Growing up in the UK, I was always quite jealous of those American kids on the imported TV shows, whose schools had huge rows of lockers. Not only did they not have to lug all their books to school, but they could paste photos of their sweethearts inside the door, hide illicit stashes in there, even in some cases shove obnoxious classmates in for a laugh.
We never had lockers. (Well, actually, towards the end of my time at school, they did install a few, but nowhere near enough for everyone and you had to apply in a ballot system to get one.) None of my friends at other schools had them either. I was at school in the 1980s and 1990s, but I doubt if much has changed since.
So do US schools really have these rows of gleaming lockers or is it just a TV cliche like unemployed people living in swish loft apartments? And more to the point, why don’t British schools?
Pretty much all US public middle and high schools have lockers. On TV, the lockers are usually full-height; in most schools that I have seen, the lockers are half-height, stacked two-high.
The high school I went to(late 70’s) had lockers. The school I coach at had them at one time but they were removed due to theft and vandalism. Still have lockers for gym.
I think it was about the 7th grade when I first had a locker. Had them the rest of the way through high school, none in college, but had another in law school. As noted above, we had the half-size lockers, not the full length size suitable for imprisoning classmates.
The tall lockers are common in northern states, where people wear long coats and high boots in the winter.
In elementary school, though, we had “cloak rooms” where all the coats and hats were on pegs and boots got jumbled and every day we would have to figure out who was wearing someone else’s boots.
Back in 19-mumble, we had an atrium full of lockers we could access between classes that were ours for the school year. Gym lockers were only ours for the duration of the class period.
Neither locker was big enough to enclose an average size nerd. Thank heaven for small mercies.
All of the middle school/junior high and high schools that I and my kids went to have had lockers. Many times one locker was shared between two students, though.
School lockers are definitely getting downsized. They used to be full length and at least fourteen to eighteen inches wide. Now they’re often either half-height or very narrow, about six to eight inches wide. In some cases they’re not even half-height, only about a foot square.
Had them from 7th grade on. Junior high lockers (7-9th grade for me) were half height. But high school had a mix. Seniors and juniors got the first pick of which they wanted. That was a quantity issue and not some sort of privilege distinction, especially as many students used their cars for storage and never obtained a locker. Incidently, this was in Texas were the full height lockers were certainly not needed for long winter coats.
When I was in high school, though, we were doubled up in the lockers, so I had to share. This was particularly inconvenient because my locker-mate was a football player. Not only was it annoying that he was trying to fit his uniform (with shoulder pads) into the same locker I was putting my trumpet case in (I was in band), but the football jocks had “Secret Friends” who put snacks in the locker for him. These inevitably got smooshed into MY books (never his).
After a bit of this I located an unused locker and moved into it.
My high school (1966 - 1969) did not have lockers. Too many people with a double shift schedule that ran from 8 am or so to about 5 PM. My junior high didn’t have them either.
We did have gym lockers, just not hallway lockers.
And by too many people, we had 1,066 in the class before me and about 1,500 people in my class. I don’t think there would be room for all those lockers.
Historical note: Back in the 50s, in the “duck and cover” era, we used to have drills to prepare for a nuclear attack. We silently exited the classroom, in single file, opened our locker doors, and stood facing our locker, between the open doors. This was somehow supposed to protect us from nuclear annihilation. Pity the kid on the end, who got nuked on one side.
Went to high school (8th through 12th grade) in the 70s in metro Atlanta. Had half-height lockers, newly assigned each year to be near your home room. NOT gleaming, just beige industrial metal, like filing cabinets, etc. It was an old school with the newest part having been built in the 40s. Would not have surprised me if the lockers were that old, but they were probably more like late 50s - early 60s vintage.