50 Vintage School Items That Prove We Peaked Decades Ago

And my writing was HUGE!

Grew up poor, but my mom always managed to have enough money for me to get a book or two

Adobe now has "Organizer" which catalogues all your photos on your computer exactly like this now. I often tell users to think of the organizer like and old school library card catalogue- and the instantly know what I'm talking about. I show simliar pictures at school to high school kids and they have no idea what this is.

We did this!

I can still smell the pencil sharpener. Although ours were bolted down.

Stick the end of a ruler over a desk and twang the end then move it up the desk to change the vibration. Sound you instantly associate with school

Fancy modern technology here.

I'm so old it was a reel to reel movie projector. Bonus if you could convince the teacher to run it backwards after it was done.

Wait, we aren't supposed to doodle on them when bored during a lecture?

We used to use elastic bands to fire pencils into the styrofoam tiles above the teachers desk.

I remember those. What a useless c**p! ;D

Until you lost one piece and then the whole thing was unusable. Really poor design.

these are still around

Lose just a single insert and the whole thing goes into the trash.

Also erasers and crayons like that :)

Tupac!

Usually not correct, at least the European and world map was dated.

My school had files of carbon paper with different worksheets on it. There was a note card with corrections, because sometimes a teacher made a mistake when writing the worksheet, but it was too much work to start again. So, the teacher read the corrections before we started the worksheet! "Question 7 should actually read, 'Mark Twain once said...'" That was some good learning.

They still exist. Some people will use them for their Bullet Journal.

We didn't even have a cafeteria, so... 😅

For my kids' snow day last week, I got: a phone call, a text message, a notification from the parent app, an email regarding the app notification, and an email. For fun, you can also see the closing posted on facebook, and the local news station. All before 5am.

I know they existed but we never got to see them? They were the teacher's notes and therefore top secret.

Smack your friend so it breaks and goes all over the place

I have always known this as an elephant foot.

I can smell this picture.

Our science classroom(early 80's) looked similar to this, except it had a 4 way gas outlet in the middle of each desk. Each of the *plastic* outlets had its own lever to turn on/shut off the gas and a compression fitted rubber hose pushed into it that had a bunsen burner on the other end. The problem was school kids, fire and plastic outlets. One of the boys had no bunsen burner attached when he got there, the teacher was very late, he got bored, turned on the plastic outlet and lit a flame. The outlet including the off lever melted and the flame was now going straight up. Luckily the teacher from the adjoining room came in to see what the ruckus was, shut off the mains and fire extinguisher for the desk. Next time in there all the outlets were metal with hose clamps.

Used paper guillotines in the workplace.

Wait. You guys had knots in the rope?!

Those were for the rich kids lol.

Kids still make them. I helped with one when I was tutoring 1st grade a few years ago.

This looks amazing

Have this! Smelling it brings it all right back!

IIRC they were never quite big enough for all the books and paper you needed to use

With the little wooden spoon that I can still taste?

Don't forget the periods at the ends of the sentences!

Issued black, returned white.

Frisbees! Also, I think I may have lost an apple core up there.

I just bought one of these. Less fun as an adult because we are too big to hit the ball around, but still a little fun.

Those were grout days.

This was the BEST PE lesson

Ours were only half of one of these. It was against a wall so it was only a half circle. I believe some of our local schools still have them.

Quite good where I taught.

I had this exact one, so did my sister. I broke the sharpener on mine the day after I got it and swapped it with my sisters. She never found out it was me

Could you imagine telling a child today they were "S"? "You've done adequate".

Schools don't have libraries anymore?

I read a ton of Judy Blume books.. and anything else I could get ahold of. I loved to read!

Had them for my kids and the schools still use them

Does that tag actually read 3 for a $1.00?

Opening the top windows?

How to put a hole in a piece of paper.

I can still feel my hair getting pulled out

Oh wow. That's the exact desk I first cracked my back on. 9th grade English with Mrs. Fox. We were reading Romeo and Juiet out loud, and it just... happened. Full spine. Everyone looked. I was mortified.

There are still asbestos tiles in ours.

New Zealander comedian Jared Christmas does a set about the school register being called, and the kids being forced to say "present" rather than "here": Anderson? "Present". Baker? "Present". Christmas? "Grrr...."

All I taste is wood.

You mean the things that ran over my fingers over and over and over? Yeah I remember them.

Ah, AD&D, great fun. Though I've only played AD&D 2e, this is AD&D 1e, wonder how similar they are.

I have a few of these. And Pee-Chee folders.