This article is based on the AskReddit question “What is something you remember happening in school that could NEVER happen today?”
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
24. At least it wasn’t a real brick!
My psych teacher had a foam brick on his desk and he would throw it at people that were talking or not paying attention while he was taking.
Admiral_Fancypants
23. No more detention!
High school 1980-85, we routinely carried knives and brought guns to school in our cars. Opening day of pheasant season which started at noon, a friend and I attended class until lunch bell then skipped out the rest of the day to go hunting. As we are doing a little road hunting we come upon a pickup and hear a ton of shooting from this creek. We decide to stop and talk with the other hunters and see if they got any birds. 10 minutes later, 2 obviously drunk as hell guys come stumbling out of the creek bottom. It was the principal and school superintendent, principal says “We didn’t see you, you didn’t see us. Normally, you have to serve after school detention for skipping classes, the 2 of us never got detention for the rest of that year.
Biker_Bob
22. Assassin games
We had a game called ‘assassin’, wherein you drew the name of another player out of a hat. It was your mission to ‘assassinate’ that player using a toy suction cup dart gun. Once you ‘killed’ your target, you took that person’s assigned target and went after them. Winner was the last player alive. The only restriction was that you couldn’t shoot someone during class.
Anonymous
21. More like troll game
We had a game called “The Box Game. It was used as an initiation/hazing ceremony to the freshman boys who wanted to do theater. Basically, we would tell all the freshman boys that all the seniors got together and pitched in to get a bunch of gift cards to places like Starbucks, Chipotle, etc, and all of these cards were hidden in a box somewhere in the auditorium.
The catch is, you can only search for the box if you’re only in your underwear. So here we have 15+ 14 year old boys running around our auditorium during school hours in nothing but their briefs. We also dont tell them that all the theater girls are waiting to cheer them on in the auditorium.
After 5 or so minutes of running around and screaming, we announce that someone has found the box and everyone has to go outside to find who it is. We get them all outside to reveal there is no box, and they’ve been completely duped into running around in their briefs. Good times.
hehyih
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20. Bizarre flirting techniques
I got my bra snapped in middle school. Boy behind me pulled it back and unhooked it so that when it hit my back, it was undone. Impressive move, really, for a 12 year old to unhook a bra one handed. Nowadays that would be sexual assault etc, but back then it was just dumb flirting that boys would do to girls they liked.
cinnamonsnake
19. Its all fun and games in 85
On the last day of school in Grade 9 – last day of junior high – my friends and I took our principal ‘hostage’ with water bombs and squirt guns. We tied him to an office chair with an electrical cord and wheeled him up and down the halls. We called the school board and demanded ransom of ice cream sandwiches. After two hours of this, they gave in and we got our sandwiches. We released the principal – I think he got an ice cream, too. It was all in good fun. We were the ‘good kids’, and everyone including the principal was laughing along with us. But this was 1985. I seriously doubt this would go over so well in 2016.
yasirrauf10
18. No more talking in class
In 1st grade I got in trouble for talking too much. At one point, my teacher threatened to sew my lips shut and even had me come up to her desk where she pulled out a little sewing kit and made me pick what color thread I wanted her to use. I’m 41 years old and that is one of a very few things I remember from grade school.
Jeff-Gardner
17. Video games as a form of education
Every Friday in third grade, as a part of our social studies class, we played SimTown, which was created in 1995. We played it on these really old computers and called it Town Time. The goal was to learn about all the different elements involved with successfully running a local government and how one thing (like clean running water) could have a major impact on many other aspects of people’s lives. To the extent that it’s one of the few parts of elementary school I actually remember, I think it was an incredibly effective educational tool.
I don’t think the Sims would be accepted as a form of education in this day and age, and I certainly don’t think anyone still plays SimTown.
sharxattack
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16. Oops! oh well, its just a knife
I once brought a 5 inch folding knife to school by accident( Parents have a farm. I was cutting twine off of hay bails to feed cattle before school.) I noticed I still had it as I sat down in class and all I had to do was let them hold onto it until the end of the day. Not a big deal and I didn’t get in any trouble.
Can_Confirm_Am_Dog
15. So much liberty!
Browsing the internet with no filter. No websites were blocked, not even porn sites.
And if you had a car, you could leave on your own free will during lunch. All you had to do was check out; they’d know if you didn’t check back in. No one really worried about it.
Also, my parents had a smoking lounge at their school. It seems like school is often portrayed as more strict in the 60s-70s, but kids actually had a lot more liberties back then.
catching_signals
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14. 80s way of handling school fights
Fights that were just broken up by teachers and punishments like detention for fighting. I remember getting into it with a fellow 7th grader during lunch. This was about 1987-88. We both spent half the day in-school suspension and it was over. Today that’s call for felony charges.
The other kid and I never were good friends but we were cool after the fight.
Whoknew72
13. The hidden shooting range
My father went to the same high school I did. One day I was helping a teacher bring up supplies from the basement and noticed there were really long alleyways in the basement. (teacher had no idea what they were). My father told me it was the old rifle range. They had clubs where you could bring in your rifle and practice shooting during your free period or after school with the Principal.
yasirrauf05
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12. Having the freedom to burn fields!
My senior project involved doing a controlled burn of a field in the back of the school. I can’t imagine any administration in 2016 saying to a group of 17-18 year olds “Ok, you kids go out and burn a couple acres on Saturday, and if you don’t burn down the school, we’ll give you an A.
automator3000
11. Thats all they got for fighting
2 kids get in a fight. Teacher breaks it up and smacks them both on the back of the head. They get lunch detention and that’s it.
No police, no charges filed, no parents looking to sue the school. Just two kids being kids.
_DrFeltersnatch
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10. The Soviet days
I grew up in soviet union, went to school between 1981 and 1991. We had a class called early military training. Girls and boys had different teachers and different class. Girls were being taught basic first aid and some civil defense. Boys were taught basic marching techniques, firearm safety and maintenance etc. We had two real, functional AK-47s in school that we used to learn how to take them apart and put together again and how they worked. Locked in a simple wooden cabinet.
MadWombat
9. You wont get in trouble
In high school World History class, we had a guy who was really annoying. He annoyed everyone all year, the teacher included, and wouldn’t shut up. During the last week of class, he was in rare form, and the teacher called me out into the hall with him.
He said, “I need to go down to the teacher’s lounge to make some copies. I’ll be gone about 10 minutes. Whatever happens while I’m gone, you won’t get in trouble for.” Then he walked off down the hall.
We happened to have some water balloons in our possession that day, and after the annoying guy got soaked, he toned it down for the rest of the week/year. He actually even said, “Well, I guess I had that coming.”
Teacher came back a few minutes later with copies and a fresh cup of coffee and picked up his lecture with no comment about the water on the floor or the sodden student.
midesaka
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8. Carrying pocket knives
Teacher asks for a knife to open a package. No one moves.
Teacher then states, “Look, I don’t care. I know at least half of you have a pocket knife. You won’t get in trouble.”
Almost the entire class offers a pocket knife.
baconair
7. Dont look! hes naked!
When I was 16, nearly 17, my A-level art class all went to a life drawing class at a local arts center.
8 of us went and drew a live, naked human being for a couple of hours.
It was an excellent learning experience. All of us were worried about giggling when we set out for a session but actually once the shock of being in the presence of a naked person wore off we all just got on with it and made the most of the opportunity. that was in 2000.
I cannot imagine the kids that, at that point, were toddling around their parents living rooms being given the same opportunity now. It’s such a shame – as if a naked human will somehow ‘damage innocent minds’. As if those kids aren’t in possession of bodies themselves.
butwhatsmyname
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6. What a fun game!
There was a P.E. Game called Shark Attack.
We had a huge colorful parachute. There were 3 teams, Sharks, Lifeguards, and then the people with their legs in the parachute (Idr what they were called.)
Anyways, the parachute was like an ocean in the game. The Sharks were under the parachute the whole time, and they had to grab the people’s legs and drag them in.
If you were being dragged in, you’d call “LIFEGUARD!!!” so that a lifeguard would come and pull you out.
It was honestly the best part of elementary school. Sadly, I doubt they do it anymore because it involves pulling people’s legs/arms.
Anonymous
5. Clever technique
I had an English teacher from South Africa and one lesson when she caught someone chewing gum, she told us about what her old teacher did as a punishment for students he caught chewing gum. He would take the chewed gum, put in a jar, where it would stay until he caught another student chewing gum. He would then take their gum and swap it with the old gum from the jar and then make them chew it. The new gum would then be put in the jar, so the cycle could continue.
Safe to say no one chewed gum in class after hearing that story.
abirw
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4. That hilarious game
This was just our school. In my elementary school, the game most kids played at recess was “Bump” (some people call it Knockout, Lightening, etc).
One of the 5th grade teachers was in pretty good shape and would play with us. His rule was that if you got him out, he’d bring you a popsicle. But if he got you out? He’d then pull out a marker and draw a massive L on your forehead for “loser.” My parents thought it was hilarious, and so did I. I could see parents today throwing a fit over that.
ThePrince_OfWhales
3. Making explosives
Early 90s: I told my high school chemistry teacher I wanted to try out a recipe for making potassium tri-iodide, a contact explosive (like, the dried chemicals explode on touch). She loaned me a key to the supply closet, told me to clean up after myself and to please take the chemicals outside before they dried, and left.
The bang was wildly disappointing.
15blinks
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2. The highchairs
In kindergarten our classroom had two old-fashioned wooden highchairs (like for feeding babies). Anyone who misbehaved was sent to the back of the room to sit in the “baby seat” for a while as punishment, while the rest of us would laugh at the “baby.” That was the sole purpose of these highchairs. I’m ashamed at how we laughed at those sent to sit in them, but in our defence we were 5 years old and being encouraged to do so by our teacher.
I can see some lawsuits and hefty therapy bills if this sort of thing still happened today.
Ollamoot
1. Its self-defence
My dad graduated high school in 1980. He was smoking outside and a guy started picking on him. The gym teacher was out there smoking and saw it all. So the gym teacher told my dad to come over to his house after school and for a week or so after school and actually taught him how to throw a good punch and block/weave hits. The next time the guy picked on my old pops, he beat him up. They both got sent to the office and the gym teacher (who was outside smoking as well) told the principal that the bully was picking on my dad and swung at him, said that pops was just defending himself. My dad literally beat this kid. There is no way that would ever happen nowadays.
Fortembras88
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