Who doesn’t remember drinking milk with their pizza or burgers in the cafeteria? When you’re in high school, you don’t question a lot of the things that happen around you. It’s only when you leave that you start to realize what a weird place it really was! Some of the things are a bit peculiar, while others are positively bizarre.
Bored Panda has collected some of the best examples of weird school things, so scroll down to see exactly what we mean. For those of you still in high school, maybe this list will open up your eyes to all the weirdness. Remember to upvote your faves and leave a comment about other weird high school things you’ve noticed, dear Pandas!
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I had to do square dancing in 4th grade with a boy and the teachers wouldn't let us bring wipes or gloves. This was the time when cooties was a thing. It was gross.
It’s not just former students who think that high school is incredibly strange—some teachers are flabbergasted, too. For example, Michael De Main has been teaching in secondary schools for 16 years and he thinks that a lot of teachers accept things that are downright weird.
In Michael’s opinion, it’s bizarre that different high schools can choose to start and end classes at different times. So while one school might open at 8 AM, another might decide to start classes 15 minutes later. The same weirdness extends to periods that can last for 40, 50, or even 75 minutes, depending on school policy. Don’t even get us started on how breaks are not the same length, either.
If we started packing up before the teacher asked us to we would have to stay back after the bell went for about 2 mins or so.
Teacher Michael also questions whether we still need roll call—isn’t that time better spent, you know, actually learning things? Not to mention playground duty where a teacher has to stand around, watch the students play, and make sure that they don’t get into any trouble. And who can forget about toilet duty? Sure, teachers need to make sure that students aren’t getting into any trouble, but all of this seems a bit over the top, don’t you think?
So far this is the only one I can relate too. I only discovered about 5 years ago that this wasn't true.
My chemistry teachers solution to people stealing her calculators.
However, according to Michael, the weirdest thing about high school might just be the students themselves who are hard to figure out even with all the experience in the world. Finally, let’s not forget about the basics: furniture. Some students still have to sit on uncomfortable chairs and use tiny desks, so it’s no wonder that some of them can’t pay attention!
When you look at everything, high school sure is a weird place. But I sure could go for some chocolate milk and a slice of pizza right about now.
That one kid.
Because you know they'll walk in 10 seconds after you leave.
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This happened for one of the Advanced Placement Physics classes that we had at my High School. So all the students left and when the teacher got back all the students got detentention for skipping out. The thing was was that all those students were Seniors who were almost all straight A students that had gotten into Harvard, MIT etc. So the students thought it was a blast to get detention for the first time in their lives. Someone even called the local news station to come out and do a report about how much fun they were having with it.
American Attorney here: In most states, if the kids are under 16 they are not legally allowed to leave the school bldg or a specific classroom for this reason - the school principal would have every right to require them to stay for the duration of the school day, including requiring them to stay in a specific classroom for a certain part of the schoolday. If the kids are 16 or older, legally they're allowed to leave whenever they want, any time.
Well, our math teacher in secondary school was a bit of a boozer and one time he showed up for class hungover and fell asleep with his head on the desk... We thought that was hilarious, so we all just milled around the classroom and pelted him with rolled pieces of paper. No matter how loud and rowdy we got he didn't stir until the bell rang, then he took his things, muttered a greeting and left. A few years after I graduated he became the principal of that school...
Once we had a teacher who was running late and a lot of my classmates wanted to leave, citing this "rule". In the end we all agreed to go (I don't remember how we agreed). Well, just as we're all headed out someone spots the teacher just she's coming into the building. Cue mad dash back to the classroom, before she could see us. It was a fun way to start the day, I suppose.
I did once in fifth grade and walked home because my freind said we can legally leave. I got in so much trouble that day! Edit: Just found out I was actually breaking the law..
When the teacher ran late either the concierge or the principal took over. Both once were guards in a Gulag or at least they acted that way.
In grade twelve we had one teacher who spent most of her classes in the staff room eating cookies after her husband, another teacher at the same school, dumped her for one of our classmates. Eventually most of us just stopped going altogether. Side note, said classmate ended up having his baby at the end of the school year.
We believed this too but it never actually happened so we never got to test it. Now I'm a sub in a bunch of districts, including the one I went to, and teachers are absolutely not allowed to leave a class unsupervised under any circumstances, so if the teacher was 15 minutes late that would be a huge problem.
That didn't work in my school. If our teacher was not there yet, the teacher from another room would pop in, ask what's happening, assign some random work and leave. We have to do that work until our teacher got there.
When I was doing my A-levels we had an awful teacher (he got sacked eventually) but one day we were all waiting for our lesson, and at ten minute mark we decided to go to library and teach ourselves (was great lesson that day) apart from one student that was 15 mins late and ended up being the only one in lesson that day
I had one of those hair thingy's, had it in for ages. I didn't get mine on a cruise or holiday though.
We just got to smell the home ec class burn another batch of cookies every day, the teacher was too stupid to know to adjust cooking times etc for higher altitudes and couldn't figure it out, we literally begged our English teacher to let us go show them what they were doing wrong, she laughed and told us to go ahead because that teacher had been driving her nuts for years
I got made fun of for having a "fat a*s". Who knew that in todays world people would pay thousands to have a butt like mine!!! I struggled for YEARS feeling like my butt was something to be ashamed of. In my 30s now & OWNING IT!!
I never understood why the Sophomores would bash the Freshman, you're only a year older get over yourself
What kind of school is this? The worst I saw in the toilets when I was at school was wet toilet paper thrown on the ceiling or mirrors.
I'm really starting to wonder what kind of fast food c**p they serve in U.S. schools. Chicken nuggets, hamburgers and pizza?!
Is this an American thread? Public schools really aren't that bad in Australia. Really, the only difference is they put education first, whereas private schools put money and status first.......and their buildings have a fresher coat of paint on them.
I guess I'm very American because almost every one of these was extremely relatable.
Finnish schools had a game for kids called kuka pelkää mustaa miestä, which translates to Who's afraid of the black man. One of the kids was selected as the black man, then we shouted "who's afraid of the black man?!" and started running in the gym class while the black man tried to catch us. This was considered a normal activity at the time. Naturally not played anymore.
The concept sounds kind of fun, but the name tho haha
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Is it surprising that children sometimes behave in infantile ways? Especially during puberty?
I went to a catholic school in Ireland. You don't know what weird is until you have a 70 year old nun trying to give a sex education class. This happened when I was 15 years old. And yes, we did already know where babies came from. So did a certain girl in the class who at the time was already 4 months pregnant.
Every now and then I think about Americans as actually the unwitting participants of something akin to The Truman Show. What if there is another reality outside the borders? Distraction with a horrible thing to keep them from knowing about a hellish thing. An experiment by the rest of the world to see how people retain their humanity under certain conditions, recorded now and available in live streaming, engendering scorn and pity by turns in its viewers.
Eh my current high school isn’t so bad, but a lot of these are relatable from my old district
The stupidest thing that I remember people doing when I was at school was "Smileys" using a lighter.
The author of this post is Lithuanian. Just saying.
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Is this an American thread? Public schools really aren't that bad in Australia. Really, the only difference is they put education first, whereas private schools put money and status first.......and their buildings have a fresher coat of paint on them.
I guess I'm very American because almost every one of these was extremely relatable.
Finnish schools had a game for kids called kuka pelkää mustaa miestä, which translates to Who's afraid of the black man. One of the kids was selected as the black man, then we shouted "who's afraid of the black man?!" and started running in the gym class while the black man tried to catch us. This was considered a normal activity at the time. Naturally not played anymore.
The concept sounds kind of fun, but the name tho haha
Load More Replies... Is it surprising that children sometimes behave in infantile ways? Especially during puberty?
I went to a catholic school in Ireland. You don't know what weird is until you have a 70 year old nun trying to give a sex education class. This happened when I was 15 years old. And yes, we did already know where babies came from. So did a certain girl in the class who at the time was already 4 months pregnant.
Every now and then I think about Americans as actually the unwitting participants of something akin to The Truman Show. What if there is another reality outside the borders? Distraction with a horrible thing to keep them from knowing about a hellish thing. An experiment by the rest of the world to see how people retain their humanity under certain conditions, recorded now and available in live streaming, engendering scorn and pity by turns in its viewers.
Eh my current high school isn’t so bad, but a lot of these are relatable from my old district
The stupidest thing that I remember people doing when I was at school was "Smileys" using a lighter.
The author of this post is Lithuanian. Just saying.
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