I assume they have a quidditch team, too?

Dumbledore was in the corner. Did you see him?

Glee would be better, or a hell of a lot more consistent, if it was just the Kurt Hummel show.

Note to any writers, anywhere. Think carefully before you ever have a character say the line "I'm just a girl." Because I'm not "just" anything, and you can bite me.

(But I love Kurt.)

Unless they're singing the No Doubt version. I think that Tina would kick ass at that.

In reading our school district's code of conduct this evening, I discovered that "discrimination based on a student's race, color, national origin, ancestry, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or disability... For the purposes of this policy "Sexual Orientation" means a person's actual or perceived orientation toward heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender status."

While we know Glee lives in a very dysfunctional school environment, I was happy to see that my school district has at least tried to address orientation as falling under the non-discrimination umbrella.

I was going to say that I don't know any teachers who, upon seeing one student physically body check another student into the lockers, wouldn't step in and make sure that the aggressor was disciplined. Most schools have codes of conduct that require teachers to act in that type of situation. Sadly, I think that there are a lot of teachers that don't do a good job of addressing homophobic speech in school settings or confronting kids who are creating a hostile environment in the classroom through their words or actions, but when things escalate to physical violence, you can potentially face discipline or firing yourself if you don't step in and address the situation. I know bullying happens on school campuses, but most of the really out of hand physical stuff goes down when there are no teachers around. Which just reinforces the notion that Will is a horrible, horrible human being in addition to being a suck ass teacher. Really one of the worst ever.

I was going to say that I don't know any teachers who, upon seeing one student physically body check another student into the lockers, wouldn't step in and make sure that the aggressor was disciplined.

I've seen it happen. Multiple times.

I don't know any teachers who, upon seeing one student physically body check another student into the lockers, wouldn't step in and make sure that the aggressor was disciplined.

ha ha! I'm so glad times have changed. In some high schools.

Well, all I know is that I've been in some very tough schools from the Bronx to South Central and I haven't seen it. And if I ever had, I would've reported the teacher who let it go down like that.

ETA: I just wanted to say that I hope this doesn't come off like me discounting other people's lived experience, but just in my experience if the teacher sees with his/her own eyes the shoving going on, they step in. Call security over to separate the kids (cause you can be sued if you put your hands on somebody's kid) and then make sure that there are consequences. And lots of times it's not even really for the benefit of the kids involved, but more because that type of violence has a tendency to escalate if it's left unchecked. And maybe that's not the right reason to step in, but it certainly is a compelling one. And I'll also say that there's usually just a whole bunch of chaos and shenanigans going on in the hallway during a passing period in a large HS and so even if the teacher is in the hallway (which I know I seldom was - that's what hall monitors are for) they may not see the actual shove and just catch the tail end when the kid hits the lockers and goes down and in that case, I don't know what the teacher would do. Depends on a lot of different things. But if a teacher actually witnesses the act of violence and catches the kid red handed, which I have seen pop off in many schools, then that kid gets pulled up short. That's all I wanted to say from my experience in schools. I'm sure it has happened differently in other places, other schools, other contexts and I haven't been in every school ever, but it pushed a probably way too personal button for me. So I won't say more about it.

My experience was at a fairly rich suburban school.

kat, it's cool by me that you said something. But I think it is, as you said, important to remember that not every experience is universal. I had to take Nate out of public school-- a fairly well-off school-- because of the bullying. Because he was the one being bullied and it was amazing how many adults who could have done something conveniently never saw anything happen. And if Nate complained, he was a troublemaker, and if he struck back, then he got the harsher punishment because the current trend, at least in this school system, is to turn the other cheek, don't engage, then get an adult involved, which amounted to asking the kid who did the initial bullying if they'd done anything and of course they hadn't. And it wouldn't be pursued because administration would be too scared of the helicopter parents who were all too quick to come swooping in and insist that they're little darlings couldn't possibly be engaging in the behavior of which they were being accused and maybe my kid was the one making it all up and he was actually the one causing the trouble.

So then, it was my kid who had the target painted on his back.

I think the idea with how GLEE is presenting the situation, as imperfect as it might seem, is that there are extremes-- there's the fluffy, all-inclusive, tolerant school and the school where the jocks and princesses rule the hallways. And when you consider that even teachers (specifically Sue) have been seen both verbally and physically bullying the children with no consequences, it's not such a surprise that the students can get away with it.

When it comes to the high school experience, Ryan Murphy is about painting with a very wide brush-- I can watch the show because I go into it knowing this.