Karass- in what city, state did you attend school?
It was (still is) a public high school in one of the northwest suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. The school district had a lot of money, although the demographics of the students were an odd mix of urban lower middle class, nouveu riche upper middle class and a few farm kids.
I bet they even learned things there.
Damn right. They had some incredibly talented, credentialed and well-paid teachers. Despite what I wrote before -- stuff that would horrify parents today (and back then too, if the parents knew the whole truth) -- most of the kids I graduated with went on to college, even most of the stoners.
There are lots of measures of success, but since we Americans tend to focus on careers and money, I'll go there. Among the couple dozen people I have kept track of through mutual friends, several are doctors, a couple are high powered lawyers, a few are engineers, and a few are business owners or executives. One of the most interesting is a guy who was a stoner and a dealer in high school. He was near the top of the list of people we all thought of as "most likely to end up in prison," but now he's a multi-millionaire (all on legit businesses, AFAIK). But even most of those doctors, lawyers, business execs, etc. were people who broke a few laws back in their teen years and even got caught in some cases.
It's weird and scary to me to think of what would've happened to all of us if we had been born a decade or two later. Programs, jail, etc. Hell, even the cops were cooler back then. There were a few times I was out with friends and ended up in an unpleasant encounter with the cops. Sometimes they just took the weed, gave us a lecture and sent us on our way. If they really wanted to teach us a lesson, they called our parents and told them to pick us up at the police station.
I don't recall anyone ever being arrested. I don't recall more than a few physical altercations on campus in 4 years there. No weapons, no metal detectors at the door, none of that crap that is so common today. And the vast majority of us grew out of the teen rebellion stuff and turned out just fine.