Is it wise to name an 8th grade minischool after a R rated movie with guns and violence in it? “The Untouchables” was a hit movie in 1987 staring Kevin Costner, Robert Deniro, and Sean Connery. It was about the police trying to pin a crime on Al Capone. There was a few cuss words in it (although not as much as your typical R movie these days), plus plenty of violence which gave it an R rating. I can only imagine the brainstorming session those teachers had to come up with this nickname for the minischool. My guess is that one particular teacher was a huge fan of the movie…either enamored with Costner….or just liked the movie in general….and successfully lobbied for the name.
I’m pretty sure they changed the name of it after I left. It wasn’t as if it was a blockbuster hit. Most people have forgotten about it by now.
Minischools. It was a new and exciting concept. Students were divided into groups and rotated among the teachers assigned to the group. Made the schools a bit smaller. When I was at the junior high, we had these 8th grade minischools: Olympians, The Untouchables, and The Challengers. So basically we had one reasonably named minischool and one minischool named after an R rated movie, while the other one was named after an ill fated space shuttle.
On the flip side, we had the 7th grade minischools: The Pioneers, The Constellations, and The Investigators. All are reasonable names, except for the Constellations which was too close to “The Consipations,” and yes, the kids did call them that.
Since in minischools, all the kids have Band/P.E. at the same time…and because most of my friends were in 6th period advanced band….we were all in the same minischool together. I wasn’t all that great in band. I think it was the grace of Mr. Starks, my band teacher, which got me into advanced band. Maybe he knew of the upcoming changes when he was considering me for advanced band. Maybe he knew that I was friends with many of the people he was putting in there. Maybe he knew my sister was a good student and he wanted good student in there. I don’t know why I was placed in advanced band.