Inspired by this thread. I went to elementary school in the late 70s, early 80s; Indiana and Missouri. I should specify, only public schools.
Corporal punishment. The paddle in the principal’s office was legendary. I was a good kid, so I never saw it. When I reached adulthood, I became of the opinion that it was nothing more than a legend. I found out while I was working in education that yes, the paddle was almost certainly real. When I was in fifth grade, the teacher bent a male student over her knee and spanked him. This might have even been legal in 1984; I’m not sure.
Frightening the kiddies. Our kindergarten teacher told us that the principal was going to come in the classroom, starting tomorrow, and eat one of us each day. As far as I know, not one parent called the school.
My first-grade teacher’s punishment for spitting? You stood in the corner with an empty jar of paste. You were required to drool into the jar until it was full. No stopping for water.
Teachers’ Aids who had dropped out of high school. I had one who told us that “birds aren’t animals; they’re birds.” Those people who studied planets and stars and stuff? They were called “astronominers.” That one was eventually let go. Not for promulgating ignorance, but for abuse of our old friend, corporal punishment.
Singing religiously themed songs in music appreciation. In my opinion, that’s no different from reading the Bible in English Lit, but I can understand why other people would object. We had this school camp in fifth grade where we said grace and sang little hymns before dinners. That, to me, is not acceptable. I also have a problem with us singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” after saying the pledge of allegiance.
Finally, one from high school. A couple of us were working after school to finish up a chemistry experiment. There was no adult supervisor in the room. Another student - a friend - made some kind of insulting remark, so I grabbed a test tube full of something or other and chased him down the hall. What was in there was chemically not dangerous, but it had just come off the Bunsen Burner and was just hot. Might have gotten a detention for that if I’d been caught. Another kid doing that now would at best have his lab privileges revoked. Or possibly even expelled.
In any case… these are all things that didn’t raise an eyebrow now. But (correct me if I’m wrong) any one of these things would get a teacher in some very serious trouble.
Though it was seldom used, my school had a corporal punishment policy right up through senior year.
We used some highly dangerous chemicals in HS science class: Sodium ferocyanide, mercury, sodium, lithium and others.
In sixth grade we built and launched model rockets.
As long as you left it in your car you could bring your rifle or shotgun to school with you during hunting season.
We had a shop project to make knives out of some kind of plexiglass. Also making throwing knives was an approved project in metal shop. Of course most schools now don’t even offer shop classes because of the liability risk.
Our school had monthly Campus Life assemblies. Campus Life is a rabidly evangelical Christian youth recruitment organization.
I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten in the 23 years since I graduated.
We had a HS teacher who would frequently throw kids up against the lockers outside the classroom for various acts of misbehavior and/or incompetence.
We also had a HS teacher whose favorite punishment to dole out was to makde a kid stand 3 ft. away from the chalkboard and lean forward on the chalk tray with just your thumbs until he said you could stop. Trust me, after a few minutes it’s torture.
I can’t think of anything specific that would make the papers but things were a whole lot more lax when I went to school. I remember when it started to be beach weather everyone wore shorts and flipflops. When I got here (Florida)they were just beginning to ban shorts and I think it might still be in effect.
All my teachers, with the exception of the fundamentalist who taught science(!) were outspoken liberals and you were as likely to engage in a socio-political conversation as one about the actual subject you were there to learn.
Oh, and my teacher read “Jaws” aloud to us. In third grade.
Fighting, it was routinely tolerated, and if it was noticed at all it might be to drag both parties to the gym and “put the gloves on”. And if bulleying did not lead to fighting it was ignored.
Spitting wasn’t banned per se, but you’d probably get in trouble for spitting on someone.
My own mother was a high-school dropout teacher’s aide. Based on my own teachers’ aides in elementary school, they didn’t really do much harm; they didn’t teach, after all. They just kind of handled lines and coats and reading materials and library visits.
I specifically remember any overtly religious stuff, although we did perform the pledge of allegiance every morning.
Heh, we had unsupervised access to the chem lab, too. In fact in my senior year I was an aide (the school was out of classes for me to take by virtue of having come from better schools). I can’t remember her name now, but my partner caused a chlorine spill that resulted in evacuating the school!
My own list:
Smoking areas in the high school. For students. Also in one of the computer labs (for teachers), but it was a student lab. Let a parent find that out today, and it’d be on the news at night.
Open campus. From what I can understand, those are all but extinct. (You can come and go as you please, such as at lunch.) One irresponsible student gets run over, and parents would be fighting over closing the campus.
I guess that that’s a short list. There was never really anything very controversial.
As a reward, our sixth grade teacher let us vote on what movie we wanted to see. We voted for “Psycho,” and he agreed.
To his credit, he came back the next day and vetoed the vote, saying he didn’t want to deal with parents whose precious snookums was waking up in the middle of the night screaming. So he rented “Birds” instead.
These days I’ll get a serious reprimand if I rent any movie for my students instead of using the approved ones from the media center–let alone showing something remotely scary to them.
I started kindergarten in 1990, so pretty late compared to others. The only thing I really remember was in preschool when this kid, who was a huge troublemaker, got his pants and undies pulled down and was spanked in front of everybody. I even saw his junk, which was very… odd.
Not sure if that would have constituted child abuse at the time. It might have, because of the no-pants.
I was shown the “strap” in grade 7: in the principal’s office.
I was lifted partially off the ground by my right ear in grade 9, by the math teacher.
We read the Lord’s Prayer in the morning in elementary school.
We had a student smoking area in high school: joints optional.
We could play tackle football at recess, or pretty much any kind of game we wanted. (Although snowball throwing was not permitted.)
Everyone walked to school and back. There were no buses.
In grade 11 my electricity teacher gave me some money, and his car keys, and asked me to go get him a replacement headlight for his car: during class time.
I’ll think of more…
The coolest class I took in high school, and one of the most popular, was a social studies elective for seniors called “American Political Thought and Radicalism.” The first half was about various counterculture movements- the Hippies, the Dada-ists, those types. The real draw, though, was the second half of the semester, which included a speaker series. Basically, the teacher had people from all sorts of fringe political groups and parties come in and speak to the class- the KKK, the Commies, the Moonies, the Nazis, the Moral Majority, and so on. The next class after each talk was spent discussing (which typically ended up meaning shredding) whatever way-out-there points and arguments the speaker had offered. It was totally cool and gave young people a chance to hear and deconstruct these messages in a controlled setting, with a friendly but dispassionate teacher serving as foil, ombudsman, devil’s advocate, etc.
I’m fairly confident that it would never fly today. “SCHOOL INVITES KLAN TO SPEAK!!! FILM AT 11:00!” “THE LIBERAL SCHOOL ESTABLISHMENT IS TRYING TO TURN OUR KIDS COMMUNIST!!!” “I HATE ILLINOIS NAZIS!!!” etc.
Yup. And in fact, many of the guys did exactly that. As far as I know, nobody ever even thought about doing anything inappropriate with a gun in that situation. Doing such would have caused an immediate and likely permanent parental revocation of gun ownership and hunting privileges, which was considered a fate worse than death.
I was in public school through 1998, and I lived through some remarkable changes in school policy.
When I was in first grade, the school was an open campus–as a first grader, I walked home for lunch, then back to school. By my senior year, they locked us in the cafeteria during lunch.
When I was in first grade, a student with permission could run down the hall to the bathroom during class hours. By my senior year, you weren’t allowed out of the classroom unless you were accompanied by the teacher.
When I was in first grade they took it for granted that a kid was who he said he was. By my senior year students had to wear ID badges while on school ground.
I have some memories of teachers doing very inappropriate things–like dumping the whole contents of a student’s desk into the trash can, in fifth grade–but I bet the same crap goes on today. There are kids who are too scared to report that stuff to their parents, and the asshole teachers zero in on those kids instinctively.
One teacher was known for hitting boys over the head with his yardstick. The girls just got a solid whack on the desk (which scared you out of a year’s growth).
Strap in the principal’s office, kids sent to him for a good spanking if it was well-earned. I don’t recall many kids acting up so badly as to deserve it; knowing the teachers held that in reserve was a good deterrent.
As Leaffan said, no buses except for rural students. Everyone walked - even when it was -30ºC. You had to dress for the weather - schools weren’t closed just because it was cold or snowy.
High school in Saskatchewan city in the 80’s:
One teacher suspected of being a pedophile; kids just avoided him. He also used to have kids over to his house which was close to the school, unsupervised.
I recall one student pushing the physics teacher too far one day, and he went over the desk and took the student down. We all marvelled at that, but it wasn’t a big deal.
Smoking room in the school for students.
Students walked, biked or took the city transit buses. No parents driving students. Some students had their own cars (beaters).
I remember a science teacher looking through female student’s handbags. In front of the whole class, taking out objects one at a time and commenting on them.
A chemistry teacher used to talk a lot about one of his interests, harpsichord music. He called them har-piss-chords. Unintentionally.
No big deals.
We survived a number of devious corporal punishments, threats, incompetency and even practicing crouching under our desks in hopes the atomic bomb wouldn’t fry us into cinders.
My school had “Religious Emphasis Week” for the three days before Easter Sunday (we got that Thursday and Friday off for “spring break”).
Mandatory school-wide assemblies where we were forced to watch the cheerleaders and football players put on skits about the beauty of fundamentalist Christianity. “Guest speakers” who were pastors at local Baptist churches who preached to us in the guise of religious education. “Talent presentations” where people sang hymns or played hymns on various instruments. No religion other than fundamentalist Christianity was presented or discussed.
My mother SWEARS she had no idea this was happening, or she would have said/done something. Given that it was pretty publicly known, I doubt that.
My high school had a smoking area too. You got a smoking pass by registering at the principals office. They required a letter from the parents giving consent. this was late 1970’s.
We had a flexible schedule at my high school. Much like a college. You had time periods for class. Then free time where you could go to study hall or go to a teachers class room to study and get help. We weren’t supposed to leave campus. Lots of us did.
By some definitions, she’d be right. This blew my mind when I learned it, but in some dialects of English, “animal” is synonymous with “mammal.” My question has always been: okay, then what word do you use that encompasses mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, etc.? “Critters”? Ours is a funny language.
My old (public) high school choir to this day still sings Gloria in Excelsis Deo and the like. I doubt that’ll ever change, because the best choral music has always been written for the church, and the director endeavors to make sure there’s no message behind it.
I remember a subsitute teacher we had multiple times in 7th grade that would force kids that misbehaved to “wall sit.” Basically, stand against the wall and then bend your knees with legs together until your thighs were parallel to the ground. Make sure you keep your back against the wall, no leaning forward. Now hold that position for however long he’s decided your punishment should last. Torture, plain and simple.
We had an open campus, but I’ve heard of several other schools w/ this policy lately so I don’t think it’s as close to extinction as **Balthisar **thinks.
I had a science teacher in the mid 80’s that would pay kids a nickel for every grasshopper they would bring him to feed to the class boa constictor. Not sure if this is something that would be a problem now or not, but believe me - we’d come to school with shoeboxes FULL of grasshoppers. Scores of them.
Lots of religion:
Lord’s Prayer in Kindergarten
Daily Pledge of Allegiance, and you DID stand up.
Prayer at Graduation, led by two local preachers
Breakfast at a local church for all members of the football team on game day. Came with a sermon.
A teacher in Western Australia got stood down this week for taping kids’ mouths shut.
I don’t remember anything outrageous from my school days. There was one PE teacher who threw a kid into the wall. And at high school, the senior students were allowed off campus for lunch.
