tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693471143220681808.post5607198292169923524..comments2023-12-18T07:59:16.525-05:00Comments on Hats and Rabbits: Pull Up Your Pants! or Why I Chose Not to Become a ProctologistChris Matarazzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17885109959459471509noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693471143220681808.post-78279257202492297982012-06-26T14:21:42.182-04:002012-06-26T14:21:42.182-04:00...stopping....stopping.Chris Matarazzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17885109959459471509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693471143220681808.post-65960168648086550282012-06-26T14:20:56.777-04:002012-06-26T14:20:56.777-04:00Stephen -- thanks for attneding this meeting of th...Stephen -- thanks for attneding this meeting of the Curmudgeonly Club! You know, though -- this is just really over the top; I'm only half joking about it being an issue of indecent exposure. Along the lines of old-fashioned ideas, I have to say that, often, it seems to me, what passes for unecessarily strict is often a vehicle for individualism. When I started teaching in a Catholic school, for instance, after years of having attended public school myself, I thought uniforms were a suppression of individual expression. I came to see it as just the opposite, over the years. In a school uniform situation, kids are forced to BE individuals -- to achieve or to express themselves in new ways with their actions and words. They can't rely on wearing a T-shirt with a hard core band on it to show the world what a "badass" they are; they can't pierce their eyebrows or dye their mowhawk hair purple. They must BE different. In fact, I find, when I teach college classes, that my students at Rutgers seem boring compared to my kids in the high school. They sparkle on the outside and fizzle on the inside, lots of times.<br /><br />Thanks again for stipping by, Stephen. Always a pleasure.Chris Matarazzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17885109959459471509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693471143220681808.post-82257458658505075652012-06-25T19:38:33.560-04:002012-06-25T19:38:33.560-04:00Chris: Being a decade or so older than you, I may ...Chris: Being a decade or so older than you, I may have you beat when it comes to curmudgeonliness. Ah, I long for the "old days"! When I was growing up in a suburb of Minneapolis in the mid-Sixties, our elementary school (a public school, mind you) required the boys to keep their shirts tucked in. The hall monitors (do they still have those?), in addition to watching out for those who ran in the halls, were instructed to warn all those whose shirts were untucked to straighten up and fly right.<br /><br />Yes, I know that modern educators and social scientists will likely say that I was raised in an intolerant, overly strict, repressed Midwestern/Scandinavian culture, which turned me into an intolerant, overly strict, repressed adult. Oh well. I still think that people should pull up their pants.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com