They did What???

[Becky2005]

OK...I haven't read through everything but have decided our school system hasn't realized what should be gone yet. LOL!!!

-- Pledge of Alliegence is still said every day

--- 7up is still played in school

---dodgeball is still played (and my DD got smart that she INTENTIONALLY gets hit first thing so she can go sit out! ). Heck, they have TOURNAMENTS you can *pay* to be involved with here.

-- Until only a few years ago they were still allowed to play on the big snowpiles until a child somewhere else fell in and suffocated. They immediately ended playing on the big snowpiles here.

For that matter, the kids can still play Red Rover (I think), Tag and we have roller skating in gym class from the time they are in Kindergarten, I think until HS with no safety equipment (it's up to the parent to provide it).

About the only one I can think of that I know is not allowed that we could do is that in elementary school we had a spanking machine on our birthdays. Kids lined up on each side and you went through it on your birthday.

And in HS we played cards in the lunchroom.

 

[MM27]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Dodgeball or Killball. *PLOINK*

My 5th grade teacher would take us outside every day for the last half hour of the day to play dodgeball. He played too and would take great joy out of hitting us with the ball. I guess that's how he got out his frustrations

In HS we learned to juggle in gym class.

The gym teacher at my school does a unit on juggling. They even have a juggling club during the school day. I've had to call many parents and break the news to them that I was pulling their child out of juggling because they were missing math to do it and they were failing math. I may have single handedly ruined the Ringling Bros. stock of future clowns.

We had a rope and pole to climb in gym class that was probably 2 or 3 stories high, with only a little mat at the bottom.

A teacher slammed a student against a chalkboard in 8th grade.

We did the ropes too. It went up to the top of the gym ceiling (which was high) and you got to ring a bell when you got up there. Climb the rope, let go to ring the bell and then shimmy down.

My 5th grade teacher had a class credo that went from ceiling to floor in the hall outside the classroom. If you broke a rule you were assigned to write the credo. One boy in my class was out in the hall more than he was inside that year.

We made wine in elementary school and brought it home for our parents for a Christmas present.

 

[Cindy B]

Public school:

Open smoking area for all students (normal and "organic" cigarettes) were completed there.

A wooden KKK cross was burned in the courtyard next to the only African American teachers classroom. The kids were not even suspended and the defense was "boys will be boys". The teacher continued to teach there for many years.

Kids brought guns to school and put them in lockers or backpacks. (I guess gun racks weren't available?)

It was pretty routine to have a locker or bathroom get bombed up.

I had a sixth grade teacher that would routinely feel girls up.

I had two girls pregnant in 8th grade.. those girls "disappeared". One of the girls came back after. She wound up in my health class. The health teacher made this girl get up in the classroom and talk about the positive things about birth control-- basically shamed this girl in front of everyone.

We saw pictures of partially aborted fetuses in science class under the guise of a Pro life demonstration but in that same year we could not have sex ed classes because it was "too dangerous".

Public elementary middle school:

The did the Lord's prayer every morning, also at every graduation/school function and PTA meeting.

 

[DeluxePrincess]

In my HS Biology class, the teacher used the SAME needle to prick fingers so that we could find out our blood types. She used alcohol after each prick. I refused to participate and opted to do a 3 page report on blood instead. I tell this story often and people are always shocked .

 

[minniebeth]

My 5th grade teacher picked a different "Teacher's Pet" each day (a girl of course). The Teacher's Pet of the day would spend the majority of the day rubbing his shoulders! Ick.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

The bad:
My kindergarten teacher duct taped kids' mouths shut, taped them to their chairs and washed one little boy's mouth out with soap. (I had always heard about that one but never seen it. I asked him how she did it later. Apparently it involved a toothbrush and wet soap. )

All the teachers paddled frequently. In third grade I watched a classmate get about 35 licks. Today you'd rightfully be arrested for the bruises and welts she left on that boy. A year after I left her class, she got Teacher of the Year.

I broke my big toe on a loose bench at a softball game. I smushed my thumb in a door visiting a nursing home. I fell on a mat at school and had a scar in the mark of the mat's pattern on my knee the rest of my childhood. I climbed out of my crib at 2 and fell and had to have stitches on the bridge of my nose.

The hospitals didn't give kids pain killers or anesthetics when they did some procedures - even when they would have on adults. So you screamed and screamed and screamed and cried until you couldn't cry anymore. Your parents weren't allowed to be there because it would upset them.

I had a friend who was molested. The friend was punished for letting it happen to her.

There were starving dogs under the school gym. We were punished for trying to give them our lunches and milk.

Air pollution in our town gave me so many respiratory illnesses I was sick and in bed one week out of the month. Our house was built on top of a landfill and we drank well water. I had constant bladder infections and food allergies. We moved and I was fine. No one tried to do anything about the neighborhood.


The Good:

We had 3 recesses every day and no one ever tried to keep us from climbing trees.

Movie day on Fridays.

Listening to the teacher read Charlotte's Web or Little House on the Prairie or a Wrinkle in Time or Strawberry Girl.

Track and Field day, where they set 2nd through 5th graders free to our own devices for a day. Lunch was whatever we wanted from the concessions stands and you signed up for any or all or no activities. If you wanted to sit in the stands, enjoy the fresh spring air and eat snocones, that was fine. If you wanted to do every activity, fine too.

Saturday morning cartoons.

Walter Cronkite telling us "And that's the way it is" before signing off every evening.

Peanuts holiday specials sponsored by Dolly Madison.

Afterschool Specials.

The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Jeannie, the Little Rascals and The Three Stooges and Looney Tuns (UNCUT!) on TV right after school let out.

Watching Mash re-runs at 6:30 while we ate dinner.

Ted Turner on WTBS when we first got cable. (13 channels. OMG! )

Lip Gloss, head bands with feathers dangling from the sides, leg warmers, feathered hair, too much eye shadow.

Being mad I wasn't allowed to go anywhere I wanted on my bicycle. I wasn't allowed to cross 4 lanes of busy traffic!

Jellies.

Mrs. Beazley, Holly Hobbie, Cabbage Patch, Garbage Pail Kids.

Listening to stories from WII vets (including some relations) and Holocaust survivors and POW's who were prisoners of the Japanese.

MTV. V-Jays. David Bowie. Punk rock. New Wave.

Reading The Lord of the Rings the first time in 5th grade.

Watching Star Trek with my Daddy when I was tiny.

Granny skirts and peasant blouses.

The Monkey Wards and Sears Christmas catalogs.

 

[denisenh]

we had to stand in line in our underwear in the cafeteria for an exam, weight and height in 5th grade and the doc looked in our panties.....for what i will never know.
it was mortifying and i hated it.

i got paddled by the teacher when i was 7 years old. she was mean, nasty and scary looking.

 

[Violet Crayon]

During the winter, in one of my elementary schools, if you didn't have appropriate winter gear the recess lady would make you stand and face the brick wall for the entire break. In 5th grade a lot of us thought we were too cool to wear boots so we would hide behind the sandbox (it had wooden walls cut into shapes) so as not to be caught.

There were curly/twirly slides on the playgrounds, but were removed when I was in late elementary school because a child strangled to death when her jacket string got caught.

A boy who I think had ADHD was isolated and placed in a "cubicle" in the back of the classroom. He used to sing and make strange sounds from behind the walls and the teacher would go off on him all of the time.

 

[dislal]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but my brothers used to carry a pocket knife to school every day and they did keep their guns in their car out in the school parking lot. I always tell my kids that we could not have books in school to read. We had a teacher in high school that if you brought any kind of book into his class(library book, avon book, any kind) he would rip it up and throw it in the garbage in front of the whole class. I remember one girl had a library book and he ripped it up and she cried that she would have to pay for it and he told her yes you will. He did warn us on the first day of school. Now they expect the kids to have a book to read at all times.



My kids school still does dodgeball, they say the pledge, and they have a moment of silence every morning.

 

[Bluestars]

We had monkey bars, teeter totters, and merry-go-rounds. A grade school I went to had horse day where you got to ride your horse to school on the last day of classes. This was out in the country.

In middle school some of the kids would go on the side of the field and smoke. One high school that I went to had a smoking area. Some of the kids would take their cigarettes out and put them on their desks in anticipation of the break when they could smoke.

At one school I went to the entire school lined up in the morning to sing two songs and say the pledge.

We played games like 7-up and some eraser game where you threw the eraser at someone and they were out if they didn't catch it. We were often left alone in classrooms.

We had a gun club.

In high school even the freshmen could go off campus anytime.

 

[Tat2ddisneymom]

I went to Catholic school and those nuns had the biggest paddles ever created. I only ever saw them used on two boys though. They would just threaten with them a lot.

My husband was beaten with a giant toothbrush. (He went to public school)

We did the whole square dancing thing, too. I was always the nice one who got stuck with the biggest nerds. I had the same boyfriend all through high school, so I didn't really care much who I had to dance with.

My cousin was thrown in a closet for an entire afternoon by a crazed nun.

I, for the most part, managed to stay out of trouble.

 

[famofsix]

my first grade teacher put bad kids in a big barrel she had in the classroom. She was also an alcoholic.

there was always good dessert along with the mystery meat for school lunch and milk was 10 cents.

we planted a garden outside in 3rd grade

 

[CindyKansas]

-We (girls) couldn't wear pants to school, dresses only (finally could when I was in 5th grade)

-spanking was allowed

-We were able to play tag & dodgeball

-In 4th grade one of my friends had her mouth taped shut in music class because she wouldn't keep quiet

-In 3rd grade the teacher would make you hold your hands out and she would rap your knuckles with a ruler if you were disobediant

-We walked to and from school, PLUS we went went home for lunch (Most Mom's were stay at home mom's)

Just a few that I remember

 

[Marilyn Mc]

DH and his fellow second grade classmates would get their ears pulled on by an evil Nun if they did not know an answer when she called on them. He said she yanked pretty hard. Kids would cry. In the same school in 8th grade, his teacher would draw 3 circles on the board, 1 for your head and 2 for your hands. The hands were far apart. He had to place his hands and head on the circles for an extended period of time for goofing off in class.

My fifth grade teacher made me stick gum on my nose and press it against the blackboard for 1 hour as punishment for chewing gum in class.

I remember in Kindergarten a substitue teacher spanked a girl over her knee bare bottemed. I was traumatized by that. I can't imagine how scarred for life the poor girl was.

On the plus side, my 3rd grade teacher would put Wheel Of Fortune on the TV every afternoon when it used to be an afternoon show. She was fun.

 

[IDoDis]

My 1st grade teacher (a nun) said there was a "spanking machine" in her high cabinet that she took out for the naughty kids. I used to stare at that cabinet all the time trying to figure out what the machine looked like

My 5th grade teacher was an alcoholic. She used to knit during class and would fall asleep at her desk and snore (sitting up). I was new to the school and had come from a parochial school so I was a couple years ahead. I became the surrogate teacher in the class when the teacher was passed out (the kids would line up at my desk to ask for help).

There was a riot at my high school between two different races of students. A cheerleader got hit in the head with a brick.

Students could smoke on campus at school as long as it was outside (there were many outside areas).

I'm now a teacher and have to say that we still say the pledge every day, the kids still wear Halloween costumes to school on Halloween and do a parade, we still play Heads Up 7-Up (and kids still cheat by looking at the shoes).

 

[Galahad]

and kids still cheat by looking at the shoes.

 

[lisah0711]

-We (girls) couldn't wear pants to school, dresses only (finally could when I was in 5th grade)

We had to wait until 7th grade to wear pants, although in 6th we could wear them the last Friday of every month.

-We were able to play tag & dodgeball

We did too!

-We walked to and from school, PLUS we went went home for lunch (Most Mom's were stay at home mom's)

We did that too, I was always mad if my Mom had to do something and I had to eat at school.

We had to practice duck and cover under our desks in case of nuclear attack -- like that was going to help!

Actually life was pretty good in the Anaheim school district in the 60's.

 

[stm61]

We would square dance in music class. I'd always have to be a "boy" b/c I was the tallest kid in the class (I'm 6' now). Needless to say, I HATED it.

We had Christmas parties all the time. Parents were allowed to bring in homemade goodies and were able to call it a Christmas party instead of a holiday party. It was quite nice.



My high school did too (I graduated in 2001). During my junior year, my English teacher was having an affair with my economics teacher, who was married to my math teacher. The English teacher's husband was also a teacher at the school. Talk about awkward! My math teacher would always talk about it too. It was crazy!

The school I went to 7-8th grade, the history teacher was the brother-in-law of the english teacher. Eighth grade year they left their spouses and married each other. Family reunions must of been loads of fun lol.

We had square dancing in the gym the week before Christmas every year. A few kids would pick their partners, the rest of us got paired up by height by the coaches. I was 5'7" by 7th grade, in 10th gr the only boy taller then me was my 9th gr brother. Guess who I got paired up with? Luckily, my friend was in the same set and traded partners with me. That boy wasn't real bright, didn't have many social skills, but felt free to swing me across the gym floor because my dad worked with his dad.

If you went into the girl's bathroom you had to announce "it's ok, not a teacher" or the smoker's would freak.

Fire alarms got pulled at least twice a month, especially in warm weather.

We also did the air raid/atomic bomb drills. In kindergarten we sat in the cellar for over an hour because they forgot to send someone to give us the all-clear. Now we do intruder drills and hide in the dark, and earthquake drills, where we sit under tables or desks. The principal told the kids to hold a book over their heads in case the walls fell down on them. Um, yeah, that'll help a lot lol.

Elementary schools didn't have lunch rooms, you ate in the classroom. We moved and the new school was only a few yrs old. They put tables on wheels in the gym and stacked them against the wall when they weren't needed. Free or reduced lunch wasn't invented until around 6th grade. Everyone had to pay as they bought, so we all knew who got free food. The only meal choices were bring it from home or eat the one meal they made, no salads or other options. There wasn't any such thing as breakfast in school either. You ate at home or tried to sneak an apple or a biscut on the bus.

Girls couldn't wear pants until we were in 4th grade. Then they said it was only for winter, but everyone continued to wear them that spring. Boys had to wear dress pants, no jeans. Noone ever wore shorts, unless you had PE last period in hs and didn't feel like changing before you got on the bus.

We lived in SC in elementary school and they let hs kids drive the bus. It started out as just the boys, until the girls staged a major protest. (Bus drivers got out early because the younger grades dismiss before the hs) Our adult driver retired when I was in 2nd gr and 2 of my cousins were hired to replace her. Daddy made sure he worked 2nd shift the rest of that year because he said he'd seen her drive a car, a pick-up, and a tractor, the bigger the vehicle, the worse she got, and he wouldn't get in any vehicle with her brother if his life depended on it. My uncle said he didn't blame him because the bus supervisor told him he hired them both because he couldn't decide which one of them was a worse driver! Plus he figured the one who didn't get hired would eventually aggravate the other into wrecking his bus. He figured it was cheaper to hire them both and threaten their lives if they so much as scratched his bus, then it would be to fix the bus.

We still say the pledge every morning and have a moment of silence at the elementary school I work in. However, the morning announcement is as follows: "Please stand for a moment of silence as we recite the pledge." We still haven't figured out how it's possible to do both at the same time. You can tell if a new teacher or sub is listening because they get this strange look on their face and usually ask if they just heard what they think they heard lol.

 

[stm61]

double-posted

 

[hereyago]

Kindergarten was half day for me, I recall fingerpainting, nap time snack time then home.
I remember the paddle especially middle school, never used on me because I feared my DF more.

Dodgeball, heads up 7 up, desk ball-which is just playing hot potato with a ball while sitting on desks or something to the affect and i dislocated my finger. 5th grade.

Square dance, there was a pole with like ribbons hanging from it, and we kind of braided the ribbons? parachute for pe.

middle school i remember Physical fitness Presidential award and doing the bar hang when I thought my arms would fall off.

high school=i parked off campus and just walked out for lunch and didnt do pep rallies, i would rather go home. smoker's lounge was outside, ganja lounge, behind the bleachers.

one year in high school 2 times, someone put this skunk spray stuff in the vents and we got out early. driver's ed teacher, omg was a raging alcoholic, that wasn't coffee in his cup. my pe coach was over 200 lbs with man ta tas and he would tell girls he had more than they had.