The 80s were a magical time. Cyndi Lauper, The Police, and The Cure were at their peaks, and we were blessed with classic films like The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Ghostbusters. Today, we love to relive the nostalgia through watching Stranger Things and blasting 'Running Up That Hill' while biking through our childhood neighborhoods. But while we tend to recall all of the wonderful things about the 80s, we often forget that it was a completely different time, particularly in the way that children were treated.
One curious Reddit user recently sparked a conversation by posing the question, “80s/90s Kids: What’s something a school teacher did to you that would not fly today?” Hundreds of people who attended school during the 80s and 90s started spilling their wildest and most shocking stories about teachers doing things that would definitely get them fired, and maybe even arrested, today. So whether you think the younger generations are snowflakes or you’re thankful that your kids won’t be subjected to being smacked with rulers in school, we hope you can get a kick out of these crazy stories from school days. They may not paint teachers in the best light, but thankfully, times have definitely changed since then.
Be sure to upvote the stories you find most shocking or that bring you back to your school days, and then feel free to let us know any wild stories you have from being in class back in the day. Keep reading to also find an interview with 80s enthusiast and co-host of the podcast Stuck in the 80s, Steve Spears. Then if you’d like to further your studies about school, you can check out another Bored Panda article featuring anecdotes from teachers’ perspectives right here.
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Not a teacher, but school one. If you read enough books during the year in elementary school you got to have a sleepover in the library. Like we brought sleeping bags and slept on the floor. In the morning they had griddles out and we made pancakes. I know, total nerds, but it was my favorite elementary school memory.
To gain some insight from an expert on the 80s, we reached out to Steve Spears, co-host of the Stuck in the 80s podcast. Steve has been recording Stuck in the 80s for 17 years now and has recorded over 640 episodes, many of which include interviews with the icons of the decade, including Steve Perry, Huey Lewis, Martha Quinn, Nancy Wilson and many many more. "For our 500th episode, we did a live interview with MTV veejays Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter onboard a voyage of The 80s Cruise," Steve told Bored Panda.
When asked what sparked this fascinating podcast in the first place, Steve says it was his 20th high school reunion. "I built a website for the reunion, gathering memories of our time together in school, and the nostalgia was almost like a drug - I couldn't get enough and I didn't want to quit it," he explained. "As soon as the reunion weekend was over, I was plotting a way to keep the momentum going. A podcast - they were pretty rare back then - was the perfect vehicle. What began as a small hobby really took off when we started getting emails from listeners around the world, including Russia, South Korea, Croatia and even the South Pole."
My 3rd-grade teacher had the whole class camp in her backyard after the last day of school. She took us to see the original TMNT movie in the theater, then we stayed up late telling ghost stories. One of my absolute fondest memories.
"For my generation, the '80s were when we first accepted music as part of our lives - our teen years," Steve shared. "When you're 14 years old, nothing's more important than MTV, an REO Speedwagon album or tickets to the Duran Duran concert. The '80s were the first time when I had something personal - my connection to those musicians and the music. It was also perhaps the last era of innocence."
"Back in 2006, I interviewed Rick Springfield backstage before he played a big '80s show in Tampa Bay," Steve told Bored Panda. "Loverboy, Eddie Money and Scandal featuring Patty Smyth were also on the bill. When I asked him about the enduring appeal of the '80s, he said: 'It was really before all the crap hit the fan, you know, worldwide, I think it's a last safe time. I don't even think you can call the '90s a last safe time. I think the '80s is the last safe time. The wall fell. You knew by that time that no one was going to be dropping any nukes, but now we don't know that.'"
My history teacher had a set of pillories in his room. Misbehave? Your head and hands went in and the top board clamped over. No pain or anything. Just had to stand there and feel the shame. Awesome guy and it was an interesting and educational punishment. Rather than sit in the principals office you had to stay in class and learn about colonial punishments.
I’m assuming todays parents would try and kill him with sticks over that.
You just reminded me of my 6th grade history/science teacher Mr. Victor Hugo ( yes that was his name ) One day the girls acused a group of boys of grooping them ( which they indeed did because i saw them doing it, normal kid behavior in late 80s early 90s, at least in my school ) so Mr Hugo asked the " perpetrators to stand face forward tô the black board ( there where 5 kids ) and then he told them to grope each other's butts like they did to the girls, which they did and was hilarious, if he tried that today he would probably be arrested and would surelly lose his job, and yet he was by dar One of the best teachers i ever had, só much só that Over 30 years later i still remember him.
When asked what it was like to be a student in the 80s, Steve shared, "I love to romanticize my school days in the '80s - all you needed was a set of encyclopedias at home and a public library card to get all the research you needed for any class project. It didn't hurt to have a home computer - the likes of which couldn't power a toaster today. No cell phones, no Twitter, no TikTok. You needed a driver's license, access to a car, and a tape deck to play your Men at Work and Billy Idol albums. As a result, I think we were more focused."
We also wanted to know if he ever witnessed any wild things at school. "The craziest thing I saw with teachers at my high school actually happened right after graduation," Steve said. "Two teachers served as chaperones for several dozen newly graduated students for a 'Senior Cruise' on a cruise ship that sailed from Miami to Mexico and back. It was a total booze cruise once we reached international waters. It all started when the two teachers came around with boxes of liquor and handed out a bottle to each cabin. That really set the tone. These were the days when the drinking age was still 19 - and most of us were legal adults - so it didn't seem totally insane at the time. Also, overindulging in booze didn't have the stigma I hope it has for teens today. I still feel bad for the cabin stewards who had to clean up after our group."
6th grade teacher Ms. Sullivan would take 3 kids every Friday to McDonald’s for lunch. She was cool as hell. Smoked during the drive and everything.
We also asked Steve if he thinks kids are better or worse off today than they were in the 80s. "I'd like to think kids face a different set of challenges today," he said. "They have all the world's knowledge available to them 24/7 through smartphones and the Internet. But they also have the distractions and potential dangers that come with social media. I don't think teachers could get away with nearly as many stunts now that any anonymous social media post could effectively turn them in. All things being even, give me my times in the '80s back."
If you'd like to learn more about the 80s and hear personal stories from Steve and his fellow co-host Brad, be sure to check out Stuck in the 80s right here.
When I was in first grade for the last day of school my first grade teacher took us to her farm. She gave us a ride on the back of her tractor, root beer floats and even gave us all a pair of binoculars. Honestly those days were the happiest of my life
I can see this still happening. Of course, there will be all sorts of parental permissions.
There are plenty of things that were different in the 80s and 90s. Without cell phones, kids were often able to run around unsupervised until it was dinner time or bed time, and there were not as many discussions about children being protected, from strangers, bullies or teachers. It was assumed that adults always knew better than kids, so even if a child complained about a teacher, it was not likely that their parents or the principal would take their side. Kids today have much less autonomy, as they are typically supervised at all times, but they also have more power in other ways.
If a child came home from school today and complained about a teacher rubbing their shoulders in class, there would immediately be a phone call made to the school, and that teacher’s job would be in jeopardy. It could become national news, and Netflix would release a documentary about it one year later. In the 80s and/or 90s, however, teachers could get away with striking kids, washing their mouths out with soap and publicly humiliating them without any repercussions. Ah, the magic of the past.
I had a high school Spanish teacher tell me after class one day that she wouldn’t say anything if I sucker punched this one annoying bully in the class that she also hated.
"Someday you're gonna get bitchslapped, and I'm not gonna do a thing to stop it."
Obviously, not every teacher back in the day was a menace to their students. I’m sure there were plenty of wonderful educators, but there just were not the same systems in place that we have today to ensure kids are safe and cared for. The general opinion back then was that adults know best and that if something happens to a kid, they probably deserved it. I’m not talking about the extreme examples such as assault and abuse, of course, but if a teacher decided it was best to dump out a kid’s desk or force them to stand in the corner, well, they probably knew what they were doing.
Helicopter parenting was also not a common thing back then, or it had not been 'invented' yet, so it’s likely that parents just did not know what was happening when their kids were away learning. Today, many parents keep a close eye on their little ones at all times and even take an active role in their education. Although the PTA, or Parent Teacher Association, has been around since 1897, it has become much stronger in recent decades. Parents are taking a much active role now in their children’s lives and working hard to ensure that their kids are treated much better than they were in school.
7th grade science class, the teacher walked around with a beaker full of mercury and told us to stick a finger in it to feel how dense it was. Then he gave us each our own penny-size drop of mercury to play with at our desks, so we could see how it moved. I’m sure we were poisoned that day.
Nowadays if a thermometer breaks they clear the school.
One of the kindest, most well-liked teachers in my high school was a gay man named Mr. McCreary. One day after school,he walked by a group of us, and the health teacher/wrestling coach says "there goes Mr. McQUEERy!!!" Even back then, we all just kind of looked at him blankly.
A lot of people are posting bad stuff, so let me share a good one.
In 9th grade, in 1984, I had a class analyzing lyrics in pop music. Students brought in records by Led Zep and John Cougar and we'd discuss what they meant. Seriously a life-changing class.
It makes me sad that younger students in America are so caught up in the rat race that they never had experiences like that.
Similar thing in the UK in an English class in the 80s. Was a fantastic way to get kids engaged in the use of words and their meanings etc...
Some of the things on this list were dangerous or borderline abusive, while others were mostly harmless like seeing teachers smoke during recess. Then there are some that address cultural sensitivity. Over time, society is constantly becoming more progressive and understanding how to address sensitive topics, and some of the things on this list that teachers said, whether they were intended to be offensive or just jokes, would definitely be deemed discrimination today. That’s one of the great things that has changed over time; teachers today cannot get away with spouting ignorant, ableist, racist, xenophobic or homophobic rhetoric. And although I went to school in the early 2000s, I vividly remember all of us kids dressing up as either pilgrims or Native Americans for a Thanksgiving feast at school… Thankfully, that does not happen any more.
So my mom was… maybe not the most observant. I love her to pieces but…. Yeah. When I was ten, the neighbor’s dog bit me, like grabbed and shook my hand, really bad. I went home and told my mom, who was like ‘oh, it’s fine, let’s clean up those puncture wounds, no big deal. Don’t tell Dad’ (my dad was a cop and a mandated reporter - we literally just didn’t want the dog to be in trouble it had never happened before and that poor baby was so sorry. Turned out he had an ear infection and when I went to scratch his head like I’d done a million times before, and it hurt him. The neighbor forgot to tell me his ear hurt it wasn’t his fault at all.)
The next day was Monday, and I tried to tell mom that my hand was bad- really bad. She said I still had to go to school, and man. When Mrs. Messenger, my fifth grade teacher saw me, she flipped her s**t. She was so upset she was gonna call my mom and give her what for and on and on, and I was like “oh s**t, I’m in big trouble now!” She marched me down to the office and I sat near the school secretary while she went in to the principal’s office and rained all manner of holy hellfire and brimstone on my mom’s head. Screamed bloody murder at her. She came and picked me up and took me to get an X-Ray. I had six broken bones in my hand. Oops.
Can’t even see a teacher raising their voice in an email nowadays. That lady saved my pitching hand.
Edit: punctuation because I’m a**l retentive.
I told my biology teacher that I wasn't feeling too well, he said that I didn't look sick, and as punishment made me stand in the corner until I fainted.
My elementary school principal would pull loose teeth. You could go to his office, have him pull your loose tooth and he would give you a lollipop.
That still flies today. I had a kid come up to me with his mouth wide open at one of my schools just as I was leaving, with a teacher running after him going „He wants you to pull his loose tooth out but don’t worry Ms. E said she’ll do it during lunch break if you don’t want to!”.
Joni Edelman wrote a piece for Scary Mommy titled “13 Ways School Was Different In The 80s”, and she brings up several of the things parents, teachers and children were never scared of until recently, including sending kids home from school alone. “We walked both to and from school. ALONE,” Joni writes. “And we wore our house key around our neck. We got home and ate Twinkies and watched TV and talked on our corded phone and never did homework. No one thought this was a bad idea.” As a kid, I never even lived close enough to my school that I would have been able to walk. But even if I did trek the hour or two there, the roads would have been extremely dangerous to walk on, let alone without an adult. “Didn’t kids get hit by cars?” You might be wondering. And the answer is yes, they did. In fact, my father got hit by a car walking to kindergarten the very first week and ended up spending his first couple months of “school” in the hospital.
I had an awesome teacher who would send one of us to the shop (just a minute’s walk away) with enough money to get ice creams for everybody whenever it was hot and she didn’t feel like teaching.
It was in the early early 80s (maybe even late 70s) and my aunt didn't know her right from her left. She was in middle school back then I believe and her teacher was yelling at her and at one point he painted her face, arms and clothes red on one side and blue on the other and told her "that way you'll know which is which". She still didn't know which side was left and which was right, she just knew one side was blue and the other red... She got home that evening and next thing I know my grandfather was beating the teacher's a$$ in front of his wife.
Good, don't embarass the kids, he could do the exact same thing widout embarassing her, in front of other kids, just put a red dot and a blue dot in the back of her hands and explain which One is which. I say this because i Also have isues with my left and right lol, and during my driving exam it was the worst, só i memorized a form o never getting it wrong lol, " right - upwards, left - downwards " ( Turn signal handle lol and it worked ).
When I was in first grade, I asked to use the bathroom during recess. My teacher said no, I just had lunch and could’ve used it then (when I didn’t have to go). So I pooped my pants behind a tree and had to go through the embarrassing aftermath during nap time.
In the schools I've been to, the whole point of recess (15min break) was to goto the bathroom and have a snack/ drink.
Joni also writes about how physical education, or PE, was a completely different beast back then. Today, there are not always winners, and only the teachers get to pick teams to spare everyone’s feelings. But as Joni says, “In PE in the 80s, we pelted each other with dodgeballs. Ruthlessly. Get hit in the face? Too bad. Remember Red Rover? Yeah. You’re going down. NATURAL SELECTION.” Even in the early 2000s, I thought PE was brutal. We had rules that you couldn’t aim for people’s faces or heads, but accidents happen right? I can’t tell you how many times I sacrificed myself during dodgeball so I wouldn’t be caught off guard by a bouncy ball to the face.
6th grade 2001: she saw me having a panic attack during class. (I didn’t know what was happening because it was the start of my anxiety disorder.) Instead of asking me if I was okay, she called me out in front of the class, told everyone to look at me, and said “act like that if you want me to fail you.”
She was a b***h.
It was my first grade. I shook the ruler in my hand, and teacher took my ruler and hit me with it causing my nose bleeding. Few years later I found out that she also had been working as a school psychologist.
My mother told me when she was a kid at a small country school the teacher had two kids she didn't like: my mum, and her Aboriginal classmate. So she would call them up the front of the class on the least excuse and flog them in the back of the legs with the belt from a sewing machine. (No doubt the Aboriginal kid's crime was persistently and aggravatingly being black in public. Ugh).
Elementary school was particularly traumatizing.
One of my teachers refused to let one of my class mates use the bathroom. A bathroom that was in the same room as us. He ended up pissing his pants and I'll never forget watching it puddle off the chair because of how much he'd been holding it. Instead of sending him to the office to get new clothes, she made him take his pants off inside of the bathroom to hang off a tree outside...he was forced to wait in that bathroom for hours.
All the students saw it and you can probably guess how they reacted toward him.
This same teacher refused to let me get medical help for my migraines that I started to have around age 11. She told me I was lying/faking it, and it got so bad that I was forced to switch teachers. It got so bad that I was terrified to ask for help, and passed out in class.
Needless to say, of course she taught for another few years before finally getting fired.
F**k you, Mrs. Alexander.
Today, teachers tend to have a reputation for being gentle, nurturing and caring, even if they are strict. Back then, however, it sounds like teachers were more like prison guards or military generals. While most of the stories on this list are shocking or horrifying, some things teachers did that were kind can’t even happen today. For example, when I was in school I remember having a bus driver who would make cupcakes every time it was one of our birthdays. In hindsight, that was incredibly thoughtful and took so much effort on her part. Today, however, people have to be so cautious about allergies to gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, etc. And you cannot feed a child anything without their parents' consent. I can just imagine that sweet bus driver receiving angry phone calls today from a parent whose child is vegan and took a cupcake or a parent who does not allow sweets in the house. No good deed goes unpunished.
My Math teacher in H.S was very handsy. A hand on the shoulder; or a bit lower. Patting thighs of students who'd be asked to come sit next to him at his desk under the guise of helping them with their schoolwork. Inappropriately long gazes given to the girls.
Every single female student was extremely uncomfortable in his class but he was universally described as 'harmless'. He wasn't.
I had a teacher bring me up to the front of my 5th grade class to show everyone how “slovenly” I had dressed. I was one of five kids and wore thrift stores clothes. I wish I could show her how successful I have become and that I now dress much better than she did.
So sorry you had to endure such humiliation but delighted you've made such a success of your life. Doesn't matter that you can't show her. You've shown yourself and those that know you what you've achieved. And that's what matters. You should be incredibly proud.
English teacher in high school used to cuss kids out for being noisy in class and if that didn't work, he'd throw the blackboard eraser at us. I wasn't on the receiving end of the eraser. That chalk would leave marks on kid's backs for the rest of the day so everyone knew who pissed off Mr Charvet.
Teachers were not always attuned to the emotional state of their students either. I remember in high school having an acting teacher who would intentionally make us dredge up our most traumatic stories (they were called ‘emotional memories’) and share them with the entire class to 'bond' with one another. We would have to sit in front of the class under stage lights and share these stories while everyone else acted as an audience and watched. He would also intentionally get us to think about these traumatic moments when working on pieces, and force us to stay in the room while crying in front of everyone. I specifically remember being told I had to come back into class while I had taken a moment to go bawl in the bathroom, but that didn’t matter. This same teacher would regularly tell us that “virginity is boring”; it was a motto of sorts in his classroom. And all of this happened between 2011-2015, so I can’t imagine how it was 30 years before that…
Seventh grade teach threw a chair at a student. Kid wouldn't stop calling her the N word. He stopped saying it after that day.
My first grade teacher: Mrs. Smith.
If she thought your desk was too messy she’d flip it over and dump out all of the contents in the middle of the classroom and then make you pick them up while everyone watched you.
We were six years old.
Not me, but I remember some kids having this happen to them back in... I dunno... must have been the early 2010s?
Electrocuted the entire class as a demonstration of high resistance circuits
just got electrocuted with friends by my physics teacher last year for science
While many people complain about how terribly technology has rotted the minds of the younger generations, it has had its perks too. Kids today can keep in contact with their parents much more easily, and being able to take photos or videos or unjust actions at school makes it a lot easier to get these things shut down. Teachers are always held accountable for their actions now, so they are held to a much higher standard. And because we have access to such a wealth of information on the internet, issues for young people such as bullying in schools are actually being talked about. We know bullying is a widespread issue, so it’s no longer taboo to bring it up. In fact, when it is happening, especially when there is proof of it online, it can be eradicated much faster than it would have been several decades ago.
I remember in 5th grade, we'd go to the classroom next door with the other teacher for Science class. When we started the section on evolution she started the whole thing off with a speech about how she was being compelled to teach this to us by law, but that she personally believes that it isn't true and that we were made by God.
To her credit, she went on to teach evolution to us.
My middle school teacher confiscated my lunch after catching me trying to eat some of it during class and then he ate it in front of everyone and sent me to lunch with nothing. My mom cried when I told her what happened and complained to the school but nothing happened to him
One of my English teachers smoked a joint in his car every day during his planning period. Same guy had a hall pass that was a sandwich board reading "I am missing out on a valuable educational experience because I have to tinkle." He also called me a sarcastic little s**t, which again, I totally deserved.
Being a teacher never has been and never will be an easy job. However, today, there are a lot more restrictions on what teachers can get away with, for better and for worse. I hope you cannot personally relate to the most horrific stories on this list, but if you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, feel free to share all of your wildest school stories below. Keep upvoting the replies you know would not fly today, and then if you'd like to read another Bored Panda piece featuring stories from inside school classrooms, be sure to check out this article next.
My fifth grade gym teacher made me do pushups in front of the class. I was overweight, so I couldn't do any. Then she'd say "this is what happens if you eat too much food." There were other, even heavier kids in class, but she never chose them for this activity; just me.
My elementary school teacher used to say to kids "you're cruising for a bruising" and once washed out my friend Jermaine's mouth out with soap. This was circa 1987
The "mouth cleansing with soap" was a regular punishment at my junior and infants school in the 70s and 80s.
While talking about slavery went down the rows and pointed out specific people in class whose ancestors would have been either slaves or slave owners based on their last name and / or skin color.
In high school we would sometimes play knee soccer which was in our wrestling room(wall to wall wrestling mats) and was really just handball but on our knees. The PE teacher(football coach) let us play rough since it was an all male class and we were on our knees and couldn't do too much damage.
During the game two of the students were grappling for the ball and as these things go, one of them accidentally knocked the other a little too aggressively. The kid that got hit(an known a*****e of the school) got pissed and stood up and kicked the other kid.
The PE teacher(225lb jacked military hair cut) stormed over and shoved the kid who flew about 10 feet before crashing to the ground. The kid gets up ready to fight whoever shoved him and the teacher had closed the gap and started screaming at him. Then the teacher lectured the entire class about sportsmanship and honor.
The teacher never got in any trouble.
had a gym teacher who would occasionally throw balls at your, well, balls if you were talking and not paying attention. that was fair play in the 80s.
Had a teacher that would call students "Special Olympians" if anyone would make a mistake or say something he deemed stupid
When students got bullied back then one of the most common responses from teachers was "Looks like you need to toughen up." Some teachers seemed to encourage bullying.
At my son's elementary school they seem to take bullying way more serious and it is not tolerated.
In Jr high I was in band and one of the clarinet players who was a short girl, wore a denim skirt that was a few inches above the knees. The band teacher made her sit with it between her legs (proper posture he claimed) She obviously did not want to sit that way because spreading her legs would mean everyone would be able to see up her skirt. He made her do it anyway. The whole thing felt gross and weird. She was terrified.
In high school one of the teachers always assigned all the pretty girls to the front row and all of the boys to the back. Everyone knew he liked looking up girls skirts and it was just talked about like it was some kind of strange but mostly harmless personality trait.
On the plus side in high school the football coach when out of his way to get one of the poorest kids in school a football scholarship to a small college a few states over. He was like 145lbs and not very fast but a really hard working smart dude who came from a rough family. Apparently the high school coach was friends with the college coach. The kid got a scholarship for a year to ride the bench and then took over as equipment manager and got a full ride for under grad degree. Can't imagine that happening today. People take college athletics way to seriously. Even at the small schools.
My 8th grade English teacher (female) grabbed my a*s and my 12th grade English teacher called me sexy in front of our class and then told me I had beautiful eyes when we were alone in her car together.
I'm a guy though, so that actually might still fly today.
Had a pretty awesome old school art teacher that was also a boy scouts leader and usually chaperoned school camping trips, he loved to use Indian/Chinese accents when talking to kids from there. Was all in good fun and everyone thought it was funny but looking back wonder how it made them really feel.
I had a teacher that would throw foam balls at students when they fell asleep.
uh, molested me?, wouldn't of gone over well then either but back then ''men/boys can't be raped by women '' was pretty evident as was the ''lucky you/was she hot?'' s**t i put up with when i bring it up nowadays.
This happened when I was in 4th grade (1995-96). We were taught fractions in our math class, and our teacher assigned us a set of problems from the textbook.
For once in my life, I understood the concept really well, and solved an additional set of problems (which we were meant to be solved in class the next day). Needless to say, my mom was super proud of me when I showed her my work, and she wanted to hear my teacher's feedback the next day.
Back then, we had a system where we would submit our notebooks to the teacher at the beginning of the class, and she would call us to her desk (one student at a time), and correct the homework. The next day, when the teacher called out my name, I was excited. Ran up to her desk and waited eagerly for some praise... She finished correcting my work, and noticed there were additional problems that I'd done.
I looked at her beaming, but stopped when I saw her reaction. Her face turned red with anger and she yelled "You think you are so smart that you had to do all the problems? I had asked you to solve only the first set right? Why did you solve the other problems?" The whole class went silent.
She proceeded to rip apart the pages (containing the extra home work), crumpled them into a ball and flung it on my face. Worse, I got a tight slap, and got sent out of the class to kneel down. I could feel my ears burning, as I sat outside the class, sobbing silently for the rest of the class.
I am pretty sure something like this would never fly in schools today!
I don't understand why teachers are less interested in actually teaching and more in being dictators of their own little kingdom.
In elementary school, we had a teacher who, if you leaned back in your chair with your chair on two legs, would sneak up behind you and kick the chair out from under you causing you to fall and possibly smack your head in the floor. He could have seriously hurt or killed a kid by doing that, but no one batted an eye at it.
8th grade science teacher calls a kid to the front of the room for some minor infraction, have him bend over, then kick him in the a*s. However…. however, the student stepped out of the way just in time, and the teacher kicked the blackboard’s chalk tray, sending chalk flying everywhere. The humiliation was on the other foot then as the teacher chased the kid around the room a few laps. F*****g chaos.
My first name is somewhat similar to one of the guys involved in the 9/11 attacks & I had a teacher that thought it was appropriate to call me by that guy’s last name during roll call & when I would rarely raise my hand to answer.
Punishments in my elementary school:
Standing with nose in corner.
Bending over and touching toes for a long time.
Paddling with a thick wood paddle from principal.
Knuckles rapped with ruler.
Edit: Forgot one.
Long white cloth banner with "tattletale" emblazoned vertically that was pinned to back of shirt and worn for duration of day
Opposite with me on the knuckle one. It wasn't a ruler but a paddle board. And it was the principal who did it if you were sent to her office.
We had a math teacher at my school that all of the girls would complain about him randomly rubbing their shoulders while they were trying to work. I never had him but everyone who did would confirm. It was always like a joke and people would laugh about how “creepy” he was, but nobody made a big deal out of it for some reason. I wonder if he still works there.
I had a gym teacher (also the girls' track coach) who was always trying to see up the girls' shorts while we were doing situps or stretching. He also stared at butts constantly. It was creepy and disgusting. People reported him but the school wouldn't do anything because he hadn't touched anyone, at least not anyone who had come forward.
My English teacher looked at my 10th grade self that was dripping wet after walking to class in rain and said, "I don't find wet hair on women attractive" completely unprovoked.
It makes me so sad that there doesn't seem to be a single female out there that hasn't, at some point, been made to feel uncomfortable - or worse, threatened - by a man in some sexualised way.
I had a second-grade teacher that everyone LOVED. He told hilarious stories and he had great games to help us learn. He was genuinely a great teacher. And one of the rewards that you could earn if you did well was a 'Charlie horse' where he would basically hit you on your leg (roughly just above the knee) in a way that felt like hitting your funny bone but in a more mild way. So many kids were so excited to do this. As far as I can tell, nobody was traumatized by this and nothing creepy was going on, but he was hitting students for their amusement. No way that would fly today.
Things like this still fly (here at least) with the difference being kids’ consent is more important and there are more rules to ensure safety for everyone.
In 5th grade, I was called to the office at my public school. I was a goody two-shoes so I had no idea why I was called, so I started tearing up thinking something bad must've happened to my family. Eventually, I was ushered into a room as my two best friends left. The principal and 2 other staff members then sat me down and showed me a piece of paper. It was a silly poem I wrote one of my friends about a good witch who granted wishes by mixing together some mundane ingredients. Apparently, their mother found the poem and complained to the school. Their resonse was to interview my friends about MY RELIGION.
They asked stuff like if I drew any "weird symbols" and one friend said yes because I always drew the school symbol for Balamb Garden (Final Fantasy 8) on my notebooks. So by the time they got to ME, they were basically trying to get me to admit practicing witchcraft at school. PUBLIC SCHOOL. Which I was not. I was a church every Sunday Christian and knew nothing of actual witchcraft (not that it should matter), but they said they could tell BY MY TEARS that I knew I did something wrong. They put me in detention for the day in the principals office and NEVER INFORMED MY PARENTS.
Ironically, the year prior, I had drawn an angel in art class during some fundraising event where you could get your kids art put on merchandise. Right next to me on a file cabinet was a magnet of my angel drawing that the principal who put me in witchcraft jail had bought for herself. Lol
Two reactions to this: 1) why is it any of their business, and 2) something tells me it wasn't a Biblically accurate angel, because if it was, they would've had a problem with that too.
My fourth grade teacher was a softball player in her younger years. When you weren't paying attention she'd hurl a stick of chalk at you. She rarely missed. She was awesome too.
Saw one of my teachers make fun of someone's stutter in front of the class. He said "whatever you fat b***h" and nothing further happened.
Third grade teacher used to kiss us when we interrupted her or were bad
We had a high school teacher that did something similar. If you misbehaved or were generally disruptive she'd hug you and pat your head and ruffle your hair, and then cheer you on as if you were a small child (think "can you read the next part for me? Oh that was excellent Jack! Good job!). It was a very effective...everybody was so embarrassed they'd never act out again xD
We had an enormously large principal. When we were bad, she'd threaten to sit on us. She was very soft and it didn't hurt at all and just made us laugh our a**es off. I really don't think anything bad of it, or her, but that wouldn't fly today.
Had my chair taken away for half the year by my 8th grade teacher I could stand or had to sit on the floor
I'm honestly trying to think of something but really the only thing that comes to mind was that school took us to the cinema to watch Gremlins.
Now is my time:
I had a 6th grade teacher who would always say the Germans would come back and have a 4th Reich. He talked about it like it was an inevitability. He said the Germans were great fighters and if they wanted to they could do it now.
One of the other teachers said he was a "weirdo" for saying it all the time.
Pretty sure that wouldn't fly today. Pretty sure.
Now to his credit he wasn't openly racist, he didn't treat Mexican kids any differently or anything.
He was just incredibly pro-German.
Not a teacher, but a lad at my high school in the 80s was completely fixated with Hitler and the Nazis. On non uniform days he'd come in full German officer uniform (or as Gestapo since he had so many uniforms), and would be seen "goose-stepping" German soldier style, beside the road on his way to school ... It was so bizarre, but everyone just kind of accepted be was crazy and left him to it. Last I heard he was in jail for stabbing someone...
Not something done to me per se, but my 3rd grade teacher had a little office with a door inside our classroom, and she would smoke cigarettes in there while we were at lunch/recess.
Teachers definitely used to make fun of gay kids.
I can’t even imagine what they would publicly say about transgendered individuals.
Btw, WASN’T even gay. F**k, I’d probably have a family by now if I was😅😅
I'm pretty sure a lot of people thought I was gay. I'm not, but I always thought the whole gendering of likes and dislikes was stupid. Like, dude, if I wanna soak in my bubble bath with a chardonnay and listen to Enya, that's exactly what I'm going to do (except that I didn't drink back then).
My first grade gym teacher called me chicken legs until my mom told the principal. His brother later was our teacher in eighth grade and would come in the locker room and just stare at us quietly while we changed.
Bad kids in elementary school used to be spanked in front of the entire class. This was back in the 80s in a private school.
My high school Study Skills teacher used to A. Throw your bookbag over the railing outside the class to the first floor below if you fell asleep B. Threw chalkboard erasers at you if you were caught talking during his lectures C. Got a megaphone in your ear if you fell asleep and didn't notice your bookbag tossed. Funny thing is, Mr Stuart was somehow one of the most liked teachers in school. Circa 1997
90’s kid. If we ever had to go somewhere a bit more far and take a bus, our teacher let us go there by ourselves and come with his car. We were 9-12 years old so elementary school in us terms i guess. He would ask if anyone knew where the place was and made them a leader to take the class there.
Edit. Also because school pays these trips so he would give the school’s bus card that had like 500€ loaded into it to someone so we can pay for those kids who didn’t have the bus ticket.
Threw a pencil at my head / grabbed a friend by the collar of his neck and dragged him into school / referred to those of us in flags as “flaggets.” Oh gosh I could go on but it was all standard / not that crazy for the time. School chaperones got wasted with us on a school trip to France and hit on students lol. Lots
Birthday whacks from the teacher. As odd as it sounds, the teacher would 100% get fired for doing that. Even though she never touched me, it just seemed normal and this was in like the mid 90s.
My kindergarten teacher would give students the choice of being spanked or having our ears pulled. Everybody always took the ear pulling.
Mom and dad were both born in late 70s so they were students in the 80s-90s. That time was when my country went from communism to freedom. During communism my parents say (even though they were 3rd and 4th grade when communism fell) that teachers were allowed to hit children with rulers or wood pointers and everyone including parents accepted this as something normal, because if children are punished this way it means that they deserved it. When the punishments were not working the way they were supposed to, the child would be sent in a special school for troubled children without any notice to the parents. Like you would misbehave one day and the other day you are in this school. I am actually currently living across the school that used to serve this purpose in my town and my parents say that this school worked even after communism and then it closed down in the late 90s/the beginning of 2000s. Ever since I was born, I have never seen the school serving that title anymore but instead they use the building as a school for kids with special needs. So yes… physical punishments were a thing and it was normal for the society back then. 😬
Apparently they still do this, but lock you in a closet with a small desk. I talk about this indepth with my peers, but we are baffled about how it never constituted as child abuse, and the school continues to do it to this day
In middle school, I moved from one state to another, and after extensive testing at the new school I was put in a gifted class. On my first day, one of my new teachers scoffed that I was put in his class and said, in front of all the other students, "Gifted in [my home state] means you can read and write."
I guess that 'normal' in that school was being able to say the alphabet up to G?
The principal made this fat kid eat an entire chocolate cake in front of the entire school.
She emptied my school bag in the middle of the classroom and locked me in the room by myself unsupervised during our lunch break to tidy it up. I was 8 and a bit messy, but it felt a bit harsh at the time. Was in there for an hour, had no lunch that day, and had to hold my pee till the next teacher unlocked the door.
Called me stupid - yelled it at me - in front of the whole class.
"YOU'RE STUPID!" "Yeah, I'm being taught by a s**t teacher right now..."
My kindergarten teacher straight up slapped me across the face for shrugging my shoulders when I didn’t know the answer.
Same teacher. When I wasn’t feeling well and asked if I could use the restroom she said no. I ended up throwing up all over myself and the rug.
Same teacher. Would slap a student on the head with an eraser to ‘mark’ the bad kids with chalk.
I once got slapped in the face by my homeroom teacher when I insisted that I did an art project correctly.
I had a teacher mock me while we were doing outload reading in 7th grade. It was a couple points extra credit to read a page to the class. I was a little nervous and new to the school so it didnt go well and made worse when he started being a d***head. I have a hard time remembering the really great teachers and how they shaped me be a better person but I vividly remember Mr Hanson and wanting to cave his skull in with a hammer...
I looked like I was about to faint when had to read a sexual poem to class and teacher was more nice than I expected of her actually. She was very no-nonsense, I thought she'd make me stand through it like everyone else but she let me sit. It might also have been only I researched enough to understand how dirty what I was reading was.
I went to a Catholic primary s hood in England in the mid 90’s. There was an assistant principal that was mad at the world. He seemed to hate kids and I have noooo idea why he had the job he did. There was to be absolutely no talking at lunch if he was in charge of lunch duty that day. This rule didn’t exist for any other teacher during their lunch duty. We had to be at a reasonable level but could chat. So, one lunch I opened my mouth to yawn. He saw and said “the only reason your mouth should be open is to put food in it.” I had to spend the rest of lunch in detention. I still remember you Mr Young, you f****r.
My teacher outed me to my parents 🙃
Late 90's my 1st/2nd grade teacher would punish the "talkative kids" by putting us against the wall with our arms up and beat us with a ruler if we put them down due to pain, numbness or being tired. I don't think that would be acceptable nowadays.
70s 80s kid
4th grade Ms Hardy atleast 400lbs would sit on us during recess.
8th grade coach Van wagoner would whip us with his whistle cord leaving marks.
Entire school career during football practice we had a 5oft piece of pvc with holes drilled in it and a garden hose hooked to it, during water breaks we would drink very hot water out of this contraption until the coach wasn't thirsty anymore. Let me tell ya his thirst was quenched very fast lol
I'm late to the party, but my precalc teacher, literally, kicked a kid in the stomach for getting out of his chair.
Well not to me,but my teacher used to twist ears of the naughty boys and gave them some corner time.
In the early '80s, our teacher let us play a modified version of dodgeball... in the classroom.
We had a “study hall” with a teacher and there weren’t many of us in there. I went to a very small school so he knew us all and besides being a math teacher he was a coach. He basically let us do whatever we wanted. He had a Nintendo set up in his back office, my friend and I played board games, etc. The only thing he asked us to do was roll quarters from the vending machines since that money went to the school.
Once in sixth grade we were on an outdoors trip with one teacher going first and another one last. The last one was kicking the last 5 kids to make us go faster.
In 6th grade I had a science teacher that was a little unhinged, she was never physical with us but blew up quite frequently. In her early days of teaching (mid 90s) she hit a kid over the back of their head with a laptop and broke a clipboard hitting a different student
I was an 80's kid in the UK. Quite a few to tell! A PE teacher kicked a pupil square in the chest because he was messing about (he flew across the changing room and broke a tile with the back of his head). Another teacher enjoyed 'tweeking' boy's nipples (oddly, no one thought ANYTHING of this!). Just after my Dad died I remember not handing in some work and the Geography teach got mad at me and demanded my Dad signed my homework and wondered why I started crying. For me the worse was during my careers interview for college the person started to laugh at me when I said what A-Levels I wanted to do ("You've no chance son" was his reply - I proved him wrong by getting 2 B's and 8 Cs was a pretty good for GCSE's back in 1989, but I still didn't go to college). BTW, the nipple tweeker is STILL serving time as a serial pedophile...
In second grade (1987-88) I stayed after and helped my teacher with stuff. I was a latchkey kid, so it was okay. Once a week, she took me out for ice cream!
I ended up getting a data entry job with my middle school for the same reason. My brother would beat me up at home, so didn't want to go, and my parents didn't get home until very late at night. I got paid $3/hour entering data in a spread-sheet for the principal's assistant, and didn't have to go home until after my brother had left to go out with friends. Minimum wage was actually a bit higher (like $3.35 I think), but I wasn't legally allowed to work anyways, so it was a wash. I got really into computers at the time, and I ended up building a tool to automate a lot of the process. Most of the data was just copy-paste from one system to another. So I made something that read the files of the first system, and inserted the data into her spreadsheet. She gave me $400 for that, which for an 11-12 year old was huge amount of cash in the late 80s. I've been a programmer since 1989, lol.
Load More Replies... From first grade all the way through highschool I was bullied by other students. The elementary students who bullied me were simply told to knock it off but, they never did. As for middle and highschool, the teachers did nothing at all.
when I was in 7th grade I was miserable and getting bullied all the time. I had this English teacher named Mrs C. She was mean to the kids most of the time and yelled all the time. I was scared of her generally. One day, I stayed after class to have work corrected, and we were alone. Another teacher walked into the room, and Mrs C said, "Mrs M, I would like you to meet a very nice, very smart girl, who is a pleasure to have in class" and she said my name! It meant the world to me, not only because she did something nice and everyone thought she was a witch, but because I was so low that year and I really needed someone to say something nice about me. It was over 40 years ago and I am still incredibly grateful to her.
Load More Replies... I was an 80's kid in the UK. Quite a few to tell! A PE teacher kicked a pupil square in the chest because he was messing about (he flew across the changing room and broke a tile with the back of his head). Another teacher enjoyed 'tweeking' boy's nipples (oddly, no one thought ANYTHING of this!). Just after my Dad died I remember not handing in some work and the Geography teach got mad at me and demanded my Dad signed my homework and wondered why I started crying. For me the worse was during my careers interview for college the person started to laugh at me when I said what A-Levels I wanted to do ("You've no chance son" was his reply - I proved him wrong by getting 2 B's and 8 Cs was a pretty good for GCSE's back in 1989, but I still didn't go to college). BTW, the nipple tweeker is STILL serving time as a serial pedophile...
In second grade (1987-88) I stayed after and helped my teacher with stuff. I was a latchkey kid, so it was okay. Once a week, she took me out for ice cream!
I ended up getting a data entry job with my middle school for the same reason. My brother would beat me up at home, so didn't want to go, and my parents didn't get home until very late at night. I got paid $3/hour entering data in a spread-sheet for the principal's assistant, and didn't have to go home until after my brother had left to go out with friends. Minimum wage was actually a bit higher (like $3.35 I think), but I wasn't legally allowed to work anyways, so it was a wash. I got really into computers at the time, and I ended up building a tool to automate a lot of the process. Most of the data was just copy-paste from one system to another. So I made something that read the files of the first system, and inserted the data into her spreadsheet. She gave me $400 for that, which for an 11-12 year old was huge amount of cash in the late 80s. I've been a programmer since 1989, lol.
Load More Replies... From first grade all the way through highschool I was bullied by other students. The elementary students who bullied me were simply told to knock it off but, they never did. As for middle and highschool, the teachers did nothing at all.
when I was in 7th grade I was miserable and getting bullied all the time. I had this English teacher named Mrs C. She was mean to the kids most of the time and yelled all the time. I was scared of her generally. One day, I stayed after class to have work corrected, and we were alone. Another teacher walked into the room, and Mrs C said, "Mrs M, I would like you to meet a very nice, very smart girl, who is a pleasure to have in class" and she said my name! It meant the world to me, not only because she did something nice and everyone thought she was a witch, but because I was so low that year and I really needed someone to say something nice about me. It was over 40 years ago and I am still incredibly grateful to her.
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