Back to the Old School

Loic · Back to the Old School

Well, this has not much to do with the world of academia, but everything to do with childish pranks and a litany of other scholastic misdemeanours which you had committed while you were only so high.

Having only left formal education 4 years ago, I still hold dear those halcyon years back in school where making faces at the teacher when his back was turned was not only commonplace, but encouraged amongst us.

When I was in primary school, I was a bit of a swot and a goody-two-shoes. I curry favoured with the discipline master to the extent that I was made a prefect, much to my delight. A prefect has quite a few privileges and one of them includes the right to mete out punishment to his hapless peers.

Of course, I never went overboard. I remembered being assigned to taking down the names of latecomers who could usually be found climbing over the school gate after morning assemblies. I did remember having to stand my ground against over-zealous parents who were upset that I actually had the temerity to take down the names of their precious sweethearts.

On other occasions, I remembered making boys do silly stuff for petty misdemeanours such as shouting exuberently in the corridors, as exuberent hyperactive primary schoolboys are wont to do. I'd make them do jumping jacks or star jumps until their shirts were soaked with perspiration. But I never abused my powers as some of my prefectorial peers did.

On hindsight, I think it was rather dangerous delegating so much powers to a prefect who although was already a senior in primary school, is only 11 or 12 years old.

Our school was a Roman Catholic missionary school so we had morning prayers. It'd be the duty of a prefect to lead the entire school in prayers, including the headmaster and the teaching staff. There was this incident where a prefect, despite his Buddhist background, led us in our usual prayers. Nobody suspected anything until we realised -to our dismay- that he was not a baptised Catholic. Needless to say, he was relieved of his 'religious duties' immediately.

But well, it was quite a laugh. We were all taken for a ride.

So, do you remember anything from your schooldays? Little events which still make you smile upon reflection? Share them with us. It never hurts to stroll down memory lane.

Yelina

In France, we don't have such a system with prefets.

I remember that in 3rd grade, boys in my class were very unruly, and to remedy the problem, the teacher created a traffic lights system.
It consisted in judging our behaviour. If we behaved well, we got a green light. If we did few "stupid things" or were a bit rude, we had a yellow light and if we had a bad bahaviour, automatically we got the red light. Every end of week we did the recapitulation of the past week and at the end of the month, those who had red lights were punished.

As far as I'm concerned, I always had green lights except once where I had a yellow one, just because I pushed a girl in the corridor!

When I think of this, I find it so stupid!!!! But well, that's the only solution my teacher found to control her "little rascals"!!

Loic

Oh! And why did you push the girl in the corridor? Lol.

Yelina

Well, actually in our class we had floor, and to avoid to scratch it we had to wear slippers. So, each time we were coming back the break we had to take off our shoes to put the slippers. And while doing this, I pushed the girl next to me because she prevented me from slipping on my slippers!

Sounds stupid, I know!!

Uriel

We had nothing like the prefect system, either. There was no imposing a hierarchy between children by teachers or principles -- we did that enough on our own!

I was very quiet and bookish in grade school and middle school, and then quiet and strange in high school, when I started wearing all black and dying my hair funny colors. I became as I am now in college.

André in Zuid-Afrika

We used to have prefects, but now we have student representative councils...

I just can't understand why one needs to change a system that works!

On the other hand, we did mostly ignore the prefects...

André in Zuid-Afrika

Deborah

I went to public schools (local government funded), so we had no overseers such as prefects. As for punishment, by the time I started to school (1956), corporal punishment was a thing of the past in our area. However, in the first through third grades I was part of the childcare program at my school. It was for young children who would have no one to look after them if they went home at 3:00, so we had structured activities after school until someone could come to pick us up. We were under the care of several women who were not teachers. I fondly remember one of them, a very caring and fair-minded person, but one of the women was a terror. She used some punishments that were so cruel and unusual that when I told my mother, she simply refused to believe me. Once when some kids had been misbehaving, she gathered us around and asked what we thought would be an appropriate punishment. No one answered, so she asked how our parents punished us. Two twin brothers said their father would crack their heads together (poor kids!), so our caretaker said, "Like this?" and grabbed the heads of two of the guilty kids and slammed them together. God! They started crying loudly, of course, and the rest of us sat in stunned silence. Another time, she put a tack (point up) on a chair and forced a boy to sit on it. But even if my mother didn't believe me, apparently enough parents believed their kids, so that this woman was removed from her post.

I never was punished for anything, though, because I was an extremely well-behaved kid and never did anything to be punished for.

Uriel

I also went to an afterschool day care for my first few years of school -- not at my own school, but at another way across town, so I had to endure an hour-long bus ride from one to the other -- with nasty children that the bus driver didn't take it upon herself to discipline (well, she was busy driving). I remember one little boy who was retarded that they used to torment every day -- he just looked so miserable, trying hard to ignore them and mind his own business. I wonder if his parents ever knew what he went through.

But our daycare ladies -- none of whom were teachers, all of whom were pretty young -- were pretty nice to us, and we just played games or did homework in the school gym until we were picked up. After I was about 8 or so I just became a latchkey kid -- I went home after school and was alone for several hours until my parents came home. My mother is now appalled to think that she let me do this -- she says nowadays she would never be so naive! Since my half-sister's father is a stay-at-home dad, she has never had to make daycare arrangements for her.

Loic

Andre: You must be a brave little tyke to have ignored the all-powerful prefects. As we used to say when we were prefects, boys ignore us at their peril.

We had quite a few privileges which I particularly enjoyed, one of them being allowed to cut queues at the canteen.

In the past, it was worst. A prefect had a 'slave' assigned to him. During my time, such a system had been totally demolished, much to the detriment of the education system, I must say.

Deborah: It is amazing that corporal punishment was already outlawed back in the 1950s. When I was in primary school in the 1990s, it was commonplace. I was once hauled to the discipline master's office and told to bend over till I can touch my toes. That sadistic beast then proceeded to administer the three quickest swoosh I have ever heard -and felt- in my life. Needless to say, I could hardly sit down without giving a slight yelp for the rest of the day.

Another common sanction meted out was making us bite a chalk for talking in class. The unfortunate victim would then have to bite it until someone else made the mistake of talking. Only then would he be relieved of the onerous duty of balancing the chalk in between his teeth without touching his tongue.

But in the end, I think the most pointless punishment was to write lines. It is time consuming and energy sapping. It deprived us of time out in the sunshine. I wonder if such punishments are still meted out today.

Deborah

Benjamin [inactive]

Yelina

One of my maths teachers did the same when we didn't know by heart our theorems. Fortunately, the only time I had to write (the 100 lines), my father went to tell my teacher off and from this time, I was the only student who was deprived of the chore! Thank you dad!!

I want to add that's because of this teacher I started to hate maths and everything related to numbers!!

Deborah

André in Zuid-Afrika

Pauline

In my school when I was about 9 year-old there was a nasty teacher, and he was *very* annoying, boring and stupid. I don't remember but during the year in his class I smahsed up things and my work was very messy and not possible to read it

I remember one time he told me that I had to write many times that I must rememebr to use a ruler. I had to go to the school library for write those lines, and it was *wonderful*. I wrote some of the words then I looked to the books and was during the entire day in the library. Then after I've completed the lines (I can't remember how many, probably 20 or 50) it was the end of the day so I went to the teachers' room and walked to the teacher who told me to write this lines. He was absolutly surprised and told me that it's interdiction for the children to enter the teachers' room and asked why was I there, then I gave him the paper. He did forget (some hours before LOL!!!) for sure that I was writing those lines

Other punishment what I can remember: a teacher hitted me but after she told me that she was sorry. This was more recently and I don't know why. The teachers in my secondary school are nicer (mostly).

Deborah

I believe my high school had very few serious discipline problems. It was a magnet school for academic excellence (how the hell did I get in there?), which probably had something to do with it. I remember something I read in the yearbook one year -- there was only one fight on school grounds the entire year, and that was staged for the Legal Club.

Walker

Detention was the only punishment you'd risk getting when I was in elementary school. I received that punishment once. It might've been in 4th grade... another kid convinced me to cut a class. He insisted that I go with him to a grove that was nearby. So we went there and sat under a big rock. After a little while I was so bored that I went back.

I was quiet and kept to myself a lot, except from now and then when the entertainer in me came out. But we had a lot of troublemakers during my first years of school. They'd shout foul words in class, take other kids' shoes outside and toss them so that they'd land on the roof, turn on the fire extinguisher and bully other kids - and teachers too sometimes - amongst other things. Transfering those kids from one class to another, or from one school to another in some cases, was the only thing the teachers could do.

In Junior High School the teachers were so clever that they put most of the troublemakers in one and the same class -- my class. Although the worst bad apple of them all was not in my class, thank goodness. They'd start rows and behave like complete assholes sometimes. Us guys they'd usually call jävla svennar (fucking "Swedes" - svenne refers to the name Svensson), but "cunt" and "whore" weren't uncommon names either. And how about taking a shower after gym class when somebody's urinated and masturbated in the shower? Mmm... They'd get thrown out of class sometimes but that was about it. One guy was literally carried out once, hehe.

High School was relatively calm, and the only bullying I ever saw or experienced there was verbal. Except of course for that time when those business field guys filled a guy's bag with water.

André in Zuid-Afrika

Benjamin [inactive]

Walker — what you've described sounds rather like my previous school, where I went from when I was 11 until I was 16. My class was apparently voted worst behaved class in the school at one point by the teachers. I think the worst time was Spanish in Year 9 (aged 13-14) — I don't really remember learning any Spanish at all that year, just having to put up with people making a huge amount of noise, going 'woooooo!', throwing paper around, getting out of their seats, kicking footballs about... the teacher gave up trying to teach us verbally, and she just gave us sheets of paper to copy out instead.

I used to be too scared to go outside at breaktime at my previous school, so I used to hide in the library (I was actually a librarian anyway).

The school I've been at for the past two years (and am now just about to leave), however, is completely different. It really is great, and the atmosphere is so much more positive. Unlike my previous school, it's an all-boys school (although there is a girls school adjacent), and I can be openly gay there and not experience any problems because of it — heck, my boyfriend goes to the same school, everyone at school knows about it, and it's all completely fine.

(I wasn't openly gay at my previous school, so I don't know what sort of response I would've got there — but I was accused of being gay all the time when I was there, and it was intended to be malicious).

Uriel

I went to public school in the late 70's and 80's, and no corporal punishment was allowed then. Detention was the most popular form of punishment, and that could be followed by expulsion if you were really bad.

I don't think my little retarded boy had Down Syndrome because he didn't have the facial characteristics, but he was developmentally disabled (to be more politically correct) in some way. Poor kid.

We had student council (with a president, VP, treasurer, etc.) in high school, but they had nopower over other students, and no privileges above us. Not sure what they did, to be honest.

I don't recall any "bad" classes or concentrations of bad kids anywhere. There were occasional ineffectual teachers, but even the "good" kids had no respect for them, so those classroom behaviors were definitely situation behavior on the part of ALL of the students. But few were actually disrupted -- we tended to just be sullen or disinterested, not throwing things or yelling.

I remember the punishment of having to write lines on the board or on paper, but that was way back in early elementary school, and I never saw it again later.

Julian

Julian

Well I must confess that I wasn't much of an overachiever back in high school. I was in the AP and honors classes but I rarely studied and played hooky alot. My saving grace was that there were several girls in class who'd do my homework for me, let me copy their notes, or spoonfeed me the details on books and assignments we were supposed to read. When it came time for studying for exams, I took a pretty lackadaisical attitude towards the whole process, which would piss off my then-girlfriend at the time because she would be up all night cramming and stressing out over it and I'd still score higher than she would.

The downside to my appalling behavior was that my many absenses and tardies got me several U's on my report cards and kept me off the football and baseball teams.

Deborah

Julian

Deborah

Pauline

Deborah,

I cna't imagine that you would be an underachiever at all!!!!! As you said, probably it was because you thought only about ballet and languages.

Liz

BENJAMIN, aren't you asexual anymore?

My primary shool was less multicultural than my kindergarten (lots of immigrants - not the friendliest types). There were only some Gypsies, some Greeks, half-Russians and German-Hungarians (or Hungarian-Germans). I was in a class which was specialised in fine arts. We had loads of art subjects and most of us didn't give a toss about "normal" school subjects. I was a pretty good student but I had some serious problems in the beginning. I was a strange sort... Funnily enough, I was quite conversant with Greek mythology but hopelessly mistook page numbers for numbers of exercises! As a result of this, I was disdained as, well, if not a "dummy" but a "misfit".

There were two types of classes: the art class and the "plain" class. Most of the pupils in plain classes originally wanted to gain admittance to the art class but they didn't manage to. So, most of them were disappointed underachievers and teachers treated them accordingly. Only few children whose parents didn't have the slightest intenton of sending them to an art class felt quite annoyed.
Although pupils in art classes had better results in general, most "elite" parents realised that attending this school is not a surefire way of gaining admittance to a prestigeous university in the foreseeable future. Most of these parents sent their children there out of snobbery because going to an art school sounds classy. However, they didn't even dream of the possibility that art subjects would outnumber normal basic school subjects which are necessary for an entrance exam. So, these parents took their children to elite eight or six form secondary schools or private shools. It wasn't too pleasant an experience to hear teachers say "Talented pupils have gone, all who stayed are underachievers". (FYI, I stayed.)

Anyway, I had quite a good time there, espcially after those snooty girls and boys left. I am critical of them because they deserve it. Most of them were good students but tragically lacked talent as artists. When others, including me, won a prize at an art competition, they were extremely jealous and took the liberty of bashing us in front of others.

Not just these snobby rich children were there but the other extreme as well: the Gypsies. There was a Gypsy community right next to our school. They lived (an still live) in a big house which is an eyesore as it is dirty and worn-down. About fifty people lived in one house in squalor, filth and horror. Some children from the community went to the so-called "plain" class. One of them, called Anita, was bullied by the others because of her shameful past, to be more precise, the dismal condition her family lived in. Once we were asked to tell something about our family, what our parents' job is. When it was Anita's turn, the poor lass stood up, and said: "Well, I don't know what exactly me mum's job is, but some strangers, you know, men visit her and she also visits them regulary. Me mum says to me, don't scare them men off, they give us money. Without them we are lost." The teacher was dumbfounded and couldn't say a word, the children bursted out in laughter. It wasn't funny, though.

PS: I was familiar with Greek mythology at such an early age because my father used to tell me stories from the Greek mythology instead of fairy tales when I was a little child. (Of course, he told my fairy tales as well but those were my grandma's favourites.) I enjoyed them very much...I kept on begging "Please, daddy, the Cyclops-story once again!". Strange families, strange children.

Pauline

Benjamin [inactive]

Liz

I don't remember what the teacher said after the incident as I was totally paralysed. Quite frankly I'm happy to not know it...If that teacher said anything, it certainly did much more harm. She was woefully ignorant of childrens' psyche...and of human psyche in general.

Sadly enough, it was pretty normal back then to ask children such personal questions. What's more, our parents' workplace was listed in our grade books. I find it stupid, too.

My form teacher and my peers often made fun of my parents' job. My mum is a music teacher and we went to concerts and occassionally to the opera, so they automatically labelled my as a snob. Besides, they thought of me as being old-fashioned, and were absolutely flabbergated when it turned out that I know something about popular music, and that I do listen to it, too.

My dad worked that time as an executive (i.e. a high-ranked civil servant) in the army. The Hungarian word for this job bears close resemblance to "chief shop assistant". So, everyone took my dad for a chief shop assistant and thought I just mispronounced the word. When I started to explain what it means in fact they (even my form teacher) claimed that this job didn't exist. When it came to the army thing, they exclaimed "Oh, then your father is a soldier!".

Our conversation was something like that:

Teacher: Then your father is soldier.
Me: No, he isn't.
Teacher: But he works for the army, doesn't he?
Me: Yes, he does, but he isn't a soldier. He is a civil servant.
Teacher: Hasn't he got a rank then?
Me: He does.
Teacher: What?
Me: A lieutenant.
Teacher: So he is a soldier.
Me: No, he's a reserve officer. He's a civil servant. He wears his uniform once in a blue moon. He is an executive.
Teacher: There isn't such a job.
Me: Ask my father.

I got a *bit* nervous but I wasn't in a position to show it.

Then all the pupils and my form teacher accused me of not knowing what my dad's job is. Aarrrgh!!!!

Liz

Pauline

Walker

Deborah

I was actually on the student council my first two years of junior high school. For some reason, I was nominated for president of my homeroom my first semester and won, much to my amazement, since it was the beginning of the semester and no one even knew me. The same thing happened the next semester. My second year, I was nominated for president and lost, but was elected vice-president. The first semester of the third year, I was nominated for vice-president and lost. I was nominated for treasurer and lost. I was nominated for secretary and lost. In my last semester, my classmates finally figured out that all I wanted was to be anonymous, and no one bothered nominating me, thank God!

All we did was attend meetings, which meant we got to skip classes

, listen to the school officers' reports, and occasionally vote on something.

Walker

Deborah

Uriel

I wasn't an overachiever socially in high school, but I could pretty much ace any class I took an interest in, with my eyes closed. I rarely studied, and had an excellent memory for trivia. If a class bored me, I might get a B, for simply not trying. Once I walked out of a class whose teacher was a complete bitch and refused to go back -- the F was fine with me. But I still made the National Honor Society, was listed in Who's Who in American High Schools, etc.

Interesting, Liz -- my father was also a civil servant who worked for the army. I guess our system makes life a little easier on us; while they have ranks equivalent to various military ranks like lieutenant, major, etc, they are called something different -- GS-9, GS-11, etc. But it was hard to tell people exactly what he did -- largely because to this day I'm not sure what he did all day besides play golf!

Liz

Uriel

bruce

This thread gives me an opportunity to rant about a "prank" that some students pulled at my high school recently.

Every year, some students of the graduating senior class put on a "senior prank" which is something mischievous by which they could be remembered. There was talk about releasing a bunch of chickens onto the lawn, or sticking plastic forks all over the front of the school, but nooo, these seniors decided to do something much worse. Just a couple days before graduation, a group of seniors decided to inflict $30,000 worth of damage to the school. They spray-painted the brick walls, the hallway walls, the hallway ceilings, and the cafeteria walls with "Class of 2007!" They also put super glue into most/all of the keyholes on the doors of the classrooms. School administration had to sandblast the brick walls and repaint all the other walls to get rid of the graffiti. Then, they had to blowtorch all the keyholes to melt away the superglue.

Sixteen seniors were arrested for this "senior prank."

I'm all for being remembered, but I was disappointed in my fellow seniors. If they were going to have a senior prank, then they should have done something a bit less severe. They should have done something funny. They should have done something that didn't cost the school, and ultimately, the taxpayers $30,000!

It's things like these that make me so anxious for college, where I'm going to be surrounded by mature, like-minded intellectuals.

Benjamin [inactive]

Walker

Porthos

bruce

Uriel

Walker

bruce

Walker

Deborah

I had absolutely no experience of dating or going together until college, because it wasn't until my second year of college that any boy/man was interested in me.

Yelina

Loic

I was in a monastry for 10 years so I never had the opportunity to observe if juvenile seeds of BGRs were already being planted in primary school. But I would not be surprised if every 10 year old boy in a co-ed school here has a 'girlfriend'. This is simply a case of children imitating the grown-ups.

Yelina

I wasn't in primary school when this occured. I was in secondary, in what we call in French "collège". Then, we were 12 and not 10. I don't know anyone who came out with someone at the age of 10. But well, I assume some people already had this experience at (what I consider to be) an early age.

Porthos

Growing up, as early as kindergarten it was normal for kids to "date" or "go out" with one another. Lol! At the time, we thought it was serious business, holding hands and all.

6th grade is when I started to see a lot of making out around campus, and about 8th grade, sex, oral sex, and everything in between was quite normal.

Benjamin [inactive]

I think 8th grade = year 9... I suppose around then many people were talking about having sex, although I didn't really believe that many of them were actually doing it.

I read recently that the average age at which boys in the UK first have sex is 17. I'm not quite sure how I'd fit into that though, because I'm never really sure what counts for gay people — I tend to see losing one's virginity as essentially only really applying to heterosexuals.

Elaine

Note: Hello, langcafeinos! I moved the posts about virginity and anal sex to the Adult forum. I didn't do this to censor anyone but I felt that a) the topics had strayed far afield from academia, and b) you can discuss to your hearts' content about the aforementioned subjects w/o scandalizing any of the underaged visitors to this forum.

Porthos

Pauline

I don't know other people who're "underaged" at Langcafé, but I fidn such a discussion is interesting!! I can leanr some things and I didn't find that the converstaion was scandalizing.

Pauline

Where's the adult forum? I can't find it.

Walker

Pauline

bruce

Yes, haha, the adult forum is hidden unless you're logged in and 18 or older. I didn't discover the adult forum until I logged in, and not until a couple weeks ago when I finally turned 18. And let me tell you, that adult forum is definitely for adults only!

Liz

Pauline

It can't knwo your age. I created a new account but it didn't ask date of birth or age!!!!!!!!! First I made one for my sister, but I made a mistake: I put that she's younger than 13

Then I made another but it didn't ask how old is the new member!!!!!

So, how they know?

Loic

I am afraid you have to ask the administators that, Pauline. But there are rules and they are made with the best interest of the community. I know this sounds very paternalistic, but there is a reason why certain discussions are kept out of the roving eye of the general public.

Don't get too upset over it, alright? Let's stick to discussing about what we know best -viz. academics!

Elaine

Porthos

Palomino=Pauline