Alternative Schools

Hippies are generally supportive of “alternative schools,” those places where errant teenage hippies go when regular school doesn’t work out for them. These schools don’t teach the usual reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, they teach performing arts, and drawing, and sculpture and the like, giving the students a different skill set more in line with their interests. Unfortunately, these students, upon graduation, are ill prepared for life in the real world, where the ability to understand what you read, and write clearly and concisely, are highly valued. In addition, the skills that these students DO learn - drawing, dancing, playing bongos and such - are not really in high demand and generally don’t pay anything. Thus, the occupational choices available to alternative school graduates are pretty much limited to panhandling and the production of veggie burritos.

Hippie Art

Hippies love art, and in most cases, they consider themselves to be artists of some sort. Whether their “art” is watercolors or sculpture or poems or drawing or pottery, the typical hippie believes that he or she has an artistic talent that must be shared with the world. They hang their watercolor paintings on the walls of their homes, they serve hummus and pita chips on their freshly glazed pottery, they recite their unique poems to small crowds of other hippies, they display their black-and-white drawings on the bulletin boards in their favorite hippie hang outs. Of course, if they were actually any good at any of these things, they would get paid good sums of hard currency for them. But alas, the typical piece of hippie art has little value in the real world, and can at best command a veggie burrito in exchange. This doesn’t deter the hippies from trying, though…they are a resilient bunch!