have a costume day or a “wear your own clothes day” and leave it at that?
Yep. Spirit days that required popular friends suck.
You want to know the part of this story that keeps swirling around in my head though? It’s the concept that these kids, who go to a school with a fucking uniform policy, and are normally made to dress all alike anyway are being sold a bunch of shit about how it will be fun to dress alike, only different than normal, because, “It’s like a special occasion, y’know?!”
What the fuck?
Yep. I think uniforms engender all kinds of rotten things, especially for those of us who didn’t look good in cookie cutter clothes designed for the svelte and discriminating adolescent. I feel sorry every time I see a chubby kid in a uniform. Freakin’ cookie cutter mentality…grumble grumble…
You know, I would be willing to bet a year’s subscription to this message board that the people who came up with Twins Day were completely oblivious to this sort of ramification. It probably never occured to them that someone might have more than one best friend or that someone might have no friends. Instead, what happened is they probably saw some kids who were constantly together and seemed closer than sisters or brothers and thought this would be good, cool idea so kids could show how great their friends were.
That doesn’t make it stink any less.
laina_f has got the best suggestion I’ve seen, especially if the fourth kid is one of the less popular or more unlikely kids. Speaking as a former outcast, odd ducks can be a lot of fun.
Left Hand of Dorkness, this would have been torture for me, too, if it had happened in high school. I’ve told my story often enough here. Suffice it to say, I was the second most unpopular kid at school until my junior year, at which point I became the least popular. Before that, the most unpopular kid at school was my best friend. During the last two years, anyone who was nice to me ran the risk of being insulted and ostracized. Dressing up with me for Twins Day (something I would have thought was ridiculous, by the way), would have really put her beyond the pale. The other thing is, my family didn’t spend a whole lot of money on things like clothes, and, since we were first generation immigrants and I was the oldest, my parents wouldn’t have seen the point of this and would have frowned on it, even if I’d been eager to go along with it. We had all sorts of dress up days when I was in high school; I don’t remember participating in any of them, as much by inclination as anything else. I was all too aware I was all but friendless; Twins Day would just have made it even more painfully obvious. The scars last a surprisingly long time. Just today, I was startled to realize that I actually seem to be popular at work. I’m still not entirely sure how. When you cannot walk down a hallway without being insulted, sometimes by kids four years younger than you who you don’t even know, it can cause some long lasting pain and damage. It can be undone, but it’s hard, and the old triggers don’t go away easily. Does this help at all? I assure you, I’m not exaggerating for the Pit. If anything, I’ve left out the worst of it this time.
CJ
But the people who came up with Twins Day were the teachers and/or administrators of an elementary school!
Come Twins Day, there are going to be little kids crying that they don’t want to go to school that day or trying to convince their parent(s) they’re too sick to go (and they may very well feel to sick to go).
I think anyone who couldn’t find someone to share a dress up idea with has serious problems. It seems like if the school had some way of helping such kids out, the twin idea might just be a way to find out who needs help becoming socially adjusted.
It would be incredably strange for someone who wasn’t reasonably socially adjusted to have no friends at school. The people who really had no or very very few friends at my school either had hygene problems, or serious socializing problems. If (and only if) a school has ways to help such kids then identifying them would be useful.
Count me in with those who hate this idea. My friends in school were an eclectic group and I never had just one “best friend”. I definitely would have been the one sitting out and when you’re shy, the idea of asking somebody to be your twin and facing possible rejection can be overwhelming. Those who don’t see a problem can thank their lucky stars they were popular. It wasn’t until high school that I realized that the only way I would get to dance at a school dance would be to ask somebody. Even then, everybody told me I was crazy for asking guys to dance; they would rather stand around alone than be turned down. When you’re one of the “background people” having days like this just seem like unneccessary trauma for kids.
You’re right. I’m not sure of your position in this discussion, but I must ask people to consider the possibility that the social structure of our modern workplace is a direct result of institutional socialization and the very uncivilized way we children are allowed to treat one another for the 13 odd years we all spend in the institution. This twin day is but another in a long list of school socializing traditions in which the adults contrive an awkward situation and then stand back and let the kids figure it out.
Bippy This has not been my experience as a student nor as a high school teacher. Every grade has at least one, some have a number of them. They didn’t start out odd or socially inept, they just woke up one morning at the ripe age of 7 or 8 to find that they were the class punching bag, and if they were able to comprehend the horror and isolation of the next 11 years, most probably wouldn’t bother making it to third grade.
I don’t ever remember authorities in my school addressing the situation or trying to identify the kids in trouble…does anyone? There are schools now in which social shunning is recognized for the serious problem it is and some progress is being made to eliminate it by modifying the social environment in the school, but this systemic awareness is only a few years old. Most of us didn’t have the benefit of a school-wide campaign to foster empathy, compassion and respect for our fellow human beings.
I don’t have a personal Pit emotion for this. I was neither ostracized nor wildly popular in school…just one of those chameleon types who fit in with everyone and no one, but my social experiences in school have haunted my adulthood for the things I didn’t do:
I didn’t set my lunch tray down next to the ostracized kid.
I didn’t tell my peers to stop picking on the outcast.
I didn’t do any number of little things, things that wouldn’t have cost me a dime or hurt my reputation in any way, but which may have made all the difference to a kid who was in terrible pain.
So, yeah, I think the topic is Pitworthy, but my outrage isn’t up to 11…maybe a completely justified 8.5
Or, they could just be loners who don’t have much of a desire for friends. I was one of them. I tended to keep nearly everyone in school at arms’ length.
Some people are just solitary and tend to resent people who think they can ‘socialize’ them.
Yeah, because having each kid announce in turn how many Valentines they got in the class Valentine exchange wasn’t cruel enough. :rolleyes: If teachers can’t notice who eats lunch alone, or who hangs out in a corner of the playground at recess, or who gets bullied or teased constantly, then maybe they’re not competent to help in the first place.
I was quite the monogamist with my friends when I was a kid. Throughout my school years (until late high school) I had only one friend at a time that I hung around with or saw outside of school. And that person always had other friends that they saw when they weren’t with me. My handicap was that I skipped the second grade, and so I was branded fairly early as the oddball. Couple that with general discomfort in social situations and oblivious parents, and you’ve got one lonely kid. Teachers loved me; kids either teased or ignored me.
(At this point I wish we still had access to the thread on advanced kids, which sadly was a casualty of the Winter of Our Missed Content.)
Yeah, but this is most definitely NOT the way to do it. Scarlet Letter, anyone?
This is a seriously WTF thread for me. Isn’t Twins Day participation optional? Unless you go to a very small school or go to a school where the student body is dorky enough that everyone dresses up, I don’t see why there’s be a problem with not participating. My nephew’s school does this and they get maybe a third to a half of the students dressing up. Reactions here are way over-the-top.
We always did “whatever” days two weeks a year in high school (homecoming week and…some other week). 80s day, Twin day, Opposite day, cross dressing day, PJ day, etc. etc. I was a total nerd and loved this stuff!
I’ll be the first to admit that it is flat out silly for the school to deny groups of 3 or more, but c’mon. It seems that most everyone here is relating their, “MY school age whatever day made me miserable because I had no friends! So THIS clearly is the biggest tragedy ever!” story.
That is certainly fine, but I ask: what should the school do? Should they cancel games at recess because it makes kids feel like loners? I’ll admit it can suck if the kid can’t participate (for whatever reason), but should the fun be taken away from every other kid, too?
Maybe it was Homecoming week? We always used to have funny dress days then (never Twin Day, but Cross-Dressing Day, PJ Day, etc).
But they were mostly just for fun, and people could participate or not. (A lot of us did). Well, except for Class Day, when we used to make the freshman wear something stupid. (When I was a freshy, we had to wear trashbags over our clothes) Until I was a senior, and our new vice-principal thought that was too “mean.” :rolleyes:
Quite frankly, this sounds like disaster in the making. I can see some little princessy types lording it over the girls in the group-“You’d BETTER not dress like ME!” Or possibly some kids try to fool the other kid by saying, “Yeah, I’ll be twins with you, I’m wearing such and such”, then turning around and dressing up like her REAL best friend and then making fun of the loser. It just seems to encourage this kind of behavior.
You’re right, actually, in my experience. The thing is, it isn’t necessarily because of the problems you described. Schools vary, and my school district has a history of being particularly brutal to outcasts and outsiders which has started well before I started going and continued for at least 15 years after I graduated. Things may have changed in the past few years, but I don’t know.
The girl who was the most unpopular at my school and my best friend was picked on and made an outcast because she had physical and mental handicaps. She was held back a year before first grade because she was too weak to get on the school bus. For most of her life, she’s worn leg braces and a back brace. Her face is also somewhat deformed and, in the eyes of kids in a small town, ugly. (You’ve know idea how much I hate typing that.) She thinks slowly and, I think, is slightly mentally retarded, and her speech is difficult to understand at the best of times. It’s fast and distorted, with little articulation. When we were growing up, I could understand her 90% of the time, and I was her best friend. Nowadays, I’m down to about 70%. She is also very timid. I’m not saying this to be cruel. I’m facing facts even though I hate those facts. She is also one of the kindest, best human beings I know. Her parents sent her to the local public elementary school. She wasn’t treated compassionately. She was teased mercilessly and constantly, which only increased her timorousness. The summer between our sophomore and junior years, she had a nervous breakdown, in part because of what she went through. She did not return to our school. Although she was able to keep up with her school work and did receive her high school diploma, she chose not to come to our high school graduation because she was afraid she would have been picked on. In my opinion, she was right. She would have.
I was picked on for a couple of reasons. First, my friendship with her, which I refused to give up. Second, as I mentioned, I’m a first generation immigrant and the oldest kid in our family. My parents were still working out how things worked in America, and none of us new the social rules or cues. I used a lot more Britishisms than I do now, and I’d no idea that kids in America didn’t eat things like toad-in-the-hole. Third, I am naturally contrary and a non-conformist. My hygeine did deteriorate in high school, actually, because I was rebelling against the damage I saw overly conformist high school society as having done to my best friend. My skills at socialization were pretty much ruined by the time I got into high school though, because I was never taught how to socialize. Believe me, in those ugly days, if I said “Hi” to someone, it could be considered an insult.
The upshot is yes, kids who get picked on tend to have difficulties socializing; the reason, in my opinion, is when they try to socialize, they get picked on. I’m still looking for a solution.
As for my claim that the teachers who came up with this weren’t aware of the difficulties they were creating, large and obvious as my troubles seemed to me, they weren’t to the teachers around me. Kids who are picked on tend to be quiet and withdrawn because not drawing attention to yourself is safer. Unless someone takes the time to think about things and put together a string of what looks like isolated incidents, kids fall through the cracks.
CJ
Life must be pretty sweet on Planet Bippy.
Back here in the real world, school admins have little interest in identifying social outcasts for the purpose of helping them. In my experience the admins are every bit as exclusionary and cruel as the kids.
And there’s a reason outcasts are socially underdeveloped. It’s because whenever they try to be social, they are beaten down mercilessly. The results are predictably sad.
I can see how some kids might get hurt feelings about this one one hand, but on the other I don’t think schools should have to eliminate all special things like this just in case one kid doesn’t have a partner or might feel left out. Honestly, you can make a case like this for just about anything. Any school dance, prom, playing a game for gym or recess, picking a partner for a project or art class. Kids pair up for events all the time, and as others have pointed out, this occasion is not even a mandatory thing. I’m sure someone’s feelings are hurt when you list the people who made cuts for basketball, or cheerleading, or the school play. Some schools have eliminated honor roll because those who don’t make it get their feelings hurt. I do know what it is like to feel left out but I really don’t think the school is obligated to provide me with a social life or to guarantee that I am fully included in each and every event they put on.
(As a side note, I think it’s funny that kids who are dressed alike every day now have a special day where they can dress the same as someone else, but that’s just me.)
We had days like this for homecoming too, and some people participated and some didn’t. I do think it’s dumb that kids are limited to pairing in 2’s, and I wouldn’t worry about following that rule. If it was my kids I would tell them to go ahead and dress alike as 3 or 4 and if they got in trouble over it that I would deal with it on their behalf. I remember kids getting in groups and there would be 10 or 12 people all the same, so I think getting a large group together would be fun. (they could all wear their uniforms! Oh, wait…)
Otherwise the kids that don’t participate will all come in uniforms and they can claim they are all twins with each other :).
I guess I see a big difference between natural situations where some kids will excel (honor roll, sports, drama) and these sorts of contrived opportunities that seemed designed to force children into awkward social choices. They have nothing to do with the real world and shouldn’t be condoned, let alone organized, by the powers that be.
Exactly. Being anti-social almost becomes automatic, like a defense mechanism. Hurt them before they hurt you. Bippy, some of us DID have social skills-but we ended up sacrificing them for survival.
I ended up confronting my entire 7th grade class, because I was so tired of it-with the teacher’s blessing. Of course, it helped that I had known most of these people since kindgergarten, and had been friends with many of them on and off.
And in doing so, it was pointed out to me by a classmate who was new that year, second semester, in fact, “You know, on my very first day, I came up and said ‘Hi’ to you, and you just sort of mumbled and walked away, frowning at me.” And you know what? I had never even thought about that. To me, it was automatic-if someone said “Hi”, they weren’t trying to be friendly, they were setting me up. It becomes something you CAN’T control.
And sometimes, not always the same kid gets picked on. I was picked on some years, and then other years, not so much. Kids are fickle, and you can go from being the most popular kid in your class, to being the class scapegoat, to being somewhere in the middle, all in a few months, sometimes. And I’m ashamed to say, sometimes I was the bully. I don’t know WHAT it is about the structure of most schools that bring this sort of thing out, but it happens, and it’s NOT okay.
Velma, there’s a difference between needing partners and creating artificial situations where kids have to pair up, and then not allowing someone to say, “Well, can’t THREE of us be twins?” “NO!” Why on EARTH would they not allow that? It’s ridiculous! It also does NOT prepare you for real life. Sure, in the working world, there are little games and gossip and such. But c’mon, if you keep mercilessly harassing a co-worker, tripping him when he gets out of his desk, calling him “fag, sissy, stupid, fat”, pushing him around, etc-that would get your ass canned and probably slapped with a lawsuit. But it seems like it’s encouraged in our schools.
WHY? Why is it a good thing to harass others? Just to teach them that life is harsh, and they should be tough? Fuck that-that will happen anyways, even without bullying. Why should the teachers try to identify the outcasts? Just so they can hold them up to MORE harassment, more hurt, more pain and suffering?
And bullying isn’t going to help these kids get better. What would be more productive-a teacher sitting down privately with Johnny and diplomatically suggesting that he needs to start using deodorant, maybe come his hair and wear clean clothes? (And maybe he’ll learn that things are going bad at home, and can do something abou that). Or having his classmates trash his desk, ripping up his papers and notebooks, defacing his books and throwing things at him?
And then we turn around and wonder why, in our society, no one seems to have any respect for anyone. Why people destroy other’s property. Why people steal. Why people harass, demean, abuse, assault and worse. Well, guess what? We learn that we don’t have to have respect for each other, that kids will be kids, and you just have to tough it out, you’re a sissy if you don’t.
Well, fuck that shit. Fuck all over that shit.
I agree completely.
I went to school because it was compulsory, and because I recognized the value of education. I did not go to school to socialize or make friends. I played sports because I enjoyed it, but I didn’t go to the weekend keggers in the woods behind the golf course. I didn’t particularly care for people, especially other teenagers. I still don’t, really.
The way I felt about those school socialization excercises is the way I feel now about workplace retreats/team building/morale improvement events. Cram it up your ass and leave me alone.
The weird thing is, people seem to genuinely like me, and I can’t figure out why.
Can I have an Amen?
Good Lord, how do you walk with those balls?