Same stuff happens here to be completely fair, in good old blighty. I'm currently at a school 6th form college which is attached to the secondary school bit, and we've all known each other for 6 years. Yeah, we occasionally burst into song in massive crowds. Bout 30 of us broke into singing "Forget You" to this small fat kid in first year (year 7) who looks like Cee Lo Green. Another 20 of us sung out "Bonzo Goes To Bitburg" to our school Chaplain when he walked past holding a picture of a swastika for some small-children class he had to cover a history lesson on the Nazis. Yeah, I'm part of the "cool" kids.
Either way - it happens. I remember about a year ago when we were all 16 and a drunken mistake happened at a party, when we saw her walking through this massive square area at our school (Library Square) and we were all dispersed around the edge, and she went through the middle alone, 50+ people went silent and started clapping, much to her embarrassment.
The TV is of course exaggerated but going by all the previous comments from yanks, its not all that different from what we have over here too.
EDIT: Same things happen outside the school too. Some chinese girl got wasted at a party, rolled in the flowerbeds screamign "I want to go to Narnia" before vomiting all over the windscreen of her dads car.
American HighSchool
Theres nearly allways the common groups, goth, nerds, sports team, regular casual boring guys (normally ppl who dont give a fack about groups), etc (such as rappers, skaters etc).
Theres those who are more focused in school issues and others who are more focus in outside school issues.
Japanese HighSchool
In general case there is much more discipline from the students.
Yes its a bit like some animes... such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, without the supernatural part.
Normally ppl stay after class cleaning, students actually take care of school. They lunch in the room also (in most cases).
Portugal (where i am from highschool)
Theres only 1 group. (the I dont give a sh*t group).
Theres nerds, and no1 cares they dont make groups.
Theres a goth or 2 no1 cares about they just hang out normally.
Discipline from students? none... they dont slap teachers or anything (normally) and they are not savage but they dont have much discipline though.
Just a bunch of spoiled brats lets say.
Theres allways a couple guys who argue about football and stuff...
Everytime theres like a fight or something is due to a stupid reason or we messed with a gipsy and they called their families to help them.
Girls are harder to bang... u cant just have 1 that easly in a party after a few drinks, they need to make u suffer and waste time with them 1st even if nothing seriouse. Baiscally spoiled brats xD
I'n belgium you can drink all kinds of alcohol once you ding 16 and that's only a recent law because when i was 14 there was no age limit
The only thing that isn't logic int he USA for me is.
Driving at 16, alcohol at 21.
this means that once you are allowed to drink, you won't be used to it and we all know drinking + driving = BAD
Now here you can start to drink quite early or 16 at most. and we only start driving at 18 !!
this means that when we start driving we are already used to alcohol and we all know driving + drinking - drinking skillz = less bad !!!
lol no, there are cliques, but theyre not nearly that segregated, or for just being "jocks" or "burnouts"
parties are never that big
and no, nobody really cares that much about a damn pep rally
Also, if you don't get that dreamy guy/girl you're crushing on, all hope for a happy future really is gone and you will live in your mother's basement...FOREVER!!!!
I bet American schools are like the High School Musical movies... O.o
I think the whole clique's thing is slowly disappearing as society changes, giving way to a generally more tolerant and understanding social structure. Part of that is probably to do with the schools beginning to fill with the children from a different generation.
The further back in time you go though, Yeah things were more or less as filled with cliques as they are in the movies. Much of American society is built around a meritocracy, and when the kids are left alone in schools they start to develop their own social structure based on various merits. But this is changing because I think American's are starting to become less focused on merits and materialism and more interested in doing meaningful work and/or simply living a happier life.
same for denmark except that you also have to be 18 to buy alcohol with a percentage higher than 16.5% but of course most stores are not enforcing that law but many 18 years are dumber than bricks and will without a shadow of doubt drive while they are completely smashed... atleast the punishment is somewhat severe though i wish it was higher.
Depends on the size of the school/location really.
I go to a small school of about 500. There's about 120ish kids in my class. In my experience it's not like that at all. Of course there are cliques, but it's nothing like you see in the movies. The "jocks" don't get all the girls (they have a bit of an advantage, but meh) and no all the nerds don't hang out together. The only group that is accurately portrayed in the movies IMO is the goth groups. They all hang out together.
Our school in Hong Kong is supposed to be a lot like American schools. We have groups of people but there is no "jock" group only sports team groups. There is usually a guy or two within each group that gets a lot of chicks, but its not like you can't get with chicks if you're not in a sports team group. Most of the girls in high school are either slutty, bitches, or stuck-up. The nice ones are usually okay-looking so meh.
College is so much more awesome. To quote Timothy De La Ghetto, "It's high-school and it sucks."
My high school was exactly like Jawbreaker. Does that count?
Honestly in my experience the only important factor in school is how funny you are. If you make people feel good with laughter you'll be liked
You go there, you learn, you eat lunch, you learn, you sing a musical number involving everyone in the school, and then you go home.