> struggling with dealing with the stupid silly popularity olympics in school, remind them of that
Easy to say from "the other side" - hard to hear when you're in it and have never known anything else.
Some of us just didn't participate. Only ever belonged to one "clique", if you can call it that. All of us were woodsmen, hunters, and outdoorsmen. We only cared about school because that was where we met a lot of girls, and we all had to get passing grades and graduate. Even as kids, none of us had time for silly drama or politics.
> Even as kids, none of us had time for silly drama or politics.
Silly drama and politics are part of real life - choosing to ignore it while you're "in the soup" is missing an educational opportunity.
Maybe y'all hunter dudes were "too cool for school" and could recognize that you have no taste for drama and politics before ever learning much about them, but even if you never participate in them later in life, knowing something about drama and politics is a "window to the world" that a lot of your fellow humans live in.
IMO the most successful education in drama and politics is learning how to play in ways that don't impact you on personal emotional levels - which is very different from ignoring the games altogether.
I found it was very useful to observe the games, but not play them. That way, I could and did knew how to play but only had to bother with it when the stakes actually mattered.
-- "Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
How about this perspective: Some of us just didn't participate in school
I know for a fact there were some kids at my high school who did "high school nonsense" exclusively with their fellow students quite literally 24x7 doing school sports, school performing arts, only hanging out with cliques from school etc. I know there were people who exclusively spent their teen lives solely doing school sponsored activities and only hanging out with students from our school. Sounds really boring and its not what I did.
I mostly did scouts, church, family, part time jobs, eventually Army Reserves (joined at 17 while going to high school), ham radio, some summer internship type jobs where my parents worked or had connections, bbs era modem stuff... I mean, yeah, I went to school about 6 or 7 hours in the mornings on weekdays if it wasn't summer or a holiday, but aside from sitting there, I didn't have much to do with high school. I met people from school and hung out with a couple but it was not a major part of my life. I think in total I dated slightly more girls who didn't go to my school than did (mostly met at work). I never got much into DnD but I played some and liked visiting my FLGS, so I met people there, also. Oh and the gym; the one I went to in high school was not very social (it was a YMCA) but I did meet some people my age there.
From my own experiences and watching my kids, some scout troops are much more office politics style political than others. I suppose work also.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 22, @02:50AM (4 children)
Some of us just didn't participate. Only ever belonged to one "clique", if you can call it that. All of us were woodsmen, hunters, and outdoorsmen. We only cared about school because that was where we met a lot of girls, and we all had to get passing grades and graduate. Even as kids, none of us had time for silly drama or politics.
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 22, @04:45AM (2 children)
> Even as kids, none of us had time for silly drama or politics.
Silly drama and politics are part of real life - choosing to ignore it while you're "in the soup" is missing an educational opportunity.
Maybe y'all hunter dudes were "too cool for school" and could recognize that you have no taste for drama and politics before ever learning much about them, but even if you never participate in them later in life, knowing something about drama and politics is a "window to the world" that a lot of your fellow humans live in.
IMO the most successful education in drama and politics is learning how to play in ways that don't impact you on personal emotional levels - which is very different from ignoring the games altogether.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 22, @02:59PM (1 child)
I found it was very useful to observe the games, but not play them. That way, I could and did knew how to play but only had to bother with it when the stakes actually mattered.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 22, @06:55PM
> I could and did knew how to play
It's weird when this knowledge becomes valuable - getting a building permit was a shockingly petty / catty game.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday January 01, @04:53PM
How about this perspective: Some of us just didn't participate in school
I know for a fact there were some kids at my high school who did "high school nonsense" exclusively with their fellow students quite literally 24x7 doing school sports, school performing arts, only hanging out with cliques from school etc. I know there were people who exclusively spent their teen lives solely doing school sponsored activities and only hanging out with students from our school. Sounds really boring and its not what I did.
I mostly did scouts, church, family, part time jobs, eventually Army Reserves (joined at 17 while going to high school), ham radio, some summer internship type jobs where my parents worked or had connections, bbs era modem stuff... I mean, yeah, I went to school about 6 or 7 hours in the mornings on weekdays if it wasn't summer or a holiday, but aside from sitting there, I didn't have much to do with high school. I met people from school and hung out with a couple but it was not a major part of my life. I think in total I dated slightly more girls who didn't go to my school than did (mostly met at work). I never got much into DnD but I played some and liked visiting my FLGS, so I met people there, also. Oh and the gym; the one I went to in high school was not very social (it was a YMCA) but I did meet some people my age there.
From my own experiences and watching my kids, some scout troops are much more office politics style political than others. I suppose work also.