A row has erupted at a college after a racy lunchtime pole dancing demonstration prompted a wave of complaints from teachers who branded it too distracting for their 14-year-old students.
Education bosses invited pole dancing company The Art of Dance to South Devon College in Paignton to give two demonstrations as part of their Be Healthy Week.
A packed crowd of around 1,000 teenage students, aged 14 to 19, watched the first display performed by company boss Sam Remmer in the main public area of the college.
Oh, there's video at the link.
Remember, these are the people who civilized most of the planet, who ran the world for a few hundred years, and whose theory of laws is the underpinning of our own constitutional form of government.
Since we're talking about 14-19 year olds, I'll assume "college" is an English term for "high school", just like a "public school" in England would be a "private school" here in the US. Perhaps reader/commenter Donalbain can clear this up for us.
6 comments:
Certainly the symbolism leaves quite a bit to be desired.
That said I found the "dance" not particularly provocative, but did notice and appreciate the strength and dexterity of the dancer. Lots of hard work and practice (IMHO) went into the preperation.
I agree with all three of your sentences.
The dance was not rude.
But yes, many secondary (high) schools that teach 11-16/18 year olds are called Blah de Blah College.
However, if someone in the UK says they are "at college" or "go to college", then they will be attending an establishment aimed at 16-18 year olds.
If you would like a full discussion of the UK systems, just ask!
Does England have anything akin to our "junior colleges" or "community colleges"? Such schools would place on the hierarchy above high school (14-18 year olds) and below a bachelor's-granting 4-year university. Many students get their "general ed" requirements met at junior colleges and then transfer to a university for the final two years of their undergraduate education.
We used to have something called Polytechnics, but they are all universities now.
The basic structure in England and Wales (Scotland is completely different) is as follows:
1) Primary school 5-11
2) Secondary school 11-16 compulsory
At this point people GENERALLY have three choices; They can leave school, stay on at their school for "Sixth form" or leave school and go to a college for the next two years.
USUALLY, the last two years (16-18) are spent getting A Levels. These are usually taken in 3 or 4 subjects compared to the ten or so subjects examined at age 16 in the GCSE exams.
The grades you get in your A Levels determine the course and university you can attend. For instance, I needed to get two one A grade and two B grades in the science in order to study medicine at university (I am old, so my system was slightly different which is why I only did the three A Levels). To study media studies, you might only need to get Cs or Ds..
That is the "traditional" route, but there are also other routes through education for those who do not want the academic side of things.
While I'm anything but favorable towards the political far left known as Europe, and had high respect for you reading other blog posts here, it's kind of sad to see a legitimate gymnastic performance blown off as something tawdry. It's about as asinine as decrying fruit juice in schools because it could have been fermented into wine instead of turned into juice.
Mallakhamb and the "Chinese pole" are two clear examples of gymnastic art predating what you're branding this as. The strip club version didn't appear until the 1960's.
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