Bump and Grind
The End of School Dances
By Daniel Muniz

For many school districts across the country, the tradition of schools hosting dances is slowly coming to a controversial end as many of them are increasingly being cancelled and phased out. The culprit is a type of dirty dancing which has become the norm for adults in nightclubs and the issue is that minors are imitating it.

Also known as booty dancing, bump and grind, grinding, and freaking, a lot of school officials have become rather uncomfortable whenever a guy (or girl) begins jamming their front side up against the girl’s backside. Some girls like to bend over while their dance partner continues to “grind” his loins into her buttocks. In essence, the graphically simulated sex act ends up being far more than what chaperones and administrators wanted to deal with. As a result, the lewd dancing ultimately prompted districts to abandon these events.

“Everybody’s doing it” often became the rallying cry when outraged students protested the cancellations.
 

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That may very well be the case but the educational leadership of a number of districts felt that the school environment is not the place for this raunchy form of dancing. Even so, teenagers angrily demanded that school officials loosen up and get with the times instead of living in the past.

However, these upset students are missing the point of such decisions. Nobody is going to stop a teenage girl from bending over on the dance floor while a boy thrusts his loins into her backside. The educational leadership of some districts simply felt that a school isn’t obligated to provide the venue for it occur.

In the beginning, many school officials simply banned the dance routine. But as numerous districts nationwide quickly discovered, so many kids were already dancing that way so it became futile to enforce such a policy. After all, teenagers copy adults so this practice found its way into so many private parties and teen clubs that it eventually became commonplace among minors. As a result, the kids never heeded the rules.

And many parents didn’t mind how their children were dancing and some of them even encouraged them to violate their school’s policy. So without enough parental support and the lack of cooperation from students, schools saw that they didn’t have a choice but to cancel the dances altogether.

However, the real question is what is our education system legally mandated to provide to society.

In previous generations, schools partnered with the local community to address common issues. And the school dances was one idea to help keep kids off the streets. Decades ago, quite a number of municipalities established “canteens” in conjunction with the local districts for that sole purpose.

But today we live in a far more affluent society with a multitude of options for entertainment. It is a starkly different world as opposed to a time when there was no cable television, cell phones, and the Internet.

So is our education system still obligated to provide entertainment to our children?

Accordingly, since we live in the “Girls Gone Wild” era the world has also changed. Kids belong to a sleazier popular culture that is saturated with trashy celebrities and gratuitous sex therefore their entertainment reflects that. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that modern teenagers dance that way.

In an interesting side note, Simsbury High School of Simsbury Connecticut banned booty dancing. The senior class president Chris Meyer objected to that decision and said:

“I felt it was a little ridiculous that teachers weren't up with the times.”

Source for all quotes: The Associated Press

However, Meyer had a change of heart when he chaperoned a dance in which seventh and eighth grade girls bent over while boys pulsated their front sides into their buttocks. Later, he remarked, “After watching it, I thought they had a point. It was the first time I witnessed it from an outside perspective.”

Pre-teens or “tweens” also want to imitate their teenage counterparts.

Although many parents have no problem with their teenage children dancing that way, there are some who are also okay if 12 year old girls (or younger) bend over while their dance partners slap their backsides with their loins.

The next question becomes how young should kids simulate sex acts when they are dancing?

After feeling uneasy about much younger kids grinding and freaking, Chris Meyer offers this prediction about the future of these school functions, "I don't see dances coming back."

Perhaps all school dances will come to an end. Our education system isn’t obligated to provide them and if kids cannot behave in a non-sexual manner on school property, then they can go somewhere else to do all the grinding and freaking they want.

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