# Lockers in school corridors... TV trope **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2024, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547 "2024-12-12T10:29:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/81 "2024-12-12T19:22:56Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > The modern school is an amazing place. We have many older members here, and they probably have no idea what it is like in 2024. My son’s high school was built in 2019-20 and opened to students for the 2020-21 school year. There are no student lockers anywhere on premises aside from lockers for the athletic teams in/near the gymnasium. He also doesn’t have any textbooks as my generation understands them. A lot is done with various online written sources, and I don’t even mean a single online one-stop-shop textbook. I mean that teachers draw materials from dozen of websites and upload them to Google Classroom, Edmentum, etc. for their students to use. He does sometimes have physical soft-cover novels to read, but nowhere near as many as we had in the 1980s. My daughter graduated high school in 2021 and only had a handful of physical textbooks over those years. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/82 "2024-12-12T19:29:23Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > If I needed a textbook for homework, it’d go home with me that night, and then I’d bring it back to school the next morning. Also, depending on country, it may shock people how large some of those American textbook really were. Like several hundred pages of nearly A4 sized paper with thick hardcovers. And between all classes, maybe 5 or 6 of those. It was a workout just lugging those around. The textbook business and corresponding lobbying is huge. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/83 "2024-12-12T19:29:29Z")
In the 60s, I would have been laughed out of junior high or high school if I had carried a backpack. We carried only the few books and notebooks we needed for a couple classes. Further, guys carried the books at their side with one edge on the hip. Women carried them clutched to their front. I remember this very distinctly because several guys I knew got teased for “carrying books like a girl.” Just saying… ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/84 "2024-12-12T19:30:24Z")
I see. It was the opposite for us: We’d keep our school stuff, including books, at home and only bring those each morning that we’d need during that day. And we’d carry those around the schoolhouse in a bag (of the sort described by @EinsteinsHund). But I think this scheme worked only thanks to some fundamental difference between German and American schools: For the most part, the entire class would stay together as a group across subjects, and stay in the same physical room. And when, say English lesson was over, the English teacher would leave the room, the students would stay, and, say, the maths teacher would come in. So the teacher would come to the students, rather than the other way around, minimising the need for students to haul stuff around the building. Things would only be the other way around (the teacher staying in a dedicated room and different classes coming to that room one after another) for dedicated subjects such as chemistry that required special lab equipment. The students-move-around-and-the-teacher-stays principle would only become the general default in the last two years of high school when students were given greater freedom in selecting the courses they wanted to attend rather than getting a pre-defined curriculum imposed on the entire class. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/85 "2024-12-12T19:32:27Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > It would be - but it’s not terribly common for high school students in the US to have 75% of their classes in one classroom and for the other 25% to be in the room next door. If I had 7 classes, they were most likely in 7 different classrooms scattered all through the building and most likely none of them would be in the room where I went for homeroom for 15 minutes. People i knew with lockers didn’t go there after each class . That was their first stop in the morning, last stop before going home and maybe once in the middle of the day. This. But a lot depended on where your locker was, relative to your classrooms, the cafeteria, etc. I remember being able to stop by my locker a few times each day - not between each class, but often enough so I wouldn’t be carrying more than three books at a time. My son, who’s in his senior year in high school, has no textbooks and rarely wears a jacket over his sweatshirt. If the school has lockers, I doubt he ever uses his. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/86 "2024-12-12T19:35:07Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Back in the early seventies, backpacks were manufactured for camping & hiking. Most of them had rigid frames. Most people use the word ‘backpack’ to refer to what we would have called a knapsack. Language evolves, and I’d say that’s been pretty much the standard usage in the U.S. for decades now. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/87 "2024-12-12T19:35:16Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > What exactly do American students keep in those lockers? The books that they don’t need for the classes on that day? But I’m sure they will, at some point, need those books at home for a homework assignment, so wouldn’t they rather store the books at home? I had to share my locker at first with a football player. The locker was inadequate. Besides both our collections of school books, he kept his uniform in there, and I kept my trumpet in its case. In winter we put out very heavy coats in there. I suppose some people put boots in there, but my books were on the bottom of the locker, and would’ve been covered with water and slush if either of us tried to put used winter boots in there. It was bad enough that my lockermate Herb had a “secret friend” – a designated person who put occasional decorations or treats in the locker. This person was invariably female. I found the little gifts annoying, but after my books got covered with cake and icing I thought it was time to move out. Fortunately there were some empty lockers, and I appropriated one of these. Herb was happy to have me and my trumpet move out, too. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/88 "2024-12-12T19:37:22Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > The school I last taught in removed the lockers a few years after I retired, maybe 2015-ish. They were the metal kind that used a combination padlock. For years kids had the habit of toting everything around in backpacks and rarely used the lockers anyway. Now the school system issues a Chromebook to each kid at the beginning of school and collects them at the end, so more textbooks. I assume from your handle you are in California. In my Philadelphia HS, it was forbidden to bring outer coats and, especially galoshes, to the classroom. This was especially enforced for last period. When I started 9th grade, I was issued two padlocks and had to return them at the end of 12th. One for the regular locker and the other for the gym. At the beginning of each term, you were assigned a regular locker near your homeroom. For gym, you just grabbed any vacant locker. Hijack: I still remember, 70 years later the two combinations: 7-43-36 and 9-41-36 and I quickly discovered that they would both open on 8-42-36 and stopped paying attention to which was which. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/89 "2024-12-12T19:42:12Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > But I think this scheme worked only thanks to some fundamental difference between German and American schools: I don’t - because that’s basically exactly what I did. My textbooks lived at home, and I had homework requiring them nearly every day. The only book that regularly came to school with me was the book I was reading for English - and it was a regular book, not a textbook. > [@Schnitte](#): > > The students-move-around-and-the-teacher-stays principle would only become the general default in the last two years of high school when students were given greater freedom in selecting the courses they wanted to attend rather than getting a pre-defined curriculum imposed on the entire class. But this is a difference - in the school systems I know of , the totally pre-defined curriculum ended by 6th or 7th grade. By that point, students would be taking different languages so that would would result in at least one subject where the class couldn’t be kept together. And by the first year in the actual high school , a student might be in an honors English class, but a regular track history class and a slightly slower than usual math class in addition to students taking different language, gym, music and art classes. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/90 "2024-12-12T19:42:56Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > That’s passe in the most modern schools. Smartboards/whiteboards have been replaced by Clevertouch devices that have apps and options that would take two full pages to describe. When the Firebug (now a HS senior) was in elementary school, they were still using smartboards. You mention triangular desks. Not sure how I’d deal with a triangular desk, no matter what I had with me. Notebook, Chromebook, whatever: most of our stuff is rectangular. Seems like you’d have to be extra careful not to knock stuff over the edge. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/91 "2024-12-12T19:44:31Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > they were still using smartboards. Now reading this sentence, with “still” attached to “smartboards”, well … that’s makin’ me feel old. Real old. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/92 "2024-12-12T19:45:35Z")
Me too - I’m so old my kids still had blackboards. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/93 "2024-12-12T19:46:12Z")
In junior high school, one of my classmates was known for having wealthy parents. How wealthy? They bought her two copies of all her textbooks: one for home, and one for school. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/94 "2024-12-12T19:46:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Now reading this sentence, with “still” attached to “smartboards”, well … that’s makin’ me feel old. Real old. Guess what - we’re old. Such is life. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/95 "2024-12-12T19:48:16Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Now reading this sentence, with “still” attached to “smartboards”, well … that’s makin’ me feel old. Real old. What _did_ you write with back before the chalk deposits formed? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/96 "2024-12-12T19:48:59Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > In junior high school, one of my classmates was known for having wealthy parents. How wealthy? They bought her two copies of all her textbooks: one for home, and one for school. I don’t recall ever owning a textbook. They’d issue them to you when the school year began, and collect them in June. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/97 "2024-12-12T19:59:13Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > What _did_ you write with back before the chalk deposits formed? Saber-toothed cat blood. But each kid had to kill their own cat to harvest the blood. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/98 "2024-12-12T20:01:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I didn’t have lockers in my Catholic elementary school (although we had cloakrooms, where we hung our coats, and there were shelves if you needed to stash something). But there were lockers in my high school (built 1961). There were also separate lockers in the gym changing rooms. > > I’m sure it was pretty standard in high school construction in the 1960s and 1970s, and probably beyond that. Ditto. Our school was combined grade school and high school. In grade school, we had one teacher and an assigned desk where you could lift the top and keep books etc inside. (Or some models, the top was fixed but you could reach into a space under to desktop.) For specialty subjects (i.e. French) the teacher came to our classroom. Come to think of it, I don’t remember changing for gym in grade school, we did basic stuff - murder ball or baseball outside - in our street clothes. It was never very demanding/sweaty. In high school, you were never in the same room two periods in a row, so everyone got lockers for their stuff. You used a combination lock bought from the school store, so they had (I presume) the combination on file. (The top-lift desks were really old with a bent steel pipe frame that had a swivel seat on a post. By high school, kids were big enough to lean back on the seat and raise the whole front of the desk in the air. The strain would eventually cause the T weld between the post and the desk frame to fail, and someone sitting down at a desk and having the whole chair piece break off and fall over was a common funny joke. Eventually the high school desks were replaced with those more modern one-piece half-desks with no lifting lid and no storage under the desk, but a wire frame bookbag holder under the seat.) Most of the lockers I remember in different schools were full-sized, hence the Hollywood bully trope of stuffing the small kid in his locker. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/99 "2024-12-12T20:05:56Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > But this is a difference - in the school systems I know of , the totally pre-defined curriculum ended by 6th or 7th grade. By that point, students would be taking different languages so that would would result in at least one subject where the class couldn’t be kept together. And by the first year in the actual high school , a student might be in an honors English class, but a regular track history class and a slightly slower than usual math class in addition to students taking different language, gym, music and art classes. I never thought about it at the time, but making up a schedule for a couple of hundred students and dozens of teachers - by hand in the days before PC’s - must have been an interesting exercise. the first week always involved some students getting their schedule re-done. In university, you were on your own. The class chedules were listed, and it was up to you to pick the classes and which particulay class schedule worked for the courses you wanted to take. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547/100 "2024-12-12T20:06:45Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Hijack: I still remember, 70 years later the two combinations: 7-43-36 and 9-41-36 and I quickly discovered that they would both open on 8-42-36 and stopped paying attention to which was which. My first combination was trivially easy to remember: 12-24-36. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockers-in-school-corridors-tv-trope/1011547.md?page=6)