But they're about to. Some of the most iconic staples of school life are about to disappear forever. Things like ...

If you went to a school classroom 200 years ago, you'd see something remarkably similar to what we have today: A teacher talking to rows of kids sitting at little desks, each pretending to follow along in a textbook. Maybe the blackboard has been replaced with a whiteboard or a PowerPoint, but those basics haven't changed in generations.

5 Recess and Gym

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You remember recess, right? It was that one time when you could ditch the desks and run around in a frenzied scramble like an extra-caffeinated Bosstone. Whether you spent your 20 minutes hurling dodge balls at dorks or cowering under the slides (to hide from the dodge balls), recess has been an institution for generations. And thank goodness for recess. At a time when kids are tripping over their guts and trailing their asses on the sidewalk behind them, a few minutes of physical activity can be just what the doctor ordered. Literally.

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Maybe a few dozen dodge ball bruises would convince him to reduce all that target area.

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Going Away Because ...

Four little letters: NCLB.

For those of you who have been out of the school loop for the past decade, those letters stand for "No Child Left Behind," which has, for better or worse, done a serious number on American education. Here's why: In 2001, President Bush and Congress passed a law saying we had to get better at school, specifically reading, language arts, math and science. Fair enough.

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"Sometimes, I'm embarrassed to be seen with you people."

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The tricky part came in measuring improvement. For example, if you had to figure out if you were improving at your naked-hula-hooping-while-eating-Nutter-Butters skills, how would you do it? You'd test yourself, of course! And that's exactly what NCLB decided to do with schools. Only instead of scoring your hula-hooping based on speed, appendage flapping and showmanship, NCLB rewards academic progress by tying funding with those standardized test scores.