In article , Ericka Kammerer says...

Banty wrote:

In article , Ericka Kammerer says...

from the classroom anyway. I guess I was assuming that
neighborhood friends and friends from other activities
would be unaffected by this odd school division, but
apparently it extended beyond school?

??

Perhaps you're thinking of a program where the kids are together in a class even
for lunch and PE and recess and everything else?


I hadn't realized before your last post that you
were talking about jr. high. I was thinking in terms
of elementary school. In my son's elementary school,
they have lunch as a class. I think they sometimes mix
two classes together in PE, but there's not a lot of
time for socializing there. As I said in another post,
there's also only limited interaction at recess.


By junior high, those between-class periods and - especially - who sits with who
during lunch, and PE which mixes classes (at least did for the program I was
in), and in recess in earlier grades the kids see each other. And often
gravitate to their neighborhood friends. It doesn't have to extend beyond
school.


I don't know what it will be like for my kids
when they get to jr. high, but I was in the same program
my older son is now in this school district when I was
in jr. high (egads...can it really be 25 years ago!?).
We did mingle at lunch, but there was almost no between
class time (barely enough to get from class to class if
you hustled).

But in junior high it's a really big deal - who you sit with at lunch, who
you're waiting for at the bottom of the stairs to return a sweater left behind
from a slumber party. If you're 'not supposed' to be doing stuff like that with
people you've known for years suddenly, it's very very impactful and apparent.

After school - we were in two different communities, base vs. town. But the
at-school expectations voiced by "why were you talking to *her*??" rings loud in
junior high ears.

I moved into the area for 7th grade and
was put into this center-based program. Unlike kids not
in the program, I was with the same group of kids for all
my core academics and was then mainstreamed for PE and band
(and maybe one or two other classes over two years--I forget
which, precisely). Anyway, because I had a good four classes
with the same group of people, I knew them best and gravitated
toward them to find friends.

Well, you moved into the area, and didn't know anyone else yet. And soon went
to classes. But usually, there are other previous connections.

But I'm not saying finding friends from your classroom mostly is bad or
anything. But would it have been apparent to you if there was an expectation
not be have much to do with kids from ordinary classes in your case?

Banty