{"id":4813,"date":"2021-09-28T13:30:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T17:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2021-10-03T08:39:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-03T12:39:15","slug":"night-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2021\/09\/28\/night-moves\/","title":{"rendered":"Night Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here\u2019s another in the Sunday Story series.  This one is a real \u201chigh school\u201d mix \u2013 of social media, old stories, and sex.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the link to the Bob Seger and the Sliver Bullet song<\/em> – Night Moves<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tik-Tok<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago I read a long community Facebook \u201cconversation\u201d from the “Pataskala” group. There was a \u201cTik-Tok\u201d video from the local high school restroom. No one put the actual video on Facebook, but it showed two feet under a restroom stall. The people connected to the feet were supposedly having sex. It raised \u201ca ruckus\u201d in this small town \u2013 those feet might actually symbolize (or simulate) having sex in school! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether the rest of the attached bodies were also having sex, or it was all just a staged \u201cTik-Tok\u201d viral moment, only two know for sure. But folks here in town sure were hot. How could this happen, where were the teachers (not in the restroom for sure \u2013 that would create a whole different issue), and what can be done? Are feet \u201chaving sex\u201d really kiddie porn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the high honor and privilege to teach high school and middle school in this small town for thirty-six years, forty if you include the years I coached after I retired from teaching. I thank the \u201cgreat teacher\u201d in the sky, that there weren\u2019t hand held video recording devices for most of those forty years, particularly ones that could broadcast to all of the other students and parents in the community and the world. Kids are kids, and for them, risks and rewards are often slanted. The risk of \u201cgetting caught\u201d is almost never as compelling as the reward of notoriety or gratification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sex<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many kids (not yours, of course), particularly middle and high school kids, are all about sex.  As an eighth grade teacher, I was told that my male students thought about sex every eleven seconds.  I don\u2019t think that\u2019s accurate, more likely it was every five seconds.  No matter how hard (there\u2019s one) a teacher tried to neutralize (there\u2019s two) a lecture, somehow it all came (there\u2019s three) back to sex.  Whether it was about astronomy (Uranus), or history (World War I:  Fokker aircraft and Marshal Foch), there was always a red face or a hushed giggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And some kids went beyond joking and discussing.  They tried it \u2013 in the restroom, training room, storage room, ice room, wrestling room, auditorium, prop room, the back of the bus, the school van, the teacher workroom and on the tables in the cafeteria.  We found them on the high jump and pole vault pits (both out and while in storage), the wrestling mats, on the tile floor, and even on top of a log and flat on a dirt path in the back of the school woods (poison ivy the least of their worries).  Did I forget the baseball dugouts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s not including the few who decided to \u201cdo it\u201d all by themselves in the back of a classroom, or the more modest couples who snuck out to their cars or vans or empty homes in between classes, or during lunch, or the day when the substitute failed to take attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all happened, over the forty years I was there.  The difference between then and now is that no one was putting it out on social media for everyone else to see.  So to all those folks who were so, so upset on Facebook the other day:  there\u2019s nothing new here.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Punishment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sure, we punished kids for \u201cdoing it\u201d in school. Back in my day it was a five day out-of-school suspension. The worst part, both for the Administrator and the students, was calling \u201cMom\u201d to tell her what happened. No matter how open the act, it was hard not to feel sorry for the kid as they tried to explain to Mom over the phone, or worse, in person, exactly what they did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t publicize the kids we caught \u201cin flagrante delicto\u201d. We handled their misdeeds with discretion. It wasn\u2019t a public thing, unless the kids were so public that the whole student body already knew. Even if they didn\u2019t realize it, we adults knew that they didn\u2019t want to be \u201cthat couple\u201d that everyone remembered at the ten-year reunion. And, since back then there wasn\u2019t an IPhone hooked straight to social media, most other kids went through school oblivious to those inappropriate inter-actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Moves<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So it wasn\u2019t a surprise to me that many of my former students were on Facebook, bashing THIS generation for their sexual desires and video notoriety.  Most of them didn\u2019t get crazy enough back in “their day” to do that.  But someone else in their era almost always did, and we caught some of them.  In fact, I remembered  a couple of the names on Facebook from twenty years before.  I guess they just forgot \u2013 hah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids have been trying out their \u201cNight Moves\u201d for as long as there were moves to be made.  Of course school is not the appropriate place, and of course the teachers and administrators need to do the best they can to supervise the children.  But there\u2019s nothing new here \u2013 other than social media making it a spectacle.  And that\u2019s not the fault of the \u201cdoers\u201d, but of the \u201cwatchers\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh  \u2013 what else are these kids learning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h4>\n\n\n\n