The MOST important question about what's taught in school.....Square Dancing!

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

I remember being in middle school in the early 90's in Orlando and having to learn Square Dancing!

I also remember no one liked it. Funny enough, I was also watching the amazing TV show "The Wonder Years" which also mentioned Square Dancing being taught in their school and Kevin Arnold's reaction to it was hilarious....something about it being important if they ever got stuck in the Ozarks.

Is this still taught in schools?

It was not taught in my kids schools. It's renaissance of the schools shoving it down my generation's throats was as a knee jerk reaction to Jazz, Rock N Roll and Rhythm and blues and the like. Nobody liked it except the old geezers that did it every Friday down at the Lion's club hall. Of course those same old geezers with too much time on their hands controlled our curriculum and wanted us to learn "wholesome" things. Me and a few others were goofing off one day and after our gym teacher lectured us about taking it seriously, I just said, " Mr. Brown, the only people doing this are 80 years old. I have almost 70 years left to learn it. And you still have 5. Note he was about 45.

 

[elgerber]

I live in MN, we learned square dancing, pretty sure it was in Elementary school, but maybe junior high. This would have been around 1980. That was the ONLY thing I ever actually enjoyed in gym class LOL.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

I attended a number of different schools across the country, and at varying times, the curriculum always included some square and line-dancing. Which everyone hated, and we fought not to touch each other and get cooties. LOL

 

[scrapquitler]

We had square dancing in elementary school (CT in the 1970s), I always assumed that it was because the male 4th grade teacher spent his weekends as a square dance caller all over the state.
In middle school, we did folk dances from around the world. (including polka)

Fast forward to the early 2000s, also in CT: my daughter had folk dancing in elementary school. Our town has a lot of Mexican families, so they concentrated on Mexican dances.

I think it's just something different for them to include in the curriculum that can have a multicultural aspect and also include those of us who are not athletically inclined.

 

[georgina]

I don't remember learning square dancing in school. My kids learned the Virginia Reel as part of their colonial day studies. I think my DS would have refused to participate in line dancing!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We did it In elementary in the ‘70’s.....in The Ozarks.

 

[CarolAnn856]

I did. We did not learn square dancing because of any white supremacy. We learned it because our principal was a country musician and he & his wife were members of a clogging and square dance group. They loved it and made it fun for us.

And it's possible that your principal and his wife came to enjoy square dancing and clogging because of the successful efforts of Ford to reintroduce that style of dance back into the mainstream. The article was well sourced. No reason to discount its information. And as I said previously, I was a square dancer myself, back as a teen.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

Born in 1970 and learned square dancing throughout high school along the Northeastern Seaboard. I don't think there was an age we did NOT make fun of having to do this. When I was a freshman, there was no boys' gym class scheduled during my gym period. So the auto shop teacher volunteered his own class a few times. I remember him sitting in the bleachers cheering on his boys and laughing hysterically. Now that was a GREAT teacher. LOL

 

[fauna74]

Did square dancing every year in PE for all 12 years of school (70s-mid 80s). Only used my square dance knowledge once- The summer after we graduated we were in Maine at a friends camp and went to a square dance in the village. Everyone was like “why do these kids from NJ know how to square dance?”
My kids went to the same schools I did, but did not learn square dancing.

 

[Kellykins1218]

And it's possible that your principal and his wife came to enjoy square dancing and clogging because of the successful efforts of Ford to reintroduce that style of dance back into the mainstream. The article was well sourced. No reason to discount its information. And as I said previously, I was a square dancer myself, back as a teen.

Well, since he and his wife were both raised Amish and left at 18, I highly doubt that Henry Ford had anything to do with why they decided they liked country music and square dancing. I only knew them for my most of my life, but whatever.

 

[RangerPooh]

California- Elementary school 4th-6th grade PE (late 80-early 90s) we learned to square dance. In junior high (91-93) we line danced. We all dreaded it, and it kept returning every year.

My kids are in elementary and junior high now (Tennessee) and are not learning to square dance or line dance.