Is there anyone here who has recent experience with the local high
schools?  If you would be so kind, I'd appreciate hearing about
your experiences;specifically with the level of academic challenge
and the school's culture.

Thanks.

183 responses total.

No recent experience, but from all I have heard, if a good education
and college is your goal, Greenhills is the place to be. They do assist
with tuition on the basis of need.

I've been going to Community for two and a half years, and I really like it.
The school's "culture" could only be described as very loose but very trusting.
Everybody goes by first names.  There are no bells.  People are allowed to
leave when they don't have a class.  Classes that end early get to leave, 
rather than just having to stand by the door and wait.  It's a small school,
so everybody knows almost everybody else.  To some people this would sound
like chaos, but due to the students generally being mature enough to handle
it it generally works quite well.
        As for the "level of academic challenge" it can be as challenging or
as easy as the student chooses to make it.  There is an incredibly wide
variety of options open to students in terms of what they want to take.  In
addition to a pretty full range of the standard high school classes offered
in the building, as well as some more inovative in building classes, there
are many other ways to get credit through the Community Resource program.  In
this program, if a student wants to take something, they can go out and find
somebody to teach it and then get credit for it.  These things can range from
University of Michigan classes on the challenging end to things that are
almost complete blow off classes on the other end of the spectrum.  This is
one of best aspects to the program, IMO.  For example, I am currently getting
credit for taking six classes, even though only three are standard in building
classes.  In one of the others, probably the one in which I am learning the
most, I am working with a group at the UM on teaching workshops to sixth
graders at a middle school in Detroit.
        One big thing about Community is that it is not a place to go if all
people want to do is skip class and go out and smoke.  Students who abuse it
and don't pass enough classes *will* get kicked out and sent back to their
neighborhood high school.

smalls 32 linked to genx 11

sounds wonderful! wish more schools had that level of respect for their 
students.  Maybe more students would act appropriately.  Do you find transefer
students screwing around for a while before they figure out that there's no
percentage in it?

I'd hardly consider being a teenager being a kid.   However, we are not here
to discuss that, we are here to discuss schools in the general area.

I as well, have gone to Community for 2 1/2 years.  I do not think I could
have had a better experience.  While I will admit that the original reason
I came was to escape the violence of Huron, once I got here more things
made me like the school.  However, since the end of my Freshmen year
peoples attitudes have declined.  Instead of the Sweet, Loving (well
MOST of them were) Seniors, we have a bunch of Seniors who want to kill
everyone.
        I do not like the fact that people cannot paint their lockers
like they could '87-'92.  Then again, we bought lockers with a warrenty
that is void if any of them are painted.  People are fighting in the
halls, the enrollment process gets screwed over by that chink fascist,
and Campbell (The everythin everyone *else* says is rascist, but I cannot
be rascist.).  Why can they not leave a good thin alone?  Or are they too
stupid to see a good thing when It's right in front of their ugly faces?
        Though I will be going to Dalat School in Malaysia next year, I
will still graduate from community.  However, they will froce me to go
to Chapel every week.  Is it not against International Law to enslave
free people?  If on the yearbook staff, they get to see the one with
all signatures (which often relate to my paganism).  I don't care if
they are fundamentalists, what they see is what they get.

re 4:
        It does usually take people a while to adjust to Community and not
screw around.  Hopefully it does not take too long.  Those who screw around
for an enitire semester and do not pass five classes get kicked out.

But Dean Bob doesn't follow what I learned as the policy for Kicking people
out to the letter.  It said (or says, depending) that people kicked out
are not allowed back on school property EVEN as duel-enrolles.

(the policy you are referring to is suspension, not kicking people out for
bad grades.  But that discussion should probably be taken somewhere else to
avoid hijacking this item)

Vidar, I have heard teachers describe whole classes as being more or less
creative, cooperative, etc.- Consider Chinese astrology, which looks at birth
year rather than month- you might try asking some teachers how this year's
seniors compare to the previous two, and if they've always been that way (ask
at the middle schools, for example).  Might make a fun little research paper.
Unfortunately, the behavior of one class may well affect the way the next few
are treated.  I WISH we could get rid of the more reactionary elements on the
school board.  Why do school boards get so entrenched? Petty power? Sigh.
Try to enjoy your new school; as to chapel, try to see it as a sociological
experiment- what universal elements show up in their religion? How does it
meet the needs of its adherents? What does it assume about humanity and the
universe? etc.  After a term or so, you can see if your parents can get you
an exemption on the basis of it not being your religion, but that may make it
harder for you to develop strong friendships among your classmates- they may 
resent the exception or see it as a judgement against them.  Your religion
should be a comfort to you and the basis of your ethics, not an "in your face"
weapon against the establishment, IMO, although your personal ethic may 
certainly preclude actively hiding it. See the difference?

Good Idea.  However, I think you're reffering to expulsion, which is just
a nicer way of saying kick out.  Suspension implies that you return after
time.

Back to the original Topic.  
What I know about Huron's violence is only what my sister told me.  She
stretches the truth occasionally, but who on Midgard does not.  I think
she would not lie about what happened to her.
        Those visions were what me think of Huron as a Prison, now I think
of it as a concentration camp.  It is, after all, if someone who blows up
a toilet is more dangerous than a rapist.  Seig Heil, Dr Mial!

Re# 9 slipped in while I was responding to 8.  
Re #9: While your idea might be useful, I doubt I have the patience.

actually, this item seems to have become a jumble of responses out of order.
Who was responding to whom when? (this is re: #11.)

I think we were both responding at the same time.  Whoever is done first,
finishes first, and gets the lower response number.  Anyway, back on Topic:

Community, but it's just not structured enough for me.
 I've had a lot of trouble with getting out early, first names, etc., even
 though I went to M.Y.A. (The Devil's school).
Maybe partying will help...

Structure is the base of all Evil!  How can you be such a piss ant?!

It's just easier for me to get along. I have trouble taking responsibility. As
for that slur, I didn't appreciate that, Vidar.

Your not supposed to, and it is not a slur but is an insult.
If you want structure, go to Niflheim!

Vidar, please- not here.  Can you disagree more gently, friend?.

Not with an ass like that.

Boy, do I feel like a hipocrite (see item 14) but 
I still think that its easier for me to work in a more structured environment.
Myabe I'm just not used to all the responsibility we get at commie. maybe I'll
get used to it.

exactly.  It takes time to decompress from a lifetime of external controls and
find your own pace and internal motivators.  Better to do it now than later in
college or worse yet in the work place.  You can make allies of your teachers,
you know- ask someone with whom you have a good rapport to help you come up 
with schedules that you can stick to, real deadlines and goals, maybe even]
personal rewards.  It may be that just the pleasure of being able to share 
work in progress and the finished product with an interested adult will be 
enough to help you get things done.  As to behavioral stuff, that's a bit
harder with all the distractions and temptations around you, but you may still
be able to talk to some of the teachers about ways you can tell when you are
about to get out of control and decide whether that's a good time and place for
it.  If you are the one asking for the guidance it may be less like the all-
powerful grownups putting a little boy down and therefore easier to work with.
Keep at it.

Actually, in the past few weeks, it has gotten better. I am pretty much on good
terms with all my teacher, and that is most definitly a first in high school. 
I'm beginning to feel more comfortable also with the Idea that someone is not
always going to be on my back about my work, and I would have to be the one
onmy back. I have turned in a couple of assignments late, but for the most
part, I feel on top of everything. I still think that I'd rather just go for
certain classes than full time though. I've met teachers at pioneer who know
how to    teach some subjects much better than teachers in community (case in
point CherylGrace), but the math department at pioneer is awful. 
        I havn't been asking for guidance on what is Ok, and what is not. I 
think that I have pretty much figured it out by myself. I've never skipped a
class and I've only been late once in Community. I have noticed, however, that
theteachers are a lot more open to help me with my work. I asked my math
teacher  if I could come in after school and he said "sure". I soon learned
that he     didn't have a sixth hour, and he came in after school just for my
benefit. I have a few friends who would take it for granted, but I really
appreciated it.  But I'm Rambling.

no, that's exactly what I meant about decompression time and looking for
allies. You'll do fine.

To defend Cheryl Grace (please don't take over this item as a Cheryl Grace 
item, but I do feel I should reply to what facelift said about her), I took
her law class last year and found her to be an excellent teacher.  I learned
much, much, more in that class than I have in most of the classes I've taken.

And I did the samething as a freshman.  However, getting back on topic:
In order to make the schools better Mei Mei Uy and Willie Campbell should
be *terminated*.  Removing thoose fascists from their Adolf Hitleresque
plot is simply not enough.  They should be tossed in jail and the guard
should eat the key.

Mei Mei Uy is japanese for "Child Hater". I agree, they just want cutback
aftercutback on Commie.

(this was an item for discussing high schools in general)

Well yeah.  But this is constructive drift.  By the way, Mei Mei is a Chink
not a Nip.

I don't care where she or her ancestors came from, I'm sure there are lovely
people there.  You can easily guess where I wish she and her ilk would go!

(her ilk meaning CBE people, not Asians, I assume)

Yeah, to a just about to be napalmed area...

re:#30- of course.

#30: wait a minute, what about Mei Mei Uy's Elk? How do you know she has one?

so what else is gnu?

Re#33: Not elk, ILK as in her like.  People who are like her, it is rude way
to say things about people but considering the CBE, no one cares a damn
about them except the idiots who elected them.

Pardon me, but getting back to the subject, I think I have it worse off than
any of you.  "Oh, god, Community is not structured enough for me!!"  Oh, please
You should try Pioneer.  Structure is the name of the game.  Dr. Jones the 
world remound analist (he had a 2x4 up his butt sideways with a bee-hive on it)
has made the structure so stiffiling, that the lunch room has "zones" and the
students will be required to wear School ID cards on them, visibly, at all
times so they weed out "...Detroit students who want to make trouble."  Ummm...
when was the last time that you saw a Detroit student in A2?  I never have. Is
there something I don't know here?  

In general, I think the schools have forgotten what teaching is all about.  
Instead of good grades and happy confident students, they have rebelious kids,
and money quotas.  There are some teachers, I will admit, who care about the
competancy of the students they teach, but they are few, and they are the
younger teachers.  It was explaned to me that these teachers want to stop the
bad things, and make the educational process more fun.

The best school system I have been in was the Midland Public schools, and Anne
will agree with me.  The teacers cared there, and you were taught a sense of 
respect for yourself, and for the teachers.  I do not see that here.  Perhaps
the public schools should rethink their plans, and start to evaluate the real
improtance of an education.  My bad expirences in the Ann Arbor Public school 
have made me decide not to got to a Academic college, but an art college.  I 
had wanted to be a histroy major, but have decided to be an artist/writer.  My
GPA was a 3.4 when I came to Ann Arbor, and last semester I had a .083.  I am
learning diabled, and the schoolds would do nothing to help, so I failed 4 out
of 5 classes.  I hate school due to the bad organiation of the schools, and the
lack of compassion.  

Are "good grades" what school should be about?  I've gotten really sick of
grades.  While the principal behind grades, to enocourage people to do
well, is good, the implementation is not.  It seems now to have gotten to
the point where it doesn't matter if people are learning anything, as long
as they are getting good grades.  And then there are the teachers whose
students are getting good grades.  Those teachers are often considered to
be too easy.  And if things are tried to get students to actually learn
something, rather than just fall asleep in a really boring lecture, they
get accused of just fooling around.

Don't let grades get in the way of your education.

Regarding structure vs. no structure, all I can say is that people are
different.  Some students will do better in a very structured environ-
ment, while other will thrive in a very unstructured environment.  Part
of the problem is that the school system throws them al into the same 
classes and expects them all to do well.

At least Ann Arbor has alternative schools to try to deal with the
diversity problem.  The current school board seems to have a "one
size fits all" mentality, unfortunately, and is therefore not very
supportive of the alternative education concept.

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