Not so fast times at Robin High...

"High school today in some districts look NOTHING like high school did fifty years ago..."

Sometimes I don't know if I was blessed or robbed by going to Robbinsdale High School in the mid sixties. After hearing about what high school is like today, it makes my (as well as my classmates) experiences sound a bit muted. After all, we got up in the morning, got dressed, ate breakfast, and either took the bus or drove to high school before the opening bell.

We went to school looking good. We had dress codes, but most students tried to exceed them, not breach them. Boys were boys and girls were girls. Often times, each were dressed "to the nines" while at school. We liked each other, we liked our teachers. And most importantly, we respected everyone. The thought of fighting a teacher was not in our universe. Most of us just wanted to learn, earn good grades and then graduate so we could go further in life.

There were no cops in schools, no metal detectors. If someone had accidentally brought a hunting rifle to school in the back of their pickup truck, they were just asked to take it home. Nobody got shot or stabbed in my high school. Even fist fights were very, very rare. Now I am not saying we were all perfect - we had our faults. But compared to today, our faults were mild.

So what happened in the past fifty years? Why is learning so risky and hard these days? In the days of the internet and Google, learning should be a snap. But it is not. And many don't even care about learning. Just this past week, two brothers beat a teacher in a city high school so severely, he now has a TBI (traumatic brain injury). The teacher might never be the same again. And what did he do to deserve such a beat down? He was trying to break up a fight.

Where do we go from here? How do we make high school the same safe environment that many of us "Boomers" had? How do we make learning fun again? How do we get to a place where it is okay to like and get along with everyone? To like and respect the teachers?

The PC'd superintendent of the St. Paul recently had a real hairbrain idea. Let's not discipline anyone, for anything. How has that been working one might ask? There is so much disorder going on in those schools right now, the teachers are threatening to walk off the job. They say working in the public schools in that district is no longer a safe working environment. 

In my view, the bottom line is this. Strong homes help make strong schools. It is hard to have strong homes when there is so much dysfunction in many of the poorer neighborhoods. The difference between today and yesterday is simple. Fifty years ago there were also poor neighborhoods. But many of the poor folks did not that define them. They wanted their kids to do well in school so they could live a better life. Today, many in the poorer neighborhoods could give a care. And that makes life (and success) in some schools very hard for everyone.

So what was life like at Robbinsdale High School in 1967? Not perfect for sure. But very, very close to it.