"We'll grow kindness in our hearts for all the strangers among us till there are no strangers anymor

[larryhammer]

A question for those who went to high school in America, though others are welcome to answer.

[Poll #1067478]

---L.

Comments

[larryhammer]

For values of "not seats" that included stools -- my homeroom was in a bio lab, so we sat at lab benches instead of in desks.

---L.

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

We didn't have homeroom-- or, well, first period WAS homeroom, made more complicated by the fact that on some days we didn't have first period, and rarely did we have assigned seats. Also I purposely switched sweats a lot.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I somehow missed the "high school" part until I'd already submitted the poll--my 1970's answer was for elementary school. By what was then known as junior high we only had homeroom for the first few weeks, and then by high school not at all.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't remember. High School was one long nightmare.

[octopedingenue]

My high school had 9-class block scheduling: 3 classes before lunch, 2 after; class #3 which you had just before lunch was shorter but you went every day, and classes #1-2 & #4-7 you had MWF or TTh. So class #3 was sort of homeroom (that was where you got paperwork handed out, heard announcements, etc.), but it was also just a regular class that could differ for everybody (I think I took Debate there all 4 years, though I never actually debated). And no, I never had assigned seating there.

[larryhammer]

Was that as confusing in practice as it sounds?

---L.

[octopedingenue]

It was excellent practice for college scheduling.

[larryhammer]

I suppose that makes sense.

---L.

[octopedingenue]

And also made all the classes either interminably long or too short to dig deep into a subject, but oh well.

[azang.livejournal.com]

Son#2 is in his sophomore year. This year he had assigned seats in his homeroom class, but now the teacher doesn't care which seats they are in as long as it is somewhere close to their assigned seat.
Last year in homeroom, they had assigned seats all year long. Son#2 says that it was frustratingly boring.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you need to move your story to either El Paso or Reykjavík. Your choice. :-)

[octopedingenue]

No idea how homerooms worked in El Paso; I lived 350 miles away. O my ginormous country-state, I love you.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Heh. Though until your fellow countrymen show up, you get to represent the entire state. :-)

[dbborroughs.livejournal.com]

its also depended upon the teacher

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

I suppose as a high school teacher, I could answer for the 70's, 80's, 90's, and the 00's since I've been the teacher with a homeroom in all those decades!

Yes, they all have assigned seats. Always. They're alphabetical so I don't have to alphabetize the forms, etc., that I collect from the students.

Sometime I ought to figure up how many times in my life I've recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

[larryhammer]

Heh. Let us know what number you come up with.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Heh. Now there's another question lnhammer could ask--how often the pledge was recited in school. We did it ever day (followed by a moment of silence that was more like a couple seconds), but I gather from talking to friends since then that this isn't true everywhere.

[larryhammer]

We stopped pledging the aliegence after elementary school (in both DC and California).

---L.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_twilight_/]

It depended on the teachers. In high school, there were teachers who wanted a seating chart, but we could pick our seats. Others wanted us to sit somewhere specific, but not for long -- just enough to get to know our names. In grade school, it was usually the teachers who made up the chart, but sometimes they allowed students to put in preferences (i.e. front/back/middle/next to/not near).