Posted on 03/18/2002 10:56:45 PM PST by Drew68
'Dirty dancing' booted by Oakwood School's letter gives ultimatum to students Oakwood High School is going to kick students out of school dances for MTV-style “freaking” or “booty dancing,” which looks like simulated sex acts on the dance floor. Last week, Oakwood High School Principal Joe Boyle warned parents in a letter sent to parents: "We firmly believe Oakwood High School should not provide the forum for such obscene and degrading behavior." Administrators around the Miami Valley agree. Trotwood-Madison High School Assistant Principal Imani Zaire said, "A lot of kids have no shame. They're not modest about any of this stuff." Zaire, 36, said, "I'm not old, but it's ridiculous." Oakwood Superintendent Judy Hennessey, who led an assembly for ninth and 10th-grade girls at the high school Wednesday, told them: "I'm so troubled because we believe this is an issue about self-respect for women. This isn't about grinding with a guy at the dance." Oakwood High School is just one of dozens, if not hundreds of high schools around the country responding to freaking, where the kids plant their feet, rotate their hips to the beats, and put their bodies up against each other in ways that make grown-ups feel very, very uncomfortable. Other high schools in the region said nasty dancing only pops up occasionally in school gyms, because students know it's not allowed. Soccer Coach Dawn Gaydosh, 27, said, "It (the explicit dancing) has altered the way I think about you. It should matter to you the way other people think about you." Stebbins Principal Don Kuntz said it was more common 10 years ago. Now, if there's vulgar dancing, they break it up. Zaire, too, said it's not common at Trotwood. There will be "one or two students who forget this is not video," he said, and chaperones move in immediately. "When I was young, you would sneak at the blue light parties," he said. "Now the lights can be bright, and the music is fast, and there it is." Sandi Snider, a senior class adviser who chaperoned last week's dance at Wayne High School, said she sees more break dancing than anything vulgar. Explicit dancing at Oakwood has been creeping up over the last two years, but at the Valentine Dance, a casual dress affair, there were 285 kids and, by the end of the night, just four chaperones, all staff. "We couldn't keep up with it," Boyle said. That won't be the case at the next dance. Almost 30 parents volunteered to chaperone when they read the letter. Any teen who acts inappropriately will be sent home, and their parents will be called. At Wednesday's Oakwood assembly, girls complained it won't be fun with their parents policing it. "Then don't come," Hennessey said. The girls' response to the women's self-respect talk was mixed. The assembly's question-and-answer session seemed to illustrate the generation gap. "That letter that was sent home was describing a strip club. I don't think that's what we do. We dance like we dance," one girl said. Hennessey replied that some mothers say that's just the way kids dance now — and girls are sexually active in high school, that's just how it is now. But she disagrees with such a fatalist attitude. The girl responded with indignation. "Because of the way we dance, you think we're sexually active?" High School teacher Laura Mayer, 24, jumped in, asking the girls to understand guys think they are getting an invitation to sex when they dance like this. Another girl said, "I think your approach to this is the girls allow guys to do this. It's more an issue, you're doing it. It's something you're choosing to do." The auditorium exploded with squeals and claps. The girl restated her question, asking “What if I go up to a guy and say: 'Let's dance like this.' ’’ As the assembly ended, nine girls still had their hands up. It isn't clear if the assembly settled the issue for some students. One girl said to a friend as they filed out, "All the people who are at fault, they think it's ridiculous." But another girl said to her friend, "(The adults) just don't understand." • Contact Mara Lee at 225-2420 or e-mail her at mara_lee@coxohio.com
e-mail address: mara_lee@coxohio.com
Dayton Daily News
All thats going on and they're worried about DANCING??
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