Georgia Mountain News

Seniors get first-floor alcoves, juniors get on the second floor, and lowerclassmen get the third floor.

Lovett has a lot of rules, policies, and procedures. The student handbook is 49 pages long.  Speaking of the 49th page, it says that Lovett students may only wear Lovett-issued outerwear in school colors during the school day, as determined by our Technology Code of Conduct, laptop violations can result in detentions and/or loss of laptop, and Lovett students may only wear Lovett issued outerwear in school colors during the school day, and students who arrive tardy to school (after 8:15 am) must always bring a note and sign-in at the US office. 

But then there are the unspoken rules. Those are the ones that aren’t written down, but that we follow anyway, sometimes without even knowing why. One way to think about it is by comparing it to driving. It’s a written rule that you have to stop at a stop sign. But it’s an unspoken rule that if someone stops to let you enter a road, it’s polite to give them a thank-you wave.

Now, take the Lovett cafeteria. It’s a rule that you have to come back for seconds only after others have had their firsts. But there’s an unspoken rule that freshman girls are not allowed to sit in the dining hall, which when you think about it does not seem right. This is, of course, not supported by any of the faculty, but many freshmen girls still follow it. When I spoke to a number of them, many said they don't really care about this rule because “they never wanted to eat there in the first place.” 

The teachers I spoke to were surprised and shocked about this “rule.” One teacher in the English Department room said, ”Wow, we need to create a lunch table club just for freshman girls because that's kinda ridiculous.” 

There are other territorial “rules.” Consider the alcoves. Seniors get first-floor alcoves, juniors get on the second floor, and lowerclassmen get the third floor. When I talked to other lowerclassmen, they said ‘they think it's fair because when they are seniors they would want the superiority the seniors have now.” The same thing is for parking. Juniors get slants, while seniors get flats. Senior Cameron Foster-Martez thinks “this is a good idea because seniors should feel special in a way.” 

One way freshman (and other) girls get to take charge is with PDC. Girls ask boys, and if a boy says no he can't go with another girl. Last year, this rule was broken several times. Not only did a boy say no, but he went with another girl. 

Speaking of dances, when I asked Ms. McCcord if she had heard any unspoken rules that stood out to her, she gave me one I had never heard before, which was that if a sophomore girl were to be asked to prom she would have to wear a short dress. Ms.McCord stated that she didn't know if this is still a rule because it was a long time ago. 

In a survey we sent out a couple of weeks ago asking for unspoken rules, most responses were repetitive, like seniors get to cut lunch lines, seniors get first dibs on alcoves, and freshmen have to stand in the back for football games. Although those are pretty familiar to most of us, we got some interesting ones as well like: Don't wear body spray EVER (seems more like a personal opinion), clip-on ties are frowned upon, and freshmen don't go to Music Midtown, which is not true.

As you might imagine, there are unspoken rules in the athletic arena as well. On the softball team, the freshmen have to set up the cages and the field. When I asked the freshman on the softball team they said, “Yeah it's annoying, but when I am a senior I would want the freshman to do this as well.”.

Overall most unspoken rules are not that controversial, or unexpected. Think of the scene in “Mean Girls” with all the different groups of students in the mall being compared to animals around a watering hole.  

So where is the line between a senior or upperclassman having a reasonable privilege, and a questionable display of dominance? Perhaps the “freshman girls not being able to eat in the cafeteria” unspoken rule is a good example of basic unfairness, especially if they end up eating in the cafeteria when they're upperclassmen as the freshmen head to the hallways or outside, and the cycle continues...

Original source can be found here.