My middle school was basically a prison
Had to go through metal detectors in and out
Had guards stationed at every exit and throughout the halls
Couldn't use the bathrooms without being accompanied by an adult, which of course, we didn't have enough of to let kids go when they had to
When I got to high school and basically had the exact opposite experience, I was agog
I boogied out of the american public school system right at the beginning of the build up of the mini surveillance state they were starting to set up for kids. You could up and walk out of school if you wanted to and no one was going to stop you. We used to fuck off during class in high school and go wander the halls. Things I'm certain kids can't get away with today.
When I was in high school the videography class filmed parodies of The Matrix and The Godfather which involved running around school with fully realistic pistol replicas
When I was in elementary school, kids would bring their hunting rifles to school on the first day of deer camp. They were supposed to leave them in the office, but I feel like that didn't always happen. This wasn't super common, but I remember it happening when I was in 4th-6th grade
Not really sure why, it seems like it could be left with the parents and they could bring it when they picked up the kid.
"Timmy you are now old enough to engage in the most important ritual of being a gun owner: telling everyone else you have a gun."
"Even though you may not be old enough to drink, you can still do a farcical re-enaction of the civil war with those guns..."
It is especially farcical if they can't drink.
yeah same here. i was basically able to transfer from one high school to another to escape it since it wasn't yet distributed equally in the county i lived in.
so my freshman thru junior years were under increasing security to the point of actual violent suppression (security guards assaulting students for being too alternative looking, it was post-columbine hysteria)
senior year was wandering the halls, do whatever free for all because that principal was near retirement and just dgaf
My senior year English class was last period and kids would slowly trickle out the door saying they had to goto the bathroom and then just not come back. She just told everyone not to say where they were coming from if we got caught.
Yup
Shit was wild
Still remember the time the 7th grade vice-principal threatened to suspend all the 7th grade boys because someone drew penises on a bunch of our science textbooks
They literally dragged us out of our classrooms to interrogate us about it
I was a very short, chubby autistic kid, so I broke down crying so hard they ended up calling my mom to come get me
American Vandal but real
I went to public schools in Kkklanada and reading this is just so wild to me. I had none of the going through what sounds like an airport security and as long as I asked with a please at the end, I'd be allowed to go to the bathroom (~85 to 90% of the time with few prick of teachers not allowing).
My only saving grace was my seventh grade teacher was my 3rd grade teacher, so at least she was nice to me that year
When I was in high school I came and went as I pleased. If I hadn't been given a lot of leeway I would have dropped out for sure. My grades were fine, I just didn't want to be there if I didn't need to be. I just talked to my teachers, got the whole semester worth of class work at once and just had to turn shit in when it was due and show up for tests.
Can confirm here in the UK we have zero security whatsoever. Kids come and go as they please. Many kids leave school to go to local shops for lunch.
My elementary schools bathrooms stalls were tore down, by other kids, so if you were taking a shit everyone saw you.
And of course they called you gay for taking a shit, not them looking at you.
Both my middle school and high school had metal detectors but the middle school didnt security guards and cops. The security guards werent bad, more often then not they were a friendly third party adult that kids could talk to about #realshit and none of them were there to break up fights or cause kids problems. The cops were cops.
I really feel bad for kids growing up. If it's not some white supremacist hopped up on Ben Shapiro gunning them down in the classroom it's the school resource officer busting their skull for smoking a cig behind the track. Not to mention the libraries that are now converted into mini-prisons and all the books are burned.
All I had to worry about growing up in school was what was for lunch in the cafeteria.
Didn't really happen to me. When I was in HS before I dropped out all I was thinking about was dealing with harassment for being trans. But that's an eternal problem, isn't it.
Dumb as shit. I encourage all my students to take a skip day (or just to stay home for a day whenever they feel like they need a break). High school seniors in particular should be encouraged to make decisions like adults, and also to chill the fuck out. It's good for them.
This, oh my God. The public schools in the US are a complete joke, but by far the worst offender is the fact that high schools don't try to encourage teenagers to see themselves more and more as autonomous adults, and trying to really get the message that they will be "free" soon, and what it means to be free and to start making your own decisions. I really could have used this type of training as a neurodivergent.
Aren't high school seniors like 18 in the US, wtf
17 or 18, usually.
Means you can try them as adults!
Wait cops actually do this? I thought it was just a game mechanic in Bullsworth Academy. What the fuck, dont they have better shit to not do?
Edit: I feel like i need to establish that I am not kidding. Me and my friends thought it was a fun over-the-top piece of world building. We joked about it because we thought it was so funny that cops would be so aggro upon seeing a child during school hours.
What a literal fucking loser.
If it's anything like the cops where I live, I make 5 more dollars an hour than them working in a bakery. Pigs can't even pay their bills opressing us.
You best believe they have alternative sources of income. They’re a gang, but legal. Every PD in the country is running some sort of extortion, bribery, or racketeering scheme or some combination
I really lucked out missing all this surveillance state shit. I honestly feel like it stunts a kid's development in ways we don't understand yet - I was able to get myself to and from school, completely unsupervised, from fourth grade onwards (and yeah I occasionally skipped days Ferris Bueller style), and nowadays I'm aware of high school kids who've literally never done anything like that before.
(and yeah I occasionally skipped days Ferris Bueller style)
holy shit. I'm only in my early 30's and I can't imagine getting away with skipping an entire day -- or more importantly where I'd have been able to go in my wretched car-based city as a minor on a school day without any money etc.
there is definitely too little room for shenanigans like that in our lives now
It helps that I wasn't doing it nine times a year, more like once or twice, so the administration had bigger fish to fry. I remember when I was seventeen driving up to the school and seeing that they were checking everyone's bag, saying "fuck that", and simply turning around and driving home. I don't even think I had anything, I just balked at the idea of being searched.
What a fucking dork
They're acting like this a prison break.
Just claim you’re sick lol
I'm not joking, in my graduating class (long ass time ago now but still in the post 9/11 era) in order to call off sick on senior skip day they required a doctors note beforehand, otherwise you couldn't graduate.
Some kid puked on the floor in the hallway because, well, he was sick, but wanted to graduate. Based dude that he was he chose to stay even after they tried to send him home because "I need to graduate." He missed the bathroom a few more times that day. Absolute fucking legend. I don't think it changed anything except for completely ruining the cleaning staff's day, but when you're that age and you've got a message to send you send it how you can.
Requiring a doctors note before something is like... yeah, I plan to be sick on these days
Finally, someone's bringing those monsters to justice! I didn't feel safe with teenagers having fun without my permission! /s
Seriously, what happened that made this country hate fun so much? I grew up an Italian Catholic and not even we were all guilty about feeling happy this much.
We went two tracking on my senior skip day. Can't find you when you're a mile or so in the woods
Waiting to see when the inevitable news breaks that they shot and killed a kid for “truancy”
I'm surprised no one commented this.
This shit reminds me of the day in high school where a security person came to my first period class and pulled all the tall white dudes out to review security footage in her office because one of us was 30 seconds late to school that day.
Here's an idea: just make senior skip day an official day off for seniors. Just call it Senior Holiday. 12 graders don't have school that day. Police know to expect increased activity at the beaches or parks. Local restaurants and theaters get some patronage. Teachers with 12 grade classes can catch up on stuff like grading. We went through the same thing with skateboarding in the 90s: the solution was to build a fucking skatepark. You don't prevent teens from being teens, you create a safe environment for them to be teens.
I vaguely recall that we went to the zoo and needed a parents permission slip when I was a senior.
It's the most no-brainer shit to direct their energy to something. If you took them to a plot of land, turned on some music, set up some tents, got them catering, and called it hole digging day, you'd get emails 5 years later talking about how that day was the best day ever and how it changed their life.
Somebody wanna edit "officer gusano" into that pic?
These cops all desperately need wedgies
