weird memory from my elementary school

[Ghost Hip]

Shit, I wonder if my counselor's office in grade school had a mirror/window. I just drew pictures while she talked to me.

Yes, that is odd. I think school counselor is bull shit, especially since they specifically pulled me out of class in front of everyone twice a month. I felt like the fucked up kid.

[smile_man]

We weren't allowed to wear any logos that advertised beer companies on our shirts, hats, etc, yet the fridge in the teachers lounge had a Bud Light magnets on it.

[WaveForm3]

I remember being examined by the school shrink in 4th grade....I wonder why...

[jondead]

[meatlog]

The first elementary school I attended in central Indiana was really strange. It hadn't been remodeled since the 60s, though that project was getting underway during my second of two years there. The disciplinary tactics were a little odd compared to later experiences.

In the lunchroom, there were two long columns of brown work tables with benches set for feeding the students, who would sit on the benches in absolute silence while each table was called to obtain their food in sequence. A monitor would travel between these tables watching for any communication between the students. After everyone had their food and some more time had elapsed, the monitor would place small items on the tables: a miniature american flag for the tables that followed the rules (they were allowed to talk for the remainder of the lunch period), or an elaborate, carved, wooden "NO TALKING" sign with white paint filling in the engraved letters, like a miniature trail marker. I can't remember what happened to the tables that continued to disobey these orders.

I remember the gym teacher picking me up by my shirt in anger, but I can't remember why. I also remembered that his assistant, some hairspray beast, pinched me really hard with the fat calipers in one of the rear storage rooms when they were evaluating our physical conditions. His obstacle course was fun, but he took it really seriously. I also encountered my best friend in one of the bathrooms using one of the urinals, but with his pants dropped all the way around his ankles. He acted like this was completely normal. In that same bathroom another friend and I ended up having distance pissing contests; he'd always win by a huge margin. To my eyes back then it looked like he was able to back up a full 8 feet and still hit the urinal without error. They had these interesting soap dispensers where you'd push up on a metal tongue and it would drop a few grams of a clumped pink soap powder into your hand.

One time they put us in the cafeteria to hear Two Crows speak. Two Crows was a real Indian all right, but he was made up in some stereotypical garb and spoke in artificially broken english, like an indigenous equivalent of blackface performance, right down to the beating drum. The purpose of his visit was to influence the children to behave correctly. The best-behaved child in each classroom would get a signed black and white poster of Two Crows, but I didn't understand their method of quantifying merit since a really malicious little shithead ended up with one of the posters.

When we'd walk from the classroom to the special activity rooms such as the music and art spaces, or to lunch, we had to walk single-file along the aluminum grouting in the large linoleum tiles. One time, my friend and I were horsing around at the head of the line near the end of the day, and he punched me really hard in the nuts. I thought it was pretty funny, and so did he. Suddenly, the lesser of the special-ed teachers (back then, they called it "ungraded"), a woman of great size, burst from an alcove and grabbed the two of us, shoving us into a nearby classroom. She screamed at us with some interesting kind of fury, totally disproportionate to what we were doing out in the hall. She threatened to bring us before the principal, who would then paddle us. We apologized and then went on our way. I later heard that the corporal punishment might not have been an empty threat, the guy really had a paddle on display in his office.

I just realized that I don't remember reciting the pledge of allegiance at all at this school, but two years later when I went to a different elementary because of changing school boundaries, they were all about it, much as you'd expect a public school in the late 1980s to be. This new school was pretty "normal" excepting a few deranged faculty members.

They never found out that I was the one that was pissing all over the bathroom in the newly-constructed part of the building the next year. This wasn't anything like the aforementioned distance olympics; I just hosed everything down.

[metalmariachi]

In 4th grade I was sent to the principal because during reading I wasn't sounding out the words and pointing to each one with my finger, and I was quite a few pages past where the other kids were.

I explained that I had already read those stories when my older brother brought his books home 2 years before. So it was easy.

He said I couldn't possibly have been able to read them and was lying.

Had to stay after school.
Back in those days teachers were right and nobody questioned them.

After that in school I pretty much played dumb and only did just what was required and no more. By the end of the first month of each school year I had already read all my text books, so could pursue more interesting endeavors.

On the bright side I still read every thing I can get my hands on.
And continued my fight with the American education system to this very day.

MM

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

my elementary school principal smelled like egg mcmuffins.

[WaveForm3]

MM:

Same thing happened to me. I could speedread and spell with ungodly canny. I never once got below a 100 on a spelling test and I could speedread so fats that the other kids were all on the second or third page and I was almost done...They called me a liar and a cheater.

Seriously, a 1st grader that could spell "different" and "spaghetti"and then the same words BACKWARD!

[letsgocoyote]

maybe the school had the viewing window to a) give the student with the counselor a sense of privacy while b) letting people see in thereby preventing sketchy closet child molester counselors from causing harm. just might idea but i coudl be mistaken


if you want to know a real messed up school, let me tell you.

when i was 14 me and some friends started being real trouble makers. i thought it would be funny to do the whole fake bomb threat thing so theyd cancel school for the day. keep in mind i didnt truly have those intentions to harm anyone and this was prior to all those crazy school shootings. anyways i got expelled (fortunally later they lifted the expulsion and I returned to school here and was a good kid after that), and the only school that would take me was this tiny little ghetto private school.\
now the owner of the school was a kind person and i dont fault them, but it was incredibly low budget and ghetto. it was in this old little tiny churchish building, size of a lrge house, yet it had no windows. there was an office, and two rooms. one for elementary and one for high school. i think the lady originally intended it to be for kids who had trouble learning and neede dmore attention but ultimately it ended up being for ghetto kids. so my first week there I this new kid also came and iw as sorta friends with him and these other older dudes convinced us to go outside but i got sketched out and went back in, well the fought the new kid so the new kid picke dup a two by four with a nail it and hit the other dude. now thats jsut ghetto but this is the weird part
i dotn really remember doing much work. there was one teahcer and like 15 or so kids. just ghetto kids of different sorts. the teacher was crazy, he had all these stories about how he used to be a pro skateboarder, how he was a grand champion chess player, programmed classic computer games for apple II, etc. etc.

every kid had a handme down 386 computer, most of the time we jsut played games and didnt learn anythign as it was mostly a learn on your own thing. the teahcer often just slept. we often fought the teahcer (liek play fought) recreationally. since he waas a black belt and all he could disarm us wihtout issue so we could fight him or try and handcuff him. oh and we played super nintendo all the time. the teacher let us go outside and burn text books. we would go on field trips to seven eleven and burger king. people smoked weed out of pop cans and all sorts of stuff.

i forget what other kind of hijinx went down, but there was also always alot of drama, cuz there was always ghetto jerry springer types there so pople always being dramatic and yellinw and stuff.

the upside is I got PE credit for skateboarding at home and i got to make up my own classes for stuff like photography, i could do whatever i wanted for art class, and i made zines for journalism credit.