General

Yeah, I gotta agree with the whole drugs in High School. I think everyone knew who was doing them because the students with be straight forward about it. It smelled too in class.

Compared to college, I feel like drinking is more popular than smoking.

I hadn't really thought about drugs but a lot has changed since my years in HS:

- "molly" is now a catch-all term rather than something very specific
- marijuana is vastly more socially acceptable
- opiate abuse was mostly a problem for upper class schools because those kids had more access to prescription drugs but now it seems like it's everywhere
- vaping is now a thing

I have a friend whose little brother is 10 years our junior, and is in his junior year now. seems like his peer group is much more interested in smoking than drinking, which I was surprised to hear.

still lots of drug use goes on at school about 50% of people do drugs often or from time to time, and 90% have tried drugs including regular users. there are lots of cliques at my school, some primary examples are the hicks, freaks, cheerleaders, jocks, rich kids, leadership robots, etc but lately the one different thing that ive been noticing is that the jocks are getting smarter. our school is 125 years old and its very traditional, its very much like those old high school movies, lots of people with varsity jackets, mostly an all white school, and even a couple 1965 mustangs rolling around for fks sake

in the comunity we have a huuge wealth diversity at our school, some kids come from millionare homes and are driving around brand new lexuses, mercedes, etc and the middle class you got people driving around busted up civics, and you also see poor people, some that are too poor to buy clothes so they wear the same thing everyday.

the problem that comes with the wealth gap is that the rich people will often be treated better even by teachers and also start to develop a sense of hierarchy while some kids don't even want to go home cause their home situation sucks.

acedemics wise, we got lots of high school dropouts, most people go into the work for dirrectly after school and 16% go to college. every year we get about 1 or 2 extremely smart people that go to stanford or something but thats about it.

i graduated a few years ago but afaik my high school still teaches government. it lasts a semester, with the other semester being used for a macroeconomics class

@klu180: that first point is probably for the best, but I remember we had to take a two-part class spanning 9th and 10th grade called "Computer Applications" which taught people how to use MS Office. I worked in IT for a little while, and I was kind of shocked to find out how many people in their 20s are functionally computer illiterate. it would be cool if they had a class that taught basic boolean logic and scripting.

I remember civics/government getting people excited because it de-mystified US politics in a big way. the problem back then was that you *had* to take it as a sophomore, so most of that stuff was already forgotten by the time you graduated and became an eligible voter.

Been out for three years now, but seeing freshies in college from high school I'm guessing it's a bunch of kids trying to act like adults by doing drugs and alcohol.

Just graduated from an inner-city public school
1. As far as I'm concerned, the push in STEM leans more towards the natural sciences (bio, chem, physics) than computer sciences, coding, and whatnot. In general, there are some extra-curricular comp sci programs (and maybe a comp sci elective in a school or two), but not much. There ARE two schools (I think it's two) though in my district that advertise as schools focusing on comp sci (though can't testify as to how good they are).

2. My school requires "social science" for all seniors; it's supposed to be a mix of government+economics, though it's managed horribly (aka sleep time). Replacement options include AP Microeconomics (new course and managed horribly), AP United States Government (it's election year, so lots of debate watching. Not sure how it would run on a non-election year), and formerly AP Macroeconomics.
The kids in the Government class seem to be really interested in politics after taking the course (unless they were one of those that were into politics beforehand). Can't say how much they really learned about politics though. Lots of Bernie Sanders supporters, "Hillary rigged the system," "Trump's an idiot," and "We need to change the system." I see a similar type of atmosphere on social media, except in meme form. There's certainly more ATTENTION to politics, but I can't say that we have a better grasp of how politics actually work.

some interesting replies so far. in the last few years I've worked with children (ages ~9-12 mostly) and the most radical change I've seen is the implementation of Common Core standards (again, this is for US students in *most* states). in particular, I struggled to help 4th/5th grade kids understand their math homework while I was simultaneously doing pretty well in calc 2. there's a huge push for STEM education. how were/are the standards implemented at the secondary level? are they "teaching kids to code" or anything like that?

I also wondered if civics/government was still taught. imo it's more important to birth people into society who understand how the republic works than it is to make sure people know how to take a derivative. there are too many people my age who don't participate in elections. I am curious to know if Twitter or other social media platforms have made high schoolers more passionate about social/political issues.

When I look back on high school it seems almost exactly like the movie American Pie.

Going to be real and tell you what my high school was like. A lot of gang bangers, a lot of drugs seling, the high school

girls are selling nudes, everyone wants to just be done with it. The athletes are either really dedicated or just want some

ass. No body bullies anymore because everyone will stand up for each other. The teachers are really forgiving. They will

give you food if your hungry and let you sleep if you are really tired. Racial groups are still existence. The rich kids

still like to flex mommas income tax. The poor kids wear the some clothes the same week. The smart kids get no special

treatment. The kids struggling get all the help. Girls are a lot bolder than guys(in general). Everyone is thirsty af.

Popular people are smart now - involved in the school, cheerleaders are gross, there's really no social cliques (skateboarders, emos, lgbt+, etc), I don't see any bullying,

Same stuff, wrapped in different packaging.

(too much) Snapchat and Instagram
Lots of couples
Jocks aren't dumb anymore--instead, they're smart, funny, nice, and on student council. And most at my school were relatively well-off too.

The class below mine started several admittedly cool traditions in the school, and my class was/is a lot smaller than the ones surrounding us. So we probably aren't as memorable. We didn't even have a real senior prank, and we couldn't plan anything for senior ditch day (even though we had a Facebook group with nearly everyone in it).

i dont think too much has changed judging from the stuff my sister talks about. i guess the only major difference i see are the changes to how easy it is to relay information nowadays in high school through different forms of technology and social media. i mean, when i was graduating which was only 2 and a half years ago, social media was becoming pretty major and now i feel like it's just normal to have a teacher tweet homework assignments or club meetings.

as for social issues, as far as i can tell, nothing has changed too much. maybe people seem a bit more liberal but then again, there have always been more liberal minded kids even when i was in high school.

when i accidentally hear stupid high school gossip from my sister or her friends, its mostly seems the same stuff. oh, she hooked up with that guy, twitter drama over some random bs, etc, etc.

Damn...I graduated 2 years ago, it couldn't have changed that bad...could it? I graduated here in Cali, LA. I think they started implementing more mandatory things for us, in order to graduated.

Right before I graduated, our class year was the first to require to present a reason why we should graduate and if we don't pass that we either have to keep presenting or fail. Also, community service requirements started when I started High School. Besides all these addition in order to graduate, my high school years pretty much felt like a drama. Friends had break ups. Relationships made then torn. Pretty high schooly stuff, if you ask me. I was that quiet person so I just stayed with a small group I trusted.

i graduated a year ago but the schools in my area became a mess. the % of kids that were failing were hilariously high so they found some loophole in the usa grading system rules and they implemented some disaster of a policy where it's nearly impossible to fail. if you get a homework assignment on the first day of the 9 week grading period and it's due on the 2nd day, you can turn it in on the VERY LAST DAY of the grading period and still receive full credit. if you fail a test you can do the same exact thing and retake the test whenever you feel like. that means you could take a test, spend your time writing down all of the questions and in the process bombing the test, then go home and look up all the answers, come back the next day to retake it and get a 100% on it. since it was implemented during my senior year when i was 18, i could skip school whenever i wanted and not have to worry about truancy and could come in the next day and take a test that i missed even if i was unexcused for the day i missed.

it was pretty awesome in the beginning, but terrible in the long term. there were supposed to be limits on the system but my group of friends and i started testing the system and seeing how easy we could make it. i ended up developing a system that most of the kids in the school started using where they do about half of the work they're assigned and then when the grading period is almost up they go online and look up their grades and they can see which assignments they don't have turned in and how many points those assignments are worth. then you just look to see which of the easiest assignments you don't have done and then turn them in until your grade hits 60% so that you're passing. for example i had like a 40% in math class my senior year 1 week before i graduated, turned in a couple assignments and i finished the year with a 61%. oh yeah, you can even redo your finals for a better grade if you want. that system ruined me rofl.

besides that, i cheated in pretty much every class and i got concerningly good at it. tried all different kinds of cheating methods. those stories are for a different day, though.

mostly its just snapchat and on fleek tbh

only a 90s child would understand this thread

From what Katie brings up doesn't sound much different from my high school life. Besides the oddball shenanigans.

That dance class will tremble in fear when my name is called!

Lunchamania back in Junior was a tad bit ridiculous too.

Ah the Millennial Field Day Track Run, can't forget about that. No wait that was elementary school never mind! >_>

well i graduated last year but it was pure chaos heck people were playing football ( soccer) at the back of the huge class
but im in the middle east so idk about states i remember playing cards and gambling on sweets