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=  F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K.  = 
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                       I Am The Only Way To Go! 
                       ------------------------ 
 
        Well. I was just reading through a local net and noticed some 
people discusing a F.U.C.K. realese, Shockwave's "Chocolate Lovin at 
McDonalds" (because of the racisim in it). Anyway, it got me to thinking 
about how I have been hearing my American Litature teacher talk about how 
some people local to us want to get some book baned for some lame  
reason (is there ever a good reason to ban books?) So, I won't take you  
through another "People who ban things should go kill themselves because  
they have no respect for anything, and people who don't have respect for  
anything are close minded assholes who should be killed because it is  
people like THEM who are the reason the world is a bad place to live  
in" file, cause there was already one. What I am going to talk about  
here is how people who are close minded, and have a stong drive that  
what they are doing is right, can be extermly dangerous. 
 
        I attend school at Littleton High School in Littleton, Colorado. 
Some of you may have heard this name before because of the 'Direction  
2000' program that originated from it. I personaly liked this program for 
many reasons, and disliked it for a few. The main reason I liked it was  
because course credits were no longer required. They gave you a book, with 
a list of 'Demonstrations' that you had to complete. Now, there were some 
bad points to this. Some of the demonstrations you HAD to complete (unless 
you went in front of the school board and gave them a valid reason why you  
would not be able to do that demonstration) were crossing the line between 
home and school. Things like Ethics, Community Involvment and Personal 
Arts. If you gave the school board a valid reason they would then 'waiver' 
it.  This meant that you neither passed it, nor failed it, you simply didn't 
have to do it. For the ethics demo, (Which was easy, and anyone with half 
a brain cell could complete in their freshman year, and did) all you had to 
do was receive a certain situation from one of your teachers, and then you 
would write up an essay on what you would do in that particular situation, 
what you think would be the wrong and right thing to do.  Not extremely 
hard. Except, I personally think (and so did a lot of kids who went running 
to their parents like little kids) that the school should leave teaching 
ethics up to the parents and/or the church (if you attend one). Now, 
Community Involvement. What you had to do for this one is 30 hours of 
community service, for a proficient, and 50 hours for of community service 
for an excellent. Isn't community service for criminals and people who like 
to 'clean up the earth' or those that have nothing better to do?  I 
personally do not think (and so did a lot of kids who went running to their 
parents like little kids) that a school should make us clean up the 
community, or else we don't graduate from high school. As you can tell, 
after 1 1/2 years of high school (when this whole program was thrown out 
the window) I had a total of 0 hours of community  service. Finally, 
Personal Arts. This one isn't bad, in fact, i loved it. Here they made you 
attend 2 plays performed anywhere (and since we have good actors at our 
school, it made it actually fun to complete), and then you had to write up 
an essay on each play saying what you thought it was about and how it 
relates to a current event. Not hard at all, but still, some people didn't 
like having to do that, since plays are a 'Non-School' requirement they 
thought that it was 'unfair' to make them do it (and so they all ran to 
their parents AGAIN). 
 
        But, despite my whining I would like to tell you what was so good 
about this program. You have just been made a Freshman of a High School, 
you are given a book and told that you have to complete all of  the 
demonstrations listed in it before you can graduate (no time limit that I 
can recall). In order to do some of the graduations you would have to take 
certain classes (and still have time to take all the fun classes like 
Computer Applications where we get to sit in a class and use windows for 46 
mins (and listen to a teacher who thinks he is god of computers but doesn't 
know a programing a language higher than Basic) whoa NOW THAT was a FUN 
CLASS! (bit of sarcasim in the tone of my voice), or Engineering classes 
where we play with legos, a robot arm and build electronic boards that make 
lights flash and neato stuff like that).  But, if you knew all the material 
you didn't have to take any classes (wow). So, if you knew everything, you 
could just sign up for a bunch of fun classes, get all A's, finish all your 
Demonstrations in your first semester and then graduate High School (no 
crappy GED here).  So, this would be the PERFECT program for all those 
people I see on BBSes "Yeah, I am the most inteligent person in the entire 
universe, and I know all the stuff already, but am forced to sit through 
boring classes teaching the people around me better then the actual 
teacher". 
 
        Now, who do you turn all this stuff into? Well, your EAP teacher of 
course.  Here is the story on EAP clases and teachers. Every monday between 
4th and 5th hour we would have a class called 'EAP' this lasted 25 mins  
(totally screwing up the schedule on mondays (and a lot of kids went running 
to their parents!*^&!%(!*& Fuckin' lamers)). What we did in EAP was talk 
with our EAP teacher (we had the same teacher until we graduated, unless 
we complained that we didn't like the teacher and requested a new one, 
about our progress and then they helped us on what we needed help on, and 
advised us throughout High School.  Say for example, the swimming 
demonstration, you needed to either take a swimming or diving class, or 
take a swimming test (so you wouldn't have to take any swimming classes at 
all). You would get a proficient, or excellent (depending on how well you 
did on the test, or your grade in the class).  If you wanted to take the 
test (so you didn't have to take the class) your EAP teacher would tell you 
when the next testing was, set up an appointment with one of the swimming 
teachers, or give you the "I didn't want to take a class and I didn't like 
the sound of the Swimming test" because you have to swim 500 yards 
non-stop, float for 30 mins, and do some other weird things (what does 
putting pants on your head have to do with swimming?).  Now, i can swim 
and all, but for 500 yards non-stop?  I don't think so. 
 
        Now, you have heard about Direction 2000, the main points about it, 
and the good/bad things involved it in. I want to tell you why we don't 
use it anymore. The idea was thrown around the table starting in 1987 
(think thats right). It was first implemented on the class of '95. When the 
program came into effect it was VERY disorganized and they weren't really 
prepared for it, but they had to have some guinea pigs to test on. They 
continued this program into the Class of '96 (my class) and then into '97. 
While I was in my Sophomore year there was a lot of arguments coming 
forward about this program. Apparently this type of program was nothing 
new, schools all around the country had been using demonstration type 
things for graduating, the only reason Littleton High School got more of the 
glory was the fact that they gave it a name, totally threw the credit system 
out the window and then made sure everyone knew about it (thats what I was 
told).  Well, you might have seen all the times I said "and then the kids 
ran to their parents".  Well, some school in another state had one of their 
students and her parents sue the school because she thought it was "Unfair 
to make a student do community service in order to graduate" (power to 
you). With all these kids around my school running to their parents, the 
School Board and Staff got very worried, especially when the election for a 
new School Board was right around the corner (middle of my sophomore year). 
Well, this election was quite publicized around my area, and Denver in 
general, because there was a 'Back to Basics Slate' running (I hate that 
term, this is High School, if you want basics go back to Elementry School). 
There are 5 people in the School Board, if at least 3 of the 5 people on 
the slate won, then Direction 2000 would probably go bye-bye.  But if only 
2 of them won, then Direction 2000 would most likely be safe until some 
lamer sued the school for giving them an education.  Now, the problem with 
this election is that their was NO organization for the people who were 
running for Direction 2000.  So, of course, 3 of the 5 Back to Basic people 
won (It seems those back to basic people really had some brain after all), 
and 2 of the previous School Board people won and stayed where they were.  
If you tallied the votes, Direction 2000 vs Back to Basics, Direction 2000 
won, but alas, organization just wasn't in their vocabulary. So now we have 
this school Superintendent (Mary Chavez) rated the best in the nation.  
Principal (Tim Westerberg) rated one of the best 3 principals in the 
nation, and School (Littleton High School) rated one of the best 8 schools 
in the nation, is about to become one of the most fucked up.  Why?  Because 
of paranoid people, the book burners and back to basic fuckers who think 
they are doing the right thing (I think they should study McCarthyism a 
little more), but, since they can't look past their own fucking nose they 
don't know what the students want.  There was, for about a month, the hope 
that the School Board would allow students to choose if they wanted to be 
on Direction 2000 or the Credit System, but they decided that would be to 
much trouble and threw that idea away. So now, we have a school (who just 1 
month earlier was considered one of the best in the nation) in total choas, 
trying to get all the credits where they belong, making sure students were 
on track, etc.. The Superintendent quit because she was being pressured by 
the 3 Back to Basic people on the school board. 
 
    What does all this say? This 'Back to Basic' attitude is not just 
localized around here. There are many people that think change is bad, and 
that everything has to stay the same or we will be thrown into a world of  
chaos.  These people need to take a look around at how chaotic this world is 
already, and its because we have been doing the same thing for years  
now, while everything around us has changed. These people are living in a  
fantasy world where they think their way is right and every other way is  
wrong. There are MANY different types of people in this world and MANY  
different types of ideas (Which is why Anarchy will only work with small  
groups of people, Anarchy can never be used on a wide scale).  If you want  
a society to work you have to make up ways to respect almost all ideas  
equally. This seems to be something the people in power are incapable of  
doing. The people who want this world to go in a backwards direction have  
power. With that power they can point the finger and take care of the  
people opposing them. It can be the witch trials and McCarthy all over  
again. 
 
Rage-303 
 
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