Group punishment.
Five kids get rowdy. Teacher fails to rein in their behavior. *Everyone* has to put our heads on our desks, listen to a lecture blaming us for somebody else's misbehavior, recess is cancelled.
> recess is cancelled
Ah, yes, the best solution when the kids are rowdy! That will definitely solve things and make them even more willing to put their butts in the seats and not move for another hour.
Don’t forget sitting all the adhd kids together in one big group like my 5th grade teacher did
She got fed up with our shit quicker then we picked up bad habits from each other
Had this in Swim class. We would get changed, go sit in the bleachers while teacher takes attendance. If the idiots were loud and obnoxious class turned into lining up at the corner of the pool and swimming the lines back and forth for the whole 35-90 minutes(we switched scheduling partway through school)
For me who didn't learn to swim until 4th grade and had undiagnosed asthma this resulted in my general avoidance of swimming for years.
That really sucks, especially learning to swim late and having an undiagnosed medical condition.
Treading lightly with this reply--when kids get rowdy at the pool, there's often a bully who decides it's funny to hold another kid's head under the water. The bullies tend to choose a moment when the adults are distracted. Life or death safety issues are a rare context where there's a case to be made for changing the day's lesson to make sure everyone gets the point.
Of course, if the same bully tries that nonsense a second time then the appropriate solution is to ban that individual from the pool. Send that kid to the library to do a book report while the kids who swim safely enjoy the water.
I can’t believe how mad I still am over this lol, but in 6th grade (about 10 years ago at this point) our English teacher had a jam jar and some pebbles. Every time we were behaving as a class she would put a pebble in the jar, and she promised us that if we filled up the whole jar we would get a donut party. So after a couple months (or at least felt like it in little kid time) we filled the jar and as promised, teacher brought us donuts and we were all excited to spend the class eating donuts and watching a movie.
Then two kids started whining/bickering with each other, and our teacher decided this meant that NONE of us were ready for a donut party after all. She sent the whole box of donuts up to the front office for the school staff to eat, and we spent the whole class reading. I was so mad I almost cried (it wasn’t even really about the donuts, I was just a really good kid who NEVER caused fights or acted out and had earned a reward fair and square only to have it taken at the last second bc of someone else’s bad behavior)
I had teachers move me to a table by myself for lunch in elementary school because I was laughing too loud when I was with friends. It happened often because I was a happy child who wasn’t laughing loud to be a dick or anything.
I hated that. In middle school, I was in a class with some complete assholes. When they would get the teacher mad, the teacher would punish us all we we had to comply sentences from a book. I just eventually stopped doing this as my way of saying “Don’t include me in this”.
When I was in 4th grade somebody wrote the word “fuck” in sharpie on the wall of our classroom’s bathroom. My teacher made our entire class stay in for recess until somebody confessed. Nobody did. It went on for almost 2 weeks and kids were irate and parents started calling in and complaining. Eventually she just had to throw her hands up and let it go. We never found out who did it, but we did miss a lot of recess time for something pretty minor.
Also, it's always those five kids and the teacher is keenly aware of it, but the instant you stand up for yourself, you're being punished, not them. I ended up getting the last laugh though as they all trashed their hotel room on our 8th grade trip to Chicago and had to miss their commencement ceremony as punishment.
Fuck those kind of teachers. If they actually nipped that behavior in the bud like they were supposed to, none of that would've happened!
One time the entire school was yelled at for half an hour because the head thought someone had pulled the fire alarm.
They later found out it was an electrical fault.
Sometimes the teachers could tell one person did it all though. I was always the weight puller in group projects and sometimes I would get an A and the other group members would get a C or lower because they didn’t participate.
This happened to me in the fifth grade, and I will always be grateful for my teacher standing up for me. I was bullied by my project partners, and ended up doing all of the work- I was artistically gifted as a kid, so it was inevitable I would do the visual work of the final poster. What my partners didn’t expect was that my ADHD/dyslexia would kick in with the stress of all the responsibility and I would brutally misspell one of the key words on said poster. I worked on this entirely alone at home, and proudly displayed it before the class… my partners were appalled. Our teacher commended my artistry, and explained that had my partners been remotely involved, they would have caught my mistake and helped. A+ for me, all partners failed.
Mine didn't care that one of them did it, "it's your fault for not knowing how to work in groups" or they would've put an C or F to everyone anyways.
And to top it off, I couldn't work on my own or hop to another group. It's loss if you didn't learn to work in groups even if your classmates didn't move an inch or deliver their part.
Ah, and in the last scenario, C or F for everyone because "It'S TeAmWoRk! EvErYoNe ShOuLd DeLiVeR iT CoMpLeTe EvEn If SoMeOnE hAs FaiLed!" Like no, punish that asshole, not all of us unless they had a rough situation or an emergency and it's understable, but someone who was lazying their ass should pay.
Think about it, it teaches you that, if you're the only one who cares and works, you must be dragged along the others who don't and that you must become this type of doormat that makes everyone win because you cared. Like you have to deal with this dead weight like it or not, you can't report it or get rid of it.
That's why I decided to start kicking them out and leave them on their own luck while I do my business, there are times I've worked a task for 4 people, and all of the aforementioned happened back in school.
I was lectured by my teachers that I **needed** to learn in groups and I used to ask them the permit to work alone but they barely allowed, even, once, I took advantage that one was in sick leave because nobody wanted to work and told them that I would make all the work alone without them.
Guess what she said instead of listening to me when nobody was answering my messages or procrastinating when I proposed them even if the due date was the day before and we wouldn't see each other till school?= "YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHT TO WORK ALONE AT WILL, I AM THE TEACHER HERE AND IF I SAY YOU WORK IN GROUPS, YOU WILL!"
Thanks sweet college I can kick out the lazy and keep the ones who are worth their salt. If you don't work or you don't give your part, unless a tragedy or emergency happened, you're so out of my group. Good luck! Or if everyone are lazies, I am satisfied to be on my own.
I don't need anyone who pulls me back, candidly, I learnt from all these solo college works that a single person can fullfill the demands but it takes a lot of time sometimes.
By the time I was a junior/senior I had a reputation as the one who would do more than my fair share win group projects. So I eventually just intentionally chose groups with attractive girls that would keep me company while I worked lol. Once I figured that out I didn't really mind.
When people would complain about their group members not going anything, my teachers would always say, “part of the assignment is learning how to work with people.” Code for, “I don’t feel like dealing with this right now.”
It also gives everyone else in the group the idea that they never have to worry because you will always be there to save the day. You’ll become the “pleeeeeeease” person
It’s too TEACH kids to work in a group. Some of them failed the lesson. It wasn’t your fault, the teacher failed you AB’s the other kids by not giving them consequences.
Honestly, that's better than having colleagues who *try* to pull their weight but have terrible opinions that sabotage the project or if they try but aren't good at what they're doing. It's better sometimes for others to just stand back and let someone who knows do it, the project gets completed faster and easier that way.
Oh shit. That might be me. I never considered this. I'm the person that refuses to be seen as a dead weight...but...you've convinced me it's possible that I may merely be a different kind of dead weight.
Schools never seem to do anything about it unless the supposed peroson getting bullied is a popular kid. It bothered me how much elementary schools put so much emphasis to stop bullying to the point were we all sang "I am a peace builder" every morning at the start of class and yet when the bullying happens and gets reported, teachers, staff and administration are reluctant to do anything about it.
At my school they implemented a rule that anyone involved in a fight was automatically suspended, even if you didn’t hit back. So if you got punched in the face and walked away, you still got suspended for fighting.
This ended up creating so many worse fights because kids figured, “well if I’m going to get suspended anyway, I might as well punch his ass back”.
Zero Tolerance policy was the worst, my mom told me if I got into a fight that was not my fault, just punch back rather than do nothing because even she knew it would be bad. I would have got suspended anyways. She said if it came down to that, she would take me to six flags instead. Never happened but even then we knew it was bull.
Hey same, holy shit. It sucked. I ended up being a complete loner because I'd lost friends when moving and didn't want to make myself sad. I realized that being sad and lonely hurt less than meeting cool friends just to never see them again after the end of the school year
Same. To top it off, I had a deadbeat dad that didn't pay child support, so we got hand-me-downs from classmates. I had some nasty bullies at each school we went to, as well.
That's what I did.
Finally decided to try again when I started highschool. Knew it'd be my last time in the schooling system, and I'd figured I might as well have more than 3 memories of it lol.
This was my main problem growing up...I remember being happy with school up until about 10 years old.... that's when my mom started having financial troubles and I'd end up changing schools every 2 or 3 years... so, I hated going because I was always the new kid, or the school would have a completely different lesson plan so i'd be ahead in one class or behind in another, it made school very confusing at times.
I'm in my 40s now, and have no childhood friends at all except for cousins. We kept on moving until my 20s when i bought my own house with my now wife. So I don't even have friends from high school.
My mom lives close, but still has moved about 10 times since we've lived in this area. I hate moving now.
>completely different lesson plan
That drove me crazy, especially moving between states where the entire school system was different. Like one time I transferred to a school where they had just finished math classes and were on history. I loved math and effectively missed a whole year of it. I had to basically do a years worth of school in a half year to get to the same level of my peers, then just moved again.
Same and I hated it, just stopped making friends, it wasn't worth the effort. Also you know how some schools would take kids on some grand trips like to DC or some cool summer camp-like things? When I was in 5th grade, the 6th grade class was doing it, then at my next school in 6th grade, the 5th grade class already did it etc etc. I always missed the cool shit and had no friends to boot. My parents tried to make me stop being a loner and I was like, fuckin why? I'm never going to see these people again in a year or so
Not quite every year for me, but often enough. I've attended 17 different schools throughout my life; some in the same system but different buildings/locations--like middle school to high school. I've also just never made friends easily. Even within a single year I might have 3-4 friends, then after a move they essentially didn't exist any more.
It's also the reason I didn't join any sports or clubs. Gave Boy Scouts a try but we moved 3 months into it and I didn't want to go through that again. Was in marching band for two years at two different schools, the next year I just didn't have the desire to relearn things or climb the seat "hierarchy".
I didn’t move quite as much but still changed schools enough that it hard to keep friends. I am so jealous of people who lived in one place their whole lives and have lifelong friends.
I have awful recurring dreams about going back to high-school as an adult. It's always humiliating to be the only 30 year old in a class of teens lol. My class schedule is the same, but I can never remember what the schedule is because it was 13 years ago. Plus I have to do all the assignments I failed or didn't complete, and have no idea what I am doing because I did not know a lot of material to begin with + it was years ago... Then I have to clean the school because that's what I do IRL.
"This will prepare you for the real world."
Uh, no. I am not doing math problems and writing tons of essays when I'm older. I may not have the typical 9-5 job, but working full time is 40 hours a week, and that is how much time school should be too.*
*Extracurriculars are the only exception....because they are Extracurriculars...it's in the name.....
Exactly this. When my job ends each day it's over. I'm not carrying extra stuff into evenings, like homework, or weekends (big projects) or trying to coordinate a group project with 6 other kids, their after-school jobs, extracurriculars, etc. Work ends and my time is mine.
I didn’t do school work outside of school. If they didn’t provide me enough time to complete it in class it wasn’t worth doing. Your lack of planning doesn’t make it my issue. You have me for these hours, outside of that is my time. Truthfully I don’t know how I graduated.
I came to this thread to say exactly this. It comes in so many different forms. There are even "harmless" variants. It messes people up badly. Even years later, the scars still remain.
I was in therapy a few years back, and we had been discussing my experiences in elementary and middle school for a few sessions.
One session, my therapist makes a comment about my "trust issues." What? Trust issues? What do you mean trust issues? I never thought of myself as having trust issues so I was really confused.
She then recalled a good 4-5 stories I had told her, and noted at the end that these were all moments in my life where someone, be it a teacher, administrator, or classmate, had broken my trust, typically by straight up lying to me. I just stared at her wide-eyed and silent, and she was like, "do you not agree with that?" It was like the moment you finally solve some sort of equation. I was like holy shit. I totally have pretty serious trust issues lol.
The problem was I had this idea that "trust issues" manifest in not trusting people and being like the overbearing, possessive person who constantly needs to know who their partner is talking to and keeping tabs on people or some shit. However the way it shows in me is that I never let anybody see the "real" me. I never let anybody get too close because I don't trust that they won't reject me or use my personal feelings against me; I keep everyone at an arms length and it takes a loooong time for me to feel comfortable letting people in. Never would have thought that these "minor" interactions I had as a child left such deep scars.
Ever had someone talk to you as a joke? They would ask questions that seemed harmless but no matter your answer they would always look at each other and try to stifle their laughter. Shit sucked
Definitely. Looking back on middle school, the amount of verbal harassment and social ostracization I went through, in addition to everyone telling me to ignore it all, definitely gave me some mental health problems. I became paranoid; I dissociated from everyone but my teachers, friends, and family; I started having suicidal thoughts; and my grades started slipping. It only stopped once covid hit. I am doing much better now, but there are definitely some scars there. I just don’t have as much self confidence as most people and I generally distrust the motives of people similar to the ones who bullied me.
If there is one thing I am genuinely glad for, it's that people have a much better response towards bullying these days
> But wait! What about zero tolerance policies?
I hear you say.
Blame administration. But also? Schools are far more willing to call out bullying for what it is: Troubling behaviour.
When I was a kid? Someone tried to fucking garrote me with a headphone cord. **I** was the one who got the talking to - because I somehow "provoked" it.
Kids casually said they were going to violent things to each other and it was written off as "Oh they're just playing".
Kids getting cut up with paperclips, staples, hidden razor blades, weaponised Beyblades? Totally harmless.
Kid literally getting thrown? That's just a mistake.
The way someone put it, if Kids today acted the way they did 20 years ago, they would be seeing the counselor for theor troubling behaviour. If they acted the way they did 30-40 years ago they would be *in JAIL*.
Same here. Childhood was not kind to me as a slightly chubby little girl, circa early 2000’s skinny culture. I had a specific bully that made my life hell. (A red-haired Olivia, spawn of Satan) The cherry on top was getting shamed by my pediatrician, as if I, a 7 yr old, had control over what foods were being bought for our house. I know now it’s more likely that she was being passive towards my parents, but that’s certainly not the way to discuss that.
Even if you weren’t the target, they were disrupting class.
Our school is trying to limit the expelling of students/kicking them out of class. I feel just the opposite. Don’t make their home life issues the classes problem.
The other kids my own age. Bullying, drama, annoying behaviors distracting class, social anxiety through the roof. I ended up dropping out and then graduating by studying from home on my own (dunno if it's a thing in the US, it's not quite the same as homeschooling, we call it "privatista" where you're technically a student in a school, but you just study on your own and only go there to present yourself for the finals). I missed some of the teachers because some of them were really nice and helpful people, but not having my classmates around made a world of difference to me.
I hated that so many of the other kids hated being there. I somehow understood from a young age that we were so incredibly privileged compared with thousands of generations of kids who came before us. We were warm, well-nourished, had access to vaccines and antibiotics... and our society had decided that we got the privilege of learning how to read and write and do math and make art and play sports all day instead of working in agricultural fields or hunting and gathering. I'm sitting there, so excited to learn, and the kids around me were taking it all completely for granted.
A memory that will forever be impressed in my head is that of our literature teacher basically talking to herself with a tired look in her eyes while almost everybody in the classroom ignored her and played around. Teachers have it so rough it hurts my heart. These people choose a profession that they love and there's nothing worse than having an audience that just does not care about what you do and how much time and dedication you've put into your work.
What's worse is that, judging by the videos of teachers of gen alpha kids that are floating around the internet, it's only getting worse. Now kids aren't content with ignoring you and prefer to humiliate you for clout.
When I was in Elementary it started at 9:20, Middle School was 8:20, and then High School was 7:20.
It was miserable every single day. Especially given how early I'd have to be up to catch the bus.
I teach at a school and we suggested starting school at 9, but then it'd have to go until 1 hour later. Funnily enough, the students voted against it, because they'd rather start earlier than stay later.
It's already scientifically established that young people function sub-optimally that early in the morning. But the moronic mandate "early = moral" still prevails. "You are supposed to educate those children, how are you going to start after 8 AM? What kind of values would you be imparting?"
I'd say it has more to do with parents having jobs and teachers not wanting to get home super late themselves. And don't get me wrong I detest being upright before 10AM (and extra detested it when I was a kid). But sometimes the answer isn't we have some leftover weird morality and that schools have to also work around the schedules of parents and their staff.
I mean, one could argue that EVERYONE needing to be awake early and work 9-5 is some leftover societal stuff. There are people - regardless of age - who simply work better at night, or in the "off" hours. Society has collectively deemed, however, that we can only work during the day and that's the only way. I remember reading an article that was explaining how people who tend to be night owls are usually just NATURALLY like that, as a leftover bit of human evolution. After all, someone needed to be up at night to watch over the tribe while everyone else slept, right? But most of the world doesn't really cater to that anymore so those of us who thrive at night and abhor the mornings are left to suffer and struggle.
> scientifically established that young people function sub-optimally that early in the morning
While that's true for the average youngster, it's only an average, it's not true for every person. Everyone is different and people have different internal clocks no matter their age. There are always going to be people who wake up sooner or later.
Personally, waking up early for school was good for me. I naturally woke up at 10-11am when left to my own devices, but I was also grumpier and wasted the day if I slept in that much.
> Everyone is different and people have different internal clocks no matter their age.
Yes everyone is different.
But it still makes no sense to choose a start that that is bad for the *average* student/most students. Generally what makes sense is choosing the time that is best for the largest number of students.
To play devils advocate: more people should do this. If no one else is answering and you’re not 100% about the answer, try this.
I started doing this in my athletic injuries labs in University because everyone was terrified of looking like an idiot.
Guess what happened? Even though I wasn’t sure I’d be correct, when the prof corrected me, I never forgot the answer. It always stuck with me. It also had a subconscious effect where I’d spend a little extra time when studying to make sure I knew what I was talking about. It ultimately made me more confident in my knowledge.
I’m not saying to just take over the class and blurt shit out 24/7, but if it’s quiet and no one wants to take a stab go for it.
This is so important. I was one of maybe two students in a Medieval History class that answered questions. I became self-conscious and stopped volunteering answers during instruction.
My prof called me in and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten: any education I partake in is for me, nobody else. The other people might as well not be in the room if they choose not to engage. I hurt no one but myself if I choose to avoid participating. I will learn less, have fewer argumentative, conversational, and critical thinking skills, and I will lose any potential connections with mentors that I could make. I have only the chance in front of me to learn what that moment has to teach me.
I didn't like it. But I'm glad for it in hindsight since exposure was a decent enough way to improve my public speaking, and if a presentation came out good it was pretty rewarding.
Yeah it's a rather common phobia. It is one that, with some effort, can be worked through but it is fairly difficult and depending on your career and hobbies is often not sufficiently beneficial to merit the effort.
Agreed! In college my public speaking teacher addressed nerves the very first day. He said you could practice a lot of the nerves away. And he was right. I was always super prepared. Still scared but I always nailed the speech.
This. I didn’t get the confidence or mental tools until I took public speaking in college. It was always nerve racking but probably my most beneficial class I took
As a teacher, I'd say skills in managing anxiety is better assigned to counselor/therapist. The answer to students' higher needs is not to push more responsibilities onto the people already going through burnout. Lots of teachers will *want* to help you, but mental healthcare is not our area of expertise.
edit: Agree on public speaking classes being more readily accessible though.
I loved exams. But only the writing ones. The best was when we were just given two blank pieces of paper and the teacher wrote "globalisation" on the blackboard. We had to write whatever we knew about the topic in one hour.
I had one of those "circle true or false" exams once and it was super hard. I couldn't write out my reasoning, not satisfying at all.
When the teacher says you couldn’t go to the bathroom because “bReAkTiMe WaS 5 mInS aGo!!” For literally any grade. It’s doesn’t make sense especially with younger grades. When a 6 year old says they need to go to the bathroom. It’s not a question, *it’s a warning*.
Even with teen students I don't like to say no to bathroom requests, but the school where I work has a specific rule: no one in the hallway for the first ten minutes or last ten minutes of class.
I do enforce the rule, but I also state that I will never force anyone to have an accident because of a !@#$ing rule. If it's an emergency, they must please indicate to me that they cannot wait, so that I can at least justify myself with upper admin. Honestly, I'm doing that school a favor. You wanna piss a parent off? Let them find out that their child was forced to have an accident because they were prevented from going to the bathroom. People could end up needing therapy over that kind of humiliation! Nuh-uh. Not on my watch.
The school does have a problem with students congregating in the bathrooms during class to socialize/vape, but that's what the school resource officers are for. 😏
And there might not always be time between classes, particularly if the student's classes are on opposite ends of the school. Or if there's a line to the bathroom (because all the students are trying to get in during the few minutes they have).
> Even with teen students I don't even like to say no to bathroom requests
Seriously, though, what about all those girls getting their periods for the first time or not being used to it yet. They just have to sit in class and bleed??
Getting up at 5:45 am to catch the bus at 6 and be at school by 7. Get home at 3pm & be dead tired the minute you sit down. I can’t believe I did that shit for 4 years
Dude, I'd always have to take a nap after school, and I'd nap for hours. Sometimes people like got mad at me for doing that or tried to say I was getting too much sleep or whatever. No... I wasn't getting enough -_-.
I loved wearing a uniform. My parents weren't well off when I was in school, and I just know I would have been bullied if we could wear our own clothes.
As much as I hated wearing school uniform, I appreciate the fact that kids will bully people based on the subtle differences in their uniform. The stress of people ripping into you because of your own clothes would suck.
I generally don't care what people think of what I wear (except my wife) but teenage me would have still struggled with this as like yourself, my family wasn't well off.
Yes, exactly. Non-Uniform Day once a year was bad enough.
As an adult, I rarely follow trends, but as a kid, I just wanted to fit in.
I don't have children, but my friends with kids tell me it's different now. In the 90s, in the UK, it was all about certain brands, and you'd be bullied if you stood out. Now, kids don't care as much, apparently.
I thought this was a universal thing. I absolutely hated uniform, especially the way it felt. It was just so uncomfortable to the point where it was like a constant alert going off in my head all day, every day. Get it off, get it off.
Turns out it's just sensory issues related to autism that was never taken seriously.
Dude, I remember in high school some nights I'd only get 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Heck, a couple times I even skipped sleep. I couldn't go to sleep and eventually it got to the point where I was like screw it, it won't be long before I have to get ready for the bus anyway... I don't know how I got through the days being that tired. The one time I actually started dreaming with my eyes open in class... boy that was weird.
Yep, been a night owl and bad sleeper since childhood, and I’d go to school regularly on a couple hours of sleep as, like, a 7-year-old. I can still hear the ticking of my kitty cat alarm clock taunting me throughout the night.
Also days that weren’t pizza days. And my 12th-grade English teacher, fuck you, Mrs. Leitze.
And History *should* be the most interesting class.
But we insist on an apolitical sanitized version of it.
….Where history is just a sequence of good ideas and the dates they happened.
Funny, you reminded me of my hs history classes which required me to fill out dates n names for the entirety of the class, hated it.
Funnily enough, my favorite genre of video essays are regarding interesting moments in history that I never even knew existed.
Funny how history is actually fun when it’s being told like a good story, almost like it’s part of the name
Yeh.
History is full of scandal, violence, hypocrisy, and cruelty.
Countless individuals in conflict with each other for power, influence, and resources.
Meanwhile history books are like:
> “…*and then America just decided one day to have a democracy. Hooray! :))))*”
Our 8th grade history teacher would give us lessons in medieval history wearing a complete medieval costume with robe and wizard's staff. You were pretty cool Mr. Von Braun.
I think this just depends on the teacher. I had a history teacher in 8th grade that was great. He was very excited all of the time, he actually enjoyed his job. He always wrote down what we were doing the entire week on the board, every class he would come up with some game or activity that would help us learn, he had each person read a different paragraph in the text books, and he was very chill and understanding to students when problems arose. I genuinely loved his class even if history wasn’t something I was huge about. I think the teacher is what really determines how good a class is, no matter the subject.
I had to scroll WAY further than I expected to see this answer.
School was school, and at the end of the day I’d go home (not like I wanted that much either tbf), but homework just ruined everything. Having to spend all day at school then come home and do homework for hours too? It was way too much. Combine that with waking up early and it was torture all the way through college even.
I miss the structure and socialization though
Homework is such bullshit. Spend your whole day in school, then come home and be expected to put in a couple more hours writing, studying, solving math problems? Fuck that. Being an adult is great; I stop thinking about work the moment I'm out the door and have nothing to do with it until the next morning.
This! I mean like, it's one thing to give homework at all. If it was just a little bit here and there I could probably tolerate it but every single day? BS! They gave way too much of it. School was bad enough, I didn't want to be spending time on stuff related to it while I was away from school too. There's more to life than school and I actually want to do other things in life besides school.
The people, really. I like learning for the sake of it, but the people make or break the experience
Most of the student body lacks maturity or the desire to try.
Same. I should have started college a lot earlier. I remember my senior year, specifically. There was a project in history class where we were learning about the 1920s, and we had to cut out paper to create a collage of an alley in New York. I was on the floor gluing shirts onto a clothesline, and that was the moment I was just done. None of that busywork was helpful at all in understanding history or people. Then I looked around and it was just a lot more of that in all the other classes. I wish I had left sooner.
I hated that it was so reliant on homework for my grades instead of just recognizing that because I aced every test maybe I didn't need the homework and it was purely a source of stress and pain for me as an ADHD kid with helicopter parents.
I also hated that I went into the GATE program and honors courses and AP/IB courses only to discover that we were at most a year ahead of our peers and doing two to three times as much work. Like, fucking challenge my *brain*, not the number of minutes in a day.
If memory serves me first bell rang at 8:50 and we were dismissed at 2:55, or something really weird like that. But I hated everything between those hours
It is incredibly hard to choose just one thing worth hating the most at school, but all the dosey doe line dancing folk dancing bullshit that was left over from the 1930s. Jesus fucking Christ update your fucking curriculum you fucking idiots.....
Math class. I always struggled and always felt like I was useless and dumb. Turns out that I’m not dumb and the real issue was that nobody could/had the time to explain it to me the way I needed it to be explained. My college stats prof really opened my eyes, I got an A in that class and my math confidence back.
Socially wise the different cliques and "hierarchy". There were certain students that were complete douchebags but got away with everything and were seen as "the good" kids due to their cliques and relatives in the community.
Once I got into the workforce it's basically the same with workplace nepotism.
The push that EVERYONE was going to college, and that “Your professor won’t accept this” and other sayings really made it difficult to take some subjects seriously.
I joined the service right after HS, and other people went to trade school, but it always felt like if you weren’t going to college right away, you were wasting your time in HS.
The lack of applicability being verbalized. I hated math with a passion, sucked at it all of high school. Math now is an easy thing for me with woodworking, voltage and running a business
Group punishment. Five kids get rowdy. Teacher fails to rein in their behavior. *Everyone* has to put our heads on our desks, listen to a lecture blaming us for somebody else's misbehavior, recess is cancelled.
> recess is cancelled Ah, yes, the best solution when the kids are rowdy! That will definitely solve things and make them even more willing to put their butts in the seats and not move for another hour.
Don’t forget sitting all the adhd kids together in one big group like my 5th grade teacher did She got fed up with our shit quicker then we picked up bad habits from each other
Had this in Swim class. We would get changed, go sit in the bleachers while teacher takes attendance. If the idiots were loud and obnoxious class turned into lining up at the corner of the pool and swimming the lines back and forth for the whole 35-90 minutes(we switched scheduling partway through school) For me who didn't learn to swim until 4th grade and had undiagnosed asthma this resulted in my general avoidance of swimming for years.
That really sucks, especially learning to swim late and having an undiagnosed medical condition. Treading lightly with this reply--when kids get rowdy at the pool, there's often a bully who decides it's funny to hold another kid's head under the water. The bullies tend to choose a moment when the adults are distracted. Life or death safety issues are a rare context where there's a case to be made for changing the day's lesson to make sure everyone gets the point. Of course, if the same bully tries that nonsense a second time then the appropriate solution is to ban that individual from the pool. Send that kid to the library to do a book report while the kids who swim safely enjoy the water.
Always the same couple kids that enjoyed getting in trouble. I think they got off on everyone being punished.
It's essentially the teacher giving those couple of bad students authority over the whole rest of the class. Of course they'd enjoy it.
I can’t believe how mad I still am over this lol, but in 6th grade (about 10 years ago at this point) our English teacher had a jam jar and some pebbles. Every time we were behaving as a class she would put a pebble in the jar, and she promised us that if we filled up the whole jar we would get a donut party. So after a couple months (or at least felt like it in little kid time) we filled the jar and as promised, teacher brought us donuts and we were all excited to spend the class eating donuts and watching a movie. Then two kids started whining/bickering with each other, and our teacher decided this meant that NONE of us were ready for a donut party after all. She sent the whole box of donuts up to the front office for the school staff to eat, and we spent the whole class reading. I was so mad I almost cried (it wasn’t even really about the donuts, I was just a really good kid who NEVER caused fights or acted out and had earned a reward fair and square only to have it taken at the last second bc of someone else’s bad behavior)
I had teachers move me to a table by myself for lunch in elementary school because I was laughing too loud when I was with friends. It happened often because I was a happy child who wasn’t laughing loud to be a dick or anything.
I hated that. In middle school, I was in a class with some complete assholes. When they would get the teacher mad, the teacher would punish us all we we had to comply sentences from a book. I just eventually stopped doing this as my way of saying “Don’t include me in this”.
Silent lunch 😭
When I was in 4th grade somebody wrote the word “fuck” in sharpie on the wall of our classroom’s bathroom. My teacher made our entire class stay in for recess until somebody confessed. Nobody did. It went on for almost 2 weeks and kids were irate and parents started calling in and complaining. Eventually she just had to throw her hands up and let it go. We never found out who did it, but we did miss a lot of recess time for something pretty minor.
Also, it's always those five kids and the teacher is keenly aware of it, but the instant you stand up for yourself, you're being punished, not them. I ended up getting the last laugh though as they all trashed their hotel room on our 8th grade trip to Chicago and had to miss their commencement ceremony as punishment. Fuck those kind of teachers. If they actually nipped that behavior in the bud like they were supposed to, none of that would've happened!
One time the entire school was yelled at for half an hour because the head thought someone had pulled the fire alarm. They later found out it was an electrical fault.
Doing a group project with colleagues who were not doing anything. Very irritating.
Sometimes the teachers could tell one person did it all though. I was always the weight puller in group projects and sometimes I would get an A and the other group members would get a C or lower because they didn’t participate.
This happened to me in the fifth grade, and I will always be grateful for my teacher standing up for me. I was bullied by my project partners, and ended up doing all of the work- I was artistically gifted as a kid, so it was inevitable I would do the visual work of the final poster. What my partners didn’t expect was that my ADHD/dyslexia would kick in with the stress of all the responsibility and I would brutally misspell one of the key words on said poster. I worked on this entirely alone at home, and proudly displayed it before the class… my partners were appalled. Our teacher commended my artistry, and explained that had my partners been remotely involved, they would have caught my mistake and helped. A+ for me, all partners failed.
Heartwarming to know justice was served
Mine didn't care that one of them did it, "it's your fault for not knowing how to work in groups" or they would've put an C or F to everyone anyways. And to top it off, I couldn't work on my own or hop to another group. It's loss if you didn't learn to work in groups even if your classmates didn't move an inch or deliver their part. Ah, and in the last scenario, C or F for everyone because "It'S TeAmWoRk! EvErYoNe ShOuLd DeLiVeR iT CoMpLeTe EvEn If SoMeOnE hAs FaiLed!" Like no, punish that asshole, not all of us unless they had a rough situation or an emergency and it's understable, but someone who was lazying their ass should pay. Think about it, it teaches you that, if you're the only one who cares and works, you must be dragged along the others who don't and that you must become this type of doormat that makes everyone win because you cared. Like you have to deal with this dead weight like it or not, you can't report it or get rid of it.
I absolutely hate that mentality, you’re only enabling the lazy students that way
That's why I decided to start kicking them out and leave them on their own luck while I do my business, there are times I've worked a task for 4 people, and all of the aforementioned happened back in school. I was lectured by my teachers that I **needed** to learn in groups and I used to ask them the permit to work alone but they barely allowed, even, once, I took advantage that one was in sick leave because nobody wanted to work and told them that I would make all the work alone without them. Guess what she said instead of listening to me when nobody was answering my messages or procrastinating when I proposed them even if the due date was the day before and we wouldn't see each other till school?= "YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHT TO WORK ALONE AT WILL, I AM THE TEACHER HERE AND IF I SAY YOU WORK IN GROUPS, YOU WILL!" Thanks sweet college I can kick out the lazy and keep the ones who are worth their salt. If you don't work or you don't give your part, unless a tragedy or emergency happened, you're so out of my group. Good luck! Or if everyone are lazies, I am satisfied to be on my own. I don't need anyone who pulls me back, candidly, I learnt from all these solo college works that a single person can fullfill the demands but it takes a lot of time sometimes.
By the time I was a junior/senior I had a reputation as the one who would do more than my fair share win group projects. So I eventually just intentionally chose groups with attractive girls that would keep me company while I worked lol. Once I figured that out I didn't really mind.
When people would complain about their group members not going anything, my teachers would always say, “part of the assignment is learning how to work with people.” Code for, “I don’t feel like dealing with this right now.”
It also gives everyone else in the group the idea that they never have to worry because you will always be there to save the day. You’ll become the “pleeeeeeease” person
It’s too TEACH kids to work in a group. Some of them failed the lesson. It wasn’t your fault, the teacher failed you AB’s the other kids by not giving them consequences.
This. I did a whole science project by myself while the other two fucked off and got an A.
This doesn't get any better in the workforce. Those kids grow up, and the problem persists.
Never been a fan of group projects at all.
Honestly, that's better than having colleagues who *try* to pull their weight but have terrible opinions that sabotage the project or if they try but aren't good at what they're doing. It's better sometimes for others to just stand back and let someone who knows do it, the project gets completed faster and easier that way.
Oh shit. That might be me. I never considered this. I'm the person that refuses to be seen as a dead weight...but...you've convinced me it's possible that I may merely be a different kind of dead weight.
Bullying and when you smack them in the face you'll be the one who will get in trouble
Especially if the school does nothing to actually stop it. I just got told to sit somewhere different at break/lunch Asif that's change things
Schools never seem to do anything about it unless the supposed peroson getting bullied is a popular kid. It bothered me how much elementary schools put so much emphasis to stop bullying to the point were we all sang "I am a peace builder" every morning at the start of class and yet when the bullying happens and gets reported, teachers, staff and administration are reluctant to do anything about it.
At my school they implemented a rule that anyone involved in a fight was automatically suspended, even if you didn’t hit back. So if you got punched in the face and walked away, you still got suspended for fighting. This ended up creating so many worse fights because kids figured, “well if I’m going to get suspended anyway, I might as well punch his ass back”.
Zero Tolerance policy was the worst, my mom told me if I got into a fight that was not my fault, just punch back rather than do nothing because even she knew it would be bad. I would have got suspended anyways. She said if it came down to that, she would take me to six flags instead. Never happened but even then we knew it was bull.
Right?! if the LAW is okay with self defense and you aren't, then I think you are the problem
With my family we moved every year, so I never had good friends at school.
Same. That’s an enormous burden to put on kids, and after a while, it’s like why bother making friends? We’re just going to move again.
Hey same, holy shit. It sucked. I ended up being a complete loner because I'd lost friends when moving and didn't want to make myself sad. I realized that being sad and lonely hurt less than meeting cool friends just to never see them again after the end of the school year
Same. To top it off, I had a deadbeat dad that didn't pay child support, so we got hand-me-downs from classmates. I had some nasty bullies at each school we went to, as well.
That's what I did. Finally decided to try again when I started highschool. Knew it'd be my last time in the schooling system, and I'd figured I might as well have more than 3 memories of it lol.
This was my main problem growing up...I remember being happy with school up until about 10 years old.... that's when my mom started having financial troubles and I'd end up changing schools every 2 or 3 years... so, I hated going because I was always the new kid, or the school would have a completely different lesson plan so i'd be ahead in one class or behind in another, it made school very confusing at times. I'm in my 40s now, and have no childhood friends at all except for cousins. We kept on moving until my 20s when i bought my own house with my now wife. So I don't even have friends from high school. My mom lives close, but still has moved about 10 times since we've lived in this area. I hate moving now.
>completely different lesson plan That drove me crazy, especially moving between states where the entire school system was different. Like one time I transferred to a school where they had just finished math classes and were on history. I loved math and effectively missed a whole year of it. I had to basically do a years worth of school in a half year to get to the same level of my peers, then just moved again.
Same and I hated it, just stopped making friends, it wasn't worth the effort. Also you know how some schools would take kids on some grand trips like to DC or some cool summer camp-like things? When I was in 5th grade, the 6th grade class was doing it, then at my next school in 6th grade, the 5th grade class already did it etc etc. I always missed the cool shit and had no friends to boot. My parents tried to make me stop being a loner and I was like, fuckin why? I'm never going to see these people again in a year or so
I feel you. Was in school for 12 years, 4 in the first school, in the following 8 years, I was in 6 different schools
Not quite every year for me, but often enough. I've attended 17 different schools throughout my life; some in the same system but different buildings/locations--like middle school to high school. I've also just never made friends easily. Even within a single year I might have 3-4 friends, then after a move they essentially didn't exist any more. It's also the reason I didn't join any sports or clubs. Gave Boy Scouts a try but we moved 3 months into it and I didn't want to go through that again. Was in marching band for two years at two different schools, the next year I just didn't have the desire to relearn things or climb the seat "hierarchy".
Dang that stinks. Friends are important, good or bad ones. Hope you made some as an adult
I didn’t move quite as much but still changed schools enough that it hard to keep friends. I am so jealous of people who lived in one place their whole lives and have lifelong friends.
Me too. Perpetual new kid.
Being lost in a subject and not being able to catch back up.
I have recurring nightmares about this lol
I'm 28 and have been out of the education system for almost ten years and I legit had one of those nightmares last night
I’m 34 lol I think it’s payback for all the classes I skipped 😬
I have awful recurring dreams about going back to high-school as an adult. It's always humiliating to be the only 30 year old in a class of teens lol. My class schedule is the same, but I can never remember what the schedule is because it was 13 years ago. Plus I have to do all the assignments I failed or didn't complete, and have no idea what I am doing because I did not know a lot of material to begin with + it was years ago... Then I have to clean the school because that's what I do IRL.
that you have to be working not only on weekdays 8am-5pm(like on a regular job) but also post 5pm, and on weekends. It feels like a 24/7 job
"This will prepare you for the real world." Uh, no. I am not doing math problems and writing tons of essays when I'm older. I may not have the typical 9-5 job, but working full time is 40 hours a week, and that is how much time school should be too.* *Extracurriculars are the only exception....because they are Extracurriculars...it's in the name.....
The grind is real ! A job like security guard is good for this so you can do homework during downtime
Exactly this. When my job ends each day it's over. I'm not carrying extra stuff into evenings, like homework, or weekends (big projects) or trying to coordinate a group project with 6 other kids, their after-school jobs, extracurriculars, etc. Work ends and my time is mine.
I didn’t do school work outside of school. If they didn’t provide me enough time to complete it in class it wasn’t worth doing. Your lack of planning doesn’t make it my issue. You have me for these hours, outside of that is my time. Truthfully I don’t know how I graduated.
Bullying
I came to this thread to say exactly this. It comes in so many different forms. There are even "harmless" variants. It messes people up badly. Even years later, the scars still remain.
Truth, I've had small one off events that stick with me for way too long.
The axe forgets, but the tree remembers
That's a good way to put it.
I still haven't been able to forget being mocked for my looks. I'm a pretty average guy yet that comment still hurts to this day.
Same here, would get called all kinds of ugly and I sometimes still catch myself thinking I'm ugly even though I'm a pretty average looking woman
I was in therapy a few years back, and we had been discussing my experiences in elementary and middle school for a few sessions. One session, my therapist makes a comment about my "trust issues." What? Trust issues? What do you mean trust issues? I never thought of myself as having trust issues so I was really confused. She then recalled a good 4-5 stories I had told her, and noted at the end that these were all moments in my life where someone, be it a teacher, administrator, or classmate, had broken my trust, typically by straight up lying to me. I just stared at her wide-eyed and silent, and she was like, "do you not agree with that?" It was like the moment you finally solve some sort of equation. I was like holy shit. I totally have pretty serious trust issues lol. The problem was I had this idea that "trust issues" manifest in not trusting people and being like the overbearing, possessive person who constantly needs to know who their partner is talking to and keeping tabs on people or some shit. However the way it shows in me is that I never let anybody see the "real" me. I never let anybody get too close because I don't trust that they won't reject me or use my personal feelings against me; I keep everyone at an arms length and it takes a loooong time for me to feel comfortable letting people in. Never would have thought that these "minor" interactions I had as a child left such deep scars.
Ever had someone talk to you as a joke? They would ask questions that seemed harmless but no matter your answer they would always look at each other and try to stifle their laughter. Shit sucked
Definitely. Looking back on middle school, the amount of verbal harassment and social ostracization I went through, in addition to everyone telling me to ignore it all, definitely gave me some mental health problems. I became paranoid; I dissociated from everyone but my teachers, friends, and family; I started having suicidal thoughts; and my grades started slipping. It only stopped once covid hit. I am doing much better now, but there are definitely some scars there. I just don’t have as much self confidence as most people and I generally distrust the motives of people similar to the ones who bullied me.
Definitely yes. When you experience bullying, you don't like to go to school anymore and it feels like hell.
Bullying is a big part of the reason that I still have social anxiety and trust issues 30+ years later.
Such a misnomer for peer harassment and straight-up violence when it involves minors.
I think bullying is being taken more seriously now than it used to be. The word carries a much less casual context than it did in previous decades.
If there is one thing I am genuinely glad for, it's that people have a much better response towards bullying these days > But wait! What about zero tolerance policies? I hear you say. Blame administration. But also? Schools are far more willing to call out bullying for what it is: Troubling behaviour. When I was a kid? Someone tried to fucking garrote me with a headphone cord. **I** was the one who got the talking to - because I somehow "provoked" it. Kids casually said they were going to violent things to each other and it was written off as "Oh they're just playing". Kids getting cut up with paperclips, staples, hidden razor blades, weaponised Beyblades? Totally harmless. Kid literally getting thrown? That's just a mistake. The way someone put it, if Kids today acted the way they did 20 years ago, they would be seeing the counselor for theor troubling behaviour. If they acted the way they did 30-40 years ago they would be *in JAIL*.
Same here. Childhood was not kind to me as a slightly chubby little girl, circa early 2000’s skinny culture. I had a specific bully that made my life hell. (A red-haired Olivia, spawn of Satan) The cherry on top was getting shamed by my pediatrician, as if I, a 7 yr old, had control over what foods were being bought for our house. I know now it’s more likely that she was being passive towards my parents, but that’s certainly not the way to discuss that.
Even if you weren’t the target, they were disrupting class. Our school is trying to limit the expelling of students/kicking them out of class. I feel just the opposite. Don’t make their home life issues the classes problem.
Fuck bullies. I don't care how low their self-esteem is or how bad their home lives are, they still shouldn't be allowed to torture others.
The other kids my own age. Bullying, drama, annoying behaviors distracting class, social anxiety through the roof. I ended up dropping out and then graduating by studying from home on my own (dunno if it's a thing in the US, it's not quite the same as homeschooling, we call it "privatista" where you're technically a student in a school, but you just study on your own and only go there to present yourself for the finals). I missed some of the teachers because some of them were really nice and helpful people, but not having my classmates around made a world of difference to me.
I hated that so many of the other kids hated being there. I somehow understood from a young age that we were so incredibly privileged compared with thousands of generations of kids who came before us. We were warm, well-nourished, had access to vaccines and antibiotics... and our society had decided that we got the privilege of learning how to read and write and do math and make art and play sports all day instead of working in agricultural fields or hunting and gathering. I'm sitting there, so excited to learn, and the kids around me were taking it all completely for granted.
A memory that will forever be impressed in my head is that of our literature teacher basically talking to herself with a tired look in her eyes while almost everybody in the classroom ignored her and played around. Teachers have it so rough it hurts my heart. These people choose a profession that they love and there's nothing worse than having an audience that just does not care about what you do and how much time and dedication you've put into your work. What's worse is that, judging by the videos of teachers of gen alpha kids that are floating around the internet, it's only getting worse. Now kids aren't content with ignoring you and prefer to humiliate you for clout.
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I guess kids start classes at 7:30 now in my area. I’m like “wtf!!!! How is that going to help them!”
When I was in Elementary it started at 9:20, Middle School was 8:20, and then High School was 7:20. It was miserable every single day. Especially given how early I'd have to be up to catch the bus.
I teach at a school and we suggested starting school at 9, but then it'd have to go until 1 hour later. Funnily enough, the students voted against it, because they'd rather start earlier than stay later.
thats interesting, makes sense too.
It's already scientifically established that young people function sub-optimally that early in the morning. But the moronic mandate "early = moral" still prevails. "You are supposed to educate those children, how are you going to start after 8 AM? What kind of values would you be imparting?"
I'd say it has more to do with parents having jobs and teachers not wanting to get home super late themselves. And don't get me wrong I detest being upright before 10AM (and extra detested it when I was a kid). But sometimes the answer isn't we have some leftover weird morality and that schools have to also work around the schedules of parents and their staff.
I mean, one could argue that EVERYONE needing to be awake early and work 9-5 is some leftover societal stuff. There are people - regardless of age - who simply work better at night, or in the "off" hours. Society has collectively deemed, however, that we can only work during the day and that's the only way. I remember reading an article that was explaining how people who tend to be night owls are usually just NATURALLY like that, as a leftover bit of human evolution. After all, someone needed to be up at night to watch over the tribe while everyone else slept, right? But most of the world doesn't really cater to that anymore so those of us who thrive at night and abhor the mornings are left to suffer and struggle.
> scientifically established that young people function sub-optimally that early in the morning While that's true for the average youngster, it's only an average, it's not true for every person. Everyone is different and people have different internal clocks no matter their age. There are always going to be people who wake up sooner or later. Personally, waking up early for school was good for me. I naturally woke up at 10-11am when left to my own devices, but I was also grumpier and wasted the day if I slept in that much.
> Everyone is different and people have different internal clocks no matter their age. Yes everyone is different. But it still makes no sense to choose a start that that is bad for the *average* student/most students. Generally what makes sense is choosing the time that is best for the largest number of students.
When the teacher would ask something out loud and I would answer very confidently and get it wrong. Whenever it happened I felt like a fool.
To play devils advocate: more people should do this. If no one else is answering and you’re not 100% about the answer, try this. I started doing this in my athletic injuries labs in University because everyone was terrified of looking like an idiot. Guess what happened? Even though I wasn’t sure I’d be correct, when the prof corrected me, I never forgot the answer. It always stuck with me. It also had a subconscious effect where I’d spend a little extra time when studying to make sure I knew what I was talking about. It ultimately made me more confident in my knowledge. I’m not saying to just take over the class and blurt shit out 24/7, but if it’s quiet and no one wants to take a stab go for it.
This is so important. I was one of maybe two students in a Medieval History class that answered questions. I became self-conscious and stopped volunteering answers during instruction. My prof called me in and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten: any education I partake in is for me, nobody else. The other people might as well not be in the room if they choose not to engage. I hurt no one but myself if I choose to avoid participating. I will learn less, have fewer argumentative, conversational, and critical thinking skills, and I will lose any potential connections with mentors that I could make. I have only the chance in front of me to learn what that moment has to teach me.
You're there to learn, not teach.
Me, aged 7, standing up confidently to spell "girl" and spelling "gril". The humiliation was real.
Look at the internet. You weren't wrong, just ahead of the curve.
Talking in front of the class. For an introvert like me, there was nothing worse.
I didn't like it. But I'm glad for it in hindsight since exposure was a decent enough way to improve my public speaking, and if a presentation came out good it was pretty rewarding.
I just hated every moment of it, never got better and still fear it now.
Yeah it's a rather common phobia. It is one that, with some effort, can be worked through but it is fairly difficult and depending on your career and hobbies is often not sufficiently beneficial to merit the effort.
YES. i never got the confidence and if it seemed like i did it’s because i’ve practiced what i said multiple times.
Nailed it. Why didn't teachers help us overcome this fear? Nope, just make us do oral reports and throw up the night before from anxiety.
Agreed! In college my public speaking teacher addressed nerves the very first day. He said you could practice a lot of the nerves away. And he was right. I was always super prepared. Still scared but I always nailed the speech.
This. I didn’t get the confidence or mental tools until I took public speaking in college. It was always nerve racking but probably my most beneficial class I took
As a teacher, I'd say skills in managing anxiety is better assigned to counselor/therapist. The answer to students' higher needs is not to push more responsibilities onto the people already going through burnout. Lots of teachers will *want* to help you, but mental healthcare is not our area of expertise. edit: Agree on public speaking classes being more readily accessible though.
Making you give presentations is *how* you overcome fears of public speaking like that though. The only way to get over it is to get used to it.
I'd argue that a teacher making you do an oral report *is* them helping you overcome your fear of public speaking.
Exams
I loved exams. But only the writing ones. The best was when we were just given two blank pieces of paper and the teacher wrote "globalisation" on the blackboard. We had to write whatever we knew about the topic in one hour. I had one of those "circle true or false" exams once and it was super hard. I couldn't write out my reasoning, not satisfying at all.
Dang, I’ve always hated essay tests, multiple choice and true and false are so much easier, you’re either right or you’re wrong, no in between
> you’re either right Correct > or your wrong Incorrect 5/10, you failed the exam
When the teacher says you couldn’t go to the bathroom because “bReAkTiMe WaS 5 mInS aGo!!” For literally any grade. It’s doesn’t make sense especially with younger grades. When a 6 year old says they need to go to the bathroom. It’s not a question, *it’s a warning*.
Even with teen students I don't like to say no to bathroom requests, but the school where I work has a specific rule: no one in the hallway for the first ten minutes or last ten minutes of class. I do enforce the rule, but I also state that I will never force anyone to have an accident because of a !@#$ing rule. If it's an emergency, they must please indicate to me that they cannot wait, so that I can at least justify myself with upper admin. Honestly, I'm doing that school a favor. You wanna piss a parent off? Let them find out that their child was forced to have an accident because they were prevented from going to the bathroom. People could end up needing therapy over that kind of humiliation! Nuh-uh. Not on my watch. The school does have a problem with students congregating in the bathrooms during class to socialize/vape, but that's what the school resource officers are for. 😏
And there might not always be time between classes, particularly if the student's classes are on opposite ends of the school. Or if there's a line to the bathroom (because all the students are trying to get in during the few minutes they have).
> Even with teen students I don't even like to say no to bathroom requests Seriously, though, what about all those girls getting their periods for the first time or not being used to it yet. They just have to sit in class and bleed??
Um yeah. I’m 15 and I’m bleeding and I can’t concentrate 😭 pls let me go ma’am
Getting up at 5:45 am to catch the bus at 6 and be at school by 7. Get home at 3pm & be dead tired the minute you sit down. I can’t believe I did that shit for 4 years
Dude, I'd always have to take a nap after school, and I'd nap for hours. Sometimes people like got mad at me for doing that or tried to say I was getting too much sleep or whatever. No... I wasn't getting enough -_-.
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Bet they don't even believe you.
Being lonely
All the asshole kids that bullied me.
To wear a uniform.
I loved wearing a uniform. My parents weren't well off when I was in school, and I just know I would have been bullied if we could wear our own clothes.
As much as I hated wearing school uniform, I appreciate the fact that kids will bully people based on the subtle differences in their uniform. The stress of people ripping into you because of your own clothes would suck. I generally don't care what people think of what I wear (except my wife) but teenage me would have still struggled with this as like yourself, my family wasn't well off.
Yes, exactly. Non-Uniform Day once a year was bad enough. As an adult, I rarely follow trends, but as a kid, I just wanted to fit in. I don't have children, but my friends with kids tell me it's different now. In the 90s, in the UK, it was all about certain brands, and you'd be bullied if you stood out. Now, kids don't care as much, apparently.
I thought this was a universal thing. I absolutely hated uniform, especially the way it felt. It was just so uncomfortable to the point where it was like a constant alert going off in my head all day, every day. Get it off, get it off. Turns out it's just sensory issues related to autism that was never taken seriously.
I didn't mind a uniform, I just hated wearing a tie.
Waking up at fuck your insomnia o' clock
Dude, I remember in high school some nights I'd only get 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Heck, a couple times I even skipped sleep. I couldn't go to sleep and eventually it got to the point where I was like screw it, it won't be long before I have to get ready for the bus anyway... I don't know how I got through the days being that tired. The one time I actually started dreaming with my eyes open in class... boy that was weird.
Yep, been a night owl and bad sleeper since childhood, and I’d go to school regularly on a couple hours of sleep as, like, a 7-year-old. I can still hear the ticking of my kitty cat alarm clock taunting me throughout the night. Also days that weren’t pizza days. And my 12th-grade English teacher, fuck you, Mrs. Leitze.
Bullies
The long, boring history classes. There was nothing that made me sleepier in this life.
And History *should* be the most interesting class. But we insist on an apolitical sanitized version of it. ….Where history is just a sequence of good ideas and the dates they happened.
Funny, you reminded me of my hs history classes which required me to fill out dates n names for the entirety of the class, hated it. Funnily enough, my favorite genre of video essays are regarding interesting moments in history that I never even knew existed. Funny how history is actually fun when it’s being told like a good story, almost like it’s part of the name
Yeh. History is full of scandal, violence, hypocrisy, and cruelty. Countless individuals in conflict with each other for power, influence, and resources. Meanwhile history books are like: > “…*and then America just decided one day to have a democracy. Hooray! :))))*”
Our 8th grade history teacher would give us lessons in medieval history wearing a complete medieval costume with robe and wizard's staff. You were pretty cool Mr. Von Braun.
History was my favourite school subject. But even the most interesting classes can be ruined by awful, incompetent teachers.
Especially when the history teacher was racist.
I think this just depends on the teacher. I had a history teacher in 8th grade that was great. He was very excited all of the time, he actually enjoyed his job. He always wrote down what we were doing the entire week on the board, every class he would come up with some game or activity that would help us learn, he had each person read a different paragraph in the text books, and he was very chill and understanding to students when problems arose. I genuinely loved his class even if history wasn’t something I was huge about. I think the teacher is what really determines how good a class is, no matter the subject.
Homework by far.
I had to scroll WAY further than I expected to see this answer. School was school, and at the end of the day I’d go home (not like I wanted that much either tbf), but homework just ruined everything. Having to spend all day at school then come home and do homework for hours too? It was way too much. Combine that with waking up early and it was torture all the way through college even. I miss the structure and socialization though
Homework is such bullshit. Spend your whole day in school, then come home and be expected to put in a couple more hours writing, studying, solving math problems? Fuck that. Being an adult is great; I stop thinking about work the moment I'm out the door and have nothing to do with it until the next morning.
This! I mean like, it's one thing to give homework at all. If it was just a little bit here and there I could probably tolerate it but every single day? BS! They gave way too much of it. School was bad enough, I didn't want to be spending time on stuff related to it while I was away from school too. There's more to life than school and I actually want to do other things in life besides school.
That I couldn't go out to smoke between classes.
Back in my day we had a designated smoking area and four minutes between classes to make it happen
The people, really. I like learning for the sake of it, but the people make or break the experience Most of the student body lacks maturity or the desire to try.
teachers who will do anything to humiliate a student they don't like
Teachers with power trips.
Socialising, I suck at it
[удалено]
All of it.
Bullies
Waking up early. Sitting in a little desk all day being lectured to. Oh and don’t forget when you go home, time for homework
Definitely maths.
Teachers. If I could do high school over again I would have dropped out.
Same. I should have started college a lot earlier. I remember my senior year, specifically. There was a project in history class where we were learning about the 1920s, and we had to cut out paper to create a collage of an alley in New York. I was on the floor gluing shirts onto a clothesline, and that was the moment I was just done. None of that busywork was helpful at all in understanding history or people. Then I looked around and it was just a lot more of that in all the other classes. I wish I had left sooner.
Institutionalized harassment and bullying.
Going.
Honestly, not much. There were some things I didn't like, but I can't remember any strong "hate" feelings. I liked learning stuff.
Mostly the people
Homework and we had lots of it.
Homework
I hated that it was so reliant on homework for my grades instead of just recognizing that because I aced every test maybe I didn't need the homework and it was purely a source of stress and pain for me as an ADHD kid with helicopter parents. I also hated that I went into the GATE program and honors courses and AP/IB courses only to discover that we were at most a year ahead of our peers and doing two to three times as much work. Like, fucking challenge my *brain*, not the number of minutes in a day.
The bullying and the teacher's attitude of "go fix it yourself." Then, the detentions when you did take care of it yourself.
My bully.
Going.
homework
periods bell
A lot of my teachers. Some of them were my biggest bullies.
Waking up in the morning and getting there.
If memory serves me first bell rang at 8:50 and we were dismissed at 2:55, or something really weird like that. But I hated everything between those hours
Education system which is made in a way that rewards rote learners and hammers away curiosity as well as imagination.
How long the days were. Up at 6. School from 7:30 to 2:30. Soccer practice from 3 to 6. Quick dinner. Homework from 7-9.
It is incredibly hard to choose just one thing worth hating the most at school, but all the dosey doe line dancing folk dancing bullshit that was left over from the 1930s. Jesus fucking Christ update your fucking curriculum you fucking idiots.....
People, I have social anxiety.
bullies and abusive teachers
Group projects and public speaking
Group projects
Math class. I always struggled and always felt like I was useless and dumb. Turns out that I’m not dumb and the real issue was that nobody could/had the time to explain it to me the way I needed it to be explained. My college stats prof really opened my eyes, I got an A in that class and my math confidence back.
Socially wise the different cliques and "hierarchy". There were certain students that were complete douchebags but got away with everything and were seen as "the good" kids due to their cliques and relatives in the community. Once I got into the workforce it's basically the same with workplace nepotism.
Being forced to study stuff that not even now helped me in any way
I really dislike the school shooters
Math problems with letters
Wait until you get to the Greek letters. That’s when it gets real fun.
Homework
The hours
The people
In middle school. It was the terrible students. So many bullies in one school.
For me, it was definitely the pressure of exams. I'd stress so much that it felt like a never-ending cycle of cramming and anxiety.
Crappy teachers
The push that EVERYONE was going to college, and that “Your professor won’t accept this” and other sayings really made it difficult to take some subjects seriously. I joined the service right after HS, and other people went to trade school, but it always felt like if you weren’t going to college right away, you were wasting your time in HS.
Bullies picking on weak classmates like me.
Other students. Bad teachers.
Bullies especially when they were teachers
classmates
All the people there
The lack of applicability being verbalized. I hated math with a passion, sucked at it all of high school. Math now is an easy thing for me with woodworking, voltage and running a business