What do you remember most about school?

I hated every second of it, from Kindergarten until the day I left.

Art class. I had some great teachers from elementary school through college who showed me new ways to express myself.I liked every single one of them,
I lost one of them a few months ago to pulmonary disease.He was my all-time favorite.
I miss him so much.He was a good friend and knew just about everything there was to know about glaze chemistry and helped me alot in that way.He had also given me a few of the pieces he made over the years I knew him and they are a testament to his skill.
I went to a show of his awhile back and found out just how well-known and respected he was by his peers.
I have a lovely celedon blue,porcelain vase he made sitting on a shelf that I bought at that show.I see it every morning and it makes me smile. <3

I always felt so isolated and like I could never say/do the right thing, but was good at my work.

My fifth grade English workbook.

We were supposed to do the exercises independently as time allowed, and turn the books in periodically to the teacher to be checked. I could never force myself to do those damned exercises. So mind-numbingly boring! I remember that there were 103 pages of exercises in the book, and I completed the first 3.

The teacher had said in no uncertain terms that we would fail 5th grade if we didn’t do finish the workbook. Whenever the books were due to be turned in, I managed to be sick that day (I was “sick” a lot in 5th grade), and there were so many times when I was just sweating blood because I was sure that she would discover my blank workbook. It got worse, of course, as the year went on.

By the end of the year I had never gotten past that 3rd page, but had managed to elude discovery. I can still recall how that cursed book haunted my life from its lair under my desk. I just knew that there was no way I was going to get away with this, that I would be flunked, and would have to tell my parents that I had been held back because I simply couldn’t bring myself to do those horrid exercises.

I remember perfectly the last day when report cards were handed out. When I saw that I had been passed with a C, I felt like a condemned man who had just gotten a reprieve from the governor.

They paddled us with boards at my school. I remember getting my ass busted for pretty much anything. Smoking in the boys room was a regular routine I remember too. As was superglueing dead fish in vacant lockers.

Being herded around like cattle and treated like crap. Public school is probably why Americans obsess over individualism, but rarely are able to express individuality.

I always felt like I was supposed to do everything in a certain way, when I had my own ways to do it. Example: A question on homework says 7+13, I change it to 13+7 and I am some sort of idiot? I’m still doing the work, right? I’m still getting the answer right, what’s the problem? I hated every minute of it, I dropped out of High School in 11th grade and honestly, I’m glad I did because I was not learning. I was treated like an idiot, the teachers sucked, and everyone just screwed around the entire time. How the f*ck is anyone supposed to learn when the schools and teachers don’t get us the supplies, the proper teachers. The public school system needs to be b*tch slapped, and hard, if any of the kids in school now are going to learn anything.

Online school, however, was way better and let me learn at my own pace. No one to say what I was doing was stupid, no one to treat me like a person in prison. Also, they had very helpful teachers I could talk to 24/7 with any questions.

My most vivid memories are of the playground and of the leather strap that teachers wielded in those days, even in primary school.

I love learning and actually spend so much time learning now that it gets in my way of work but school has a great skill of boring me and that has stuck with me.

I remember the first day of sixth grade. It was the first time I got my period and the first time a boy called me ugly to my face. I have a feeling that comment set me up for a decade of poor self esteem and a bad self-image. I was a pretty cute little sixth grader.

In high school I remember good friends, grades slipping. I remember being the only person in gym willing to check while playing floor hockey. I remember arguing with many people, some of them teachers. I remember getting stuck in 2 classes with only girls.

Finally, I remember giving my psychology teacher a chocolate bar at the beginning of class everyday, which she would eat while talking to the class. At the end of the year, she beckoned me over to her metal cabinet, and handed me a case of 36 Hershey chocolate bars and said, “These are only for you.” As I walked over to my desk with this case of chocolate, someone asked “Why does he get chocolate?” She just shrugged.
Best teacher ever.

Junior and Senior High School flew by for me. I must admit I really had it made. I had a rock and roll band and played each Friday and Saturday night and sometimes on Sunday. All the kids and some of the teachers came to the dances. They knew me and what I did. I graduated with a B plus average and that was really good considering I was not in class most of the time.

For me, it was all about the music. It still is today.

I remember the Decades Project in 8th grade, the accompanying dances, costumes, and plays…most fun I ever had in school up to that point. We did something similar in 11th grade, so that stands out as well. I also remember the Senior Fashion Show in October 2008, that was…amazing…trumped the decades project in how enjoyable it was. Think God I have the whole show on DVD. :D

Then, I remember nearly fainting from dehydration at the track meet in 7th grade and how incredibly embarrassed and scared I was, I remember having a fat-ass crush on my friend Rory for about six years, starting in 6th grade, I remember winning the Geography Bee three years in a row…those are just the things that I immediately thought of…

Overall, I had a good time and I look back on it with fondness. Wish I had taken more photos…

Clocks that actually seemed to turn backwards at the end of the day.

What I wouldn’t give for a clock that ran in reverse nowadays.

I remember always being at the top of the class in elementary and high school. And what a shock it was in university to not always be at the top of the class anymore.

I remember my first and second crushes! Third grade, Peter Tarzia… I wrote in my diary “I love, love, love him!” Why? I haven’t a clue, lol.
7th grade, Frank Mansfield, big crush.
Gisele Fecteau -she used Sun-In hair bleach in 7th grade and shopped for her school clothes in New York City…way cool.
Basketball games when we were number 1 until the black city kids whipped our poor white asses!
Wanting to be a cheerleader.
Hating gym class (except for floor hockey and field hockey for some strange reason)
Feeling of belonging in art class.
Fiddler on the Roof when I was in the chorus and hooked up with my first boyfriend.
How much nicer the regular non-honors English kids were.
Wundayatta All of this made me who I am today in one way shape or form. I’m still in love with love, I still love fashion and am fascinated by self transformation, I still find my prime fulfillment in creative expression, I still love art and theater, and I still think that heart is more important than braun or brains.

In first grade I wouldn’t shut up. Finally, the teacher told me to go “stand under the flag,” where all first graders who wouldn’t shut up would stand. She sent me just a few minutes before lunch and forgot about me. I stood there and cried as silently as I could while my peers went to lunch and recess. I remember her being very apologetic when she returned to the room.

I was too mortified to tell my mother, but I think it shaped my behavior for the remainder of school. I was still a social butterfly; I was just a social butterfly that wouldn’t speak in class… Even when the teacher wanted me to.

@Taciturnu Poor you…good thing you didn’t tell your mom cause that might have been a bad situation for the teacher.

@dreamer31 Oh, no. My mother would have been more upset that I had to stand under the flag! lol

Teachers make or break school for kids. I remember teachers who great and took lots of extra time for me to teach me how to read, included a book project on animals when I was in 2nd grade, and another book when i was in Third. A teacher who bought be hair clips and taught me how to take care of my hair. Teachers in middle school who let me go to English once or twice a week so that I could play in a band. And in high school, a teacher who drove me to a young writers conference two states away.

I loved science and history. I was no AP student or anything but I was chemistry student of the year. I loved geometry, biology and American History. I always did well in English but thought it was boring as hell. Overall, I liked school even though I was never the best student nor a jock. I wasn’t hugely popular but had my small circle of friends. Guess I was more of a wall flower. But I really enjoyed high school and my first couple years of college. After that it started to feel like a waste of time. Can’t complain about school. It taught me to read, write and add :)

I hate school, school, to me is the boring place on earth(ok after the bathroom). I mean some teachers in school just give us stuff to keep us busy. Like in my 7th grade, a teacher named Mr. Grecko just loved to give us 30 vocabulary words to study, and when the time came for tests, we only did half of the words. My question is why do teachers hate us so much?. I [dream] would love to be a teacher one day and give all the teachers so much homework that they will beg me for mercy. I hope that happens. I would espacially love to give Mr. Grecko a lot of homework. He was a traitor to all of the students(when he once was a student). Who agrees with me that teachers hate us? All in favor say AYE!

I seem to have been aberrant; I loved school.

Each morning was filled with anticipation about what wonderful things I was going to learn. Granted, there were some blah experiences, but on balance, I was thrilled. Algebra, Latin, the subjunctive…they were magical words.

It wasn’t until I hit senior high that I learned that everyone did not feel the same way.

My school experience was a tragedy. From grade school through high school. I made poor grades. I had a learning disability and at that time they didn’t have a clue how to deal with it. I was deemed a moron by my teachers and fellow students. For the most part I was ignored. I went through high school without a single date. No one would date me because they though I was retarded. I was just a slow learner. Unfortunately this experience played havoc with my self-esteem. I hated school and most of the people that were around me and I still do.

I remember we used to get free milk in primary school. They would bring in a metal crate full of third of a pint bottles every morning and these were distributed around the class. In winter the milk would sometimes be frozen.

The best memory I have of my school days are of the break times spent in the social area with friends. Also some of the lessons that I really enjoyed like History. I miss not having 6 hours a day dedicated to learning.

The worst memory I have of school is of the bullying that I went through for two years.

I remember they used social norms and grossly out-of-proportion punishments, arbitrarily applied to both parties regardless of whether one was acting in self-defense, to try to keep bullying and “fighting” out. And then they did nothing about actual bullying, largely because the bullies were the popular kids who brought prestige on the football field or whose parents ran the PTA. Anyone else notice that?

@bolwerk Absolutely! My children deal with it everyday and I hope someday soon that I can put them somewhere besides public schools.

@dreamer31: in some states you may be able to let them drop out, take the GED, and go to community college. They can get head starts on a real education.

My kids are in elementary school…....total torture!

I just remember how much I didn’t like it. Being made fun of, never fitting in unless I did outrageous things I felt uncomfortable doing, always being told what to do and God forbid, how to think sometimes. Always being around people, not getting private space, gym class, homework, waking up early…mind you, nothing changed all that much. XD

I dropped out eventually, spending the last years of what I attended of high school by skipping days, classes, getting drunk and or doing drugs in my shitty part of the hood haha.

I also do remember some dear friends though, one teacher who really tried to help me with my delinquent behaviour, and I remember frozen mornings having cigarettes by the arena, waiting for this guy I was going out with to come out of there and cheer me up by always being a complete goof. :D

Wasn’t all bad, but I’m a pessimist, so…