Inside a Public School Dance

This weekend brings an interesting opportunity for me, the opportunity to chaperone a public high school homecoming dance at my two oldest kids’ school. I love opportunities like this when research transcends beyond the desk out to the front lines. It’s one thing to read the studies about what kids are listening to… it’s another thing to see it first hand. I try to constantly subject myself to both.

I wanted to share some of these early thoughts with you. I will write you a full report in this week’s Youth Culture Window article (now you can CLICK HERE FOR THAT ARTICLE). (NOTE: This blog also shares more thoughts below from when I got back from the dance- scroll down to see those.)

Many of you already heard me chime in a little bit on this subject last weekend when I revealed to you the written warnings on the front of the “ticket” for the dance my 15-year-old daughter went to— last weekend she went to the homecoming dance at another school with some friends from church. Interesting experience! I was talking to her and one of her friends afterwards about what they experienced; both of them were surprised how many kids were “getting low” and “grinding” (it’s funny… I’m trying to choose my terms wisely. How exactly do you say, “Sex with your clothes on?”). I asked them each exactly what percentage of teenagers they saw dancing like that. Seperately they each responded, “Over 50%.” My daughter’s friend said that one of her classmates even came up behind her and started “grinding” her from the backside. She turned around and backed away, not sure what protocol was for rejecting someone trying to hump you.

It’s an interesting world we live in. I can’t really blame many of these young men. No, I’m not trying to defend them in any way. But our society has taught them that this is okay. It’s the norm in every music video. A few months ago I was watching the Regis and Kelly show, when Kelly threw up her arms and began dancing like that with rapper Ludachris.

Dare I quote Billy Ray Cyrus? “It’s what today’s young people do.”

Full report coming. Some of these thoughts will be in there. I just wanted to share them with you first.

AFTER DANCE THOUGHTS:
We just got home from the dance. My wife just said, “I’ve never seen so many trampy girls in all my life!”  LOL

She’s really not exaggerating. The most surprising elements were the short dresses across the board, and how much “front to back” dancing there was. Kids barely face each other anymore, girls just rub their butts into the guys crotches all night. Teachers didn’t even bother stopping it because they’d have to send everyone home.

I “tweeted” throughout the entire dance- crazy stuff. I wish I had a video camera, it was literally amazing. I would love to see all the mom and dad’s reactions to what they’d see. I’m SOOOOooooooo glad my kids weren’t there.

Here’s some of my tweets during the dance.

CLICK HERE to read all my tweets that night.

And HERE for the article.