Is your biggest memory from elementary school that of sitting at your desk?

My 2 biggest memories are jumping on a friend’s back and shattering a glass cabinet when we backed into it, and being accused of eating all the chocolate from the christmas calendar.

From elementary school? No, my biggest memory is getting beat up by some bully. This was in the 50s.

Trying to teach classmates the fundamentals of calc.

Looking up Sharon *****‘s skirt…

I remember we’d get in trouble if we got up from our desks. In 2nd grade, we’d lose 2 minutes of recess for doing it. In 3rd grade, we’d lose all of recess. I knew I had a problem with this, but not as bad as some others had described. Others said I used to go so far as to leave the classroom!
I remember I’d often not pay attention in class since I was ahead of everyone else, and I remember getting in trouble for this, too. My 3rd grade teacher would give me a rating of a smiley face, a medium face, or a sad face for the level of my paying attention at the end of the day. If they were the latter two, I’d have to have my parents sign it. I was so scared of her judgment at the end of the day that one day I didn’t have the nerves to go up to her, and nothing happened! This continued on for a good month, and one day she finally remembered again…
I remember on many occasions we’d be doing something in a workbook or whatever but it involved us to stay in our seats and work quietly. Each teacher (this happened in many grades) would give a detention to someone if they got up. By the time this was over, there’d be a huge list of people in trouble. I’m sure that gave a bad classroom atmosphere. Us students definitely lost respect for the teacher and this probably resulted in apathy towards learning, too, since the teacher is responsible for this. Of course, we still did what we were told because every single authority told us to, and we didn’t know any better but to listen to them.
And I totally remember trying to drill holes in the desks with pencils. There were some successful ones. This was in the 2000s.

DECADES, PEOPLE!!

the 1130’s

Oh, I see you put the 2000. Well, that is interesting. So far you are the only one with memories of your desk.

Not the 1130’s Raggy!

@Dutchess_III It’s good to write all of this stuff down while I’m young!

@Dutchess_III
BC?

I was in elementary school in the 70s. I remember the stuff we learned while not at our desks. Things like story time, art class, music class, show and tell, gym class and such.

Our desks were metal and didn’t open up, they were more like rectangular cubby holes on legs. The thing I remember most was pouring little round pools of Elmer’s Glue in them and then pulling them off and playing with them when they were fully dried.

Oh, here is another thing I remember.
There was a big fat fly bumbingly crawling around on my desk.
I poked it with a pen, and it burst open, spilling out dozens of tiny maggots.

@ragingloli Maggots don’t live inside flies dude.

@anniereborn
Tell that to this fly

80’s for me.

My sister was a Girl Scout and my mom was a troop leader. They did this big Jamboree thing out in the woods. My sister was three years ahead of me but all the Girl Scouts went. I was in the third grade and a girl in my class was there. We snuck off into this closet where they stored chairs during some boring presentation. Got my first kiss on the cheek and then she left. We were pretty good friends up until that point.

She didn’t talk to me again for 16 years despite my attempts. Attempts while I was still in the the same class when I was seven years old.

Fast forward to College. I was a janitor at a TV station to help pay for school. So I was cleaning a office one night and noticed the name on some papers. The girl from the third grade. She was a TV personality. I did end up talking to her a few times but I never mentioned that I was the dude from the closet.

I assume elementary school is what we refer to as primary school, ages 5–10.

The two strongest memories I have from primary school, 1960s, is standing in the corner for being naughty and the excitement I always felt before we went swimming in the school pool.

@ragingloli They didn’t come out of it. Flies lay eggs.

@anniereborn
In some species, the eggs hatch inside the fly, and the fly carries them around, squirting out fully hatched maggots.

Opening the desk and trying to get a quick bite to eat without being seen. Another futile effort which came later, not elementary level was lifting the desk top in order to spray deodorant. I was not seen but the floral scent that suddenly lingered in the air gave my egghead away!

The top two? Both took place during recess. A friend whipping her jump rope around which wrapped around my ankle. I fell down and knocked two of my front teeth out. The other is being physically harassed by a group of older girls. This was in the late 60s.

No. I know I spent most of my time sitting there, though. It’s the shocking, fun, and scary times that stick, at least with me.

I went to school in the nineties.

My positive memories include packed lunches and vanilla milk at recess. I remember the smell of the school building very clearly, and I always liked that. I loved the songs we sang as a group. I liked rainy days, because they meant we were allowed to stay in the school at break. I liked being read to, and I loved Christmas. Like @ragingloli, we always had a Christmas calendar at school. In Winter, our teacher let us wake up slowly, lighting candles in the morning and keeping the lights dimmed for the first minutes. I loved bring-your-stuffed-animal-to school-day. We were allowed to bring our pets once, which was awesome, and once, I took my younger sister to school with me so she could see what school is like.

My bad memories include bullying, first of all. I wasn’t bullied, but we had a teacher’s pet and one kid who did not smell good…both were treated very badly. I hated the cold, so being forced to stay outside during recess was hell to me in Winter. 15 minutes are too short a time to get used to the temperature…another negative memory I have is homework. I spent hours battling my parents on this, because I just did not know what was expected of me. On the other hand, I was terrified of going to school without perfectly completed homework. I was so good at school, I don’t think my parents recognized me. We played a particular game during maths sometimes, which involved shouting out the correct response. I lost that game over and over, because I would, reflexively, raise my hand and wait to be called on.

My absolutely strongest memory is this one:

I loved my teacher, and she liked me, too. In second grade, one day, said teacher was weirdly noise-sensitive. I guess she had something on her mind, maybe she had a headache…no idea. Anyway, she started admonishing the class for being too loud. Some of my classmates liked to play with the clasps on their bags and knapsacks during that time. I was not one of them, but several students got busy playing this game on that fateful day.

At some point, my teacher started ordering everyone to carry their bags to the front of the class and leave them there. She called us all by name, saying, “Likewise Anna…likewise Tom…”

In an attempt to cheer her up, because I understood her frustration (she had asked everyone to be quiet numerous times), I smiled up at her and said, “Me too, likewise?” I was not trying to make fun of her, at all. I was genuinely trying to make her happy. She responded, cold as ice, “You’re getting pretty naughty!”

I was crushed. It’s made me watch kids when they say something that could be perceived as cheeky. Very often, they are utterly confused after getting scolded. They hardly ever defend themselves, but it’s very obvious by looking at their expression.

No, you must have had a pretty fucking sad time at school if playing arpund with your desk remains the highlight.

around*

One of my oldest, yet still clear, memories dates waaaaay back to nursery school. One day I brought a birthday gift I had just received from my parents, toy binoculars. During recess, another kid asked to see them and when I refused, one of the teachers (who I can still almost see in my mind’s eye) told me I was being selfish and, to teach me a “lesson,” made me sit in a corner of the playground all by myself.

This was the same teacher who, another time, looked at a drawing I was doing—the classic one with arms and legs sticking directly out of his egg-shaped body—and told me I was drawing him wrong.

60’s. The first thought that sprang to mind was writing on the chalkboards. The crude markings, the dust, the smell, the insecurity of having your back to the entire room.

1980s.
Anxiety about recess (and any unstructured “play” time) and “duck and cover” drills come to mind.

A girl named Dena squirting Elmer’s Glue in her mouth and eating it.
1960’s

I remember lots of things.

Learning to read with my first grade teacher.

Taking care of hamsters in second grade and writing stories in second grade. I also remember thinking my second grade teacher was very pretty and I felt really lucky to be in her class.

Playing on the playground.

Gym class.

Art class.

One of the teachers bringing his guitar on a spring day and sitting outside while we all sang along. That was in sixth grade.

I remember learning math, and about different people around the world, and all the states and their capitals.

@ucme I said playing around my desk is the only memory of being at my desk.

I asked this question because in the last several years, thanks to social media, there has been an outcry against kids having to sit at their desks for an hour at a time, like it’s some sort of crime. Like kids are complaining about it, or somehow traumatized. Interestingly enough, only one person even really addressed issues with a desk, and that was in the 2000, after social media became a force.

I remember a hell of a lot of things, unfortunately my lessons aren’t one of them haha.
I used to draw on my desk all the time, least until I was told to stop. Then I would draw in my notebooks. They told me to stop that too, but I never did. Ha, fuckers.

Tons of stuff happened in elementary though. I ain’t gonna list a buncha shit, but I will say it was a place where on a small scale, you learn to deal with things that come up when you’re an adult. Deadlines, conflict, socializing, doing shit you don’t wanna do. I didn’t like it.
High school was much of the same, but better in a way because it’s much easier there to detach yourself from everything. and eventually become a dropout, not saying it’s good but it happened
Also elementary was in the 90’s mostly, started grade one in 1989.

Exactly @Symbeline. But it would seem there are people out there who want to customize their child’s education experience to cut out all the drama, conflict, deadlines and doing shit you don’t want to do.

I didn’t like it, but I believe it to be beneficial. It’s all stuff you have to deal with in your adult life; going to work, paying the rent. Only in school there are no real repercussions for failing, except being held back of course. It’s like training wheels for life.

One thing I’m really against is how the school and teachers will push a set of ideals and morality in students’ heads, and tell them that’s that and nothing else. I understand why, but I don’t like how closed minded it is. Least in my schools it was. (went to four different schools) Of course, that’s not anything I thought about back then. But my dad knew, and he arranged it so that I wouldn’t take any catechism classes. So when those happened, I was sent out of the class to work on homework and the like. Mostly I just doodled in my books. :D

Another titbit I just remembered:
A girl sitting in the front row pissed her trousers during class.

@ragingloli you went to my school?

Nah, I bet that happens everywhere.

I pissed my trousers in the maths line, put the opened book over my damp patch & when I gave it to teacher to mark…well, let’s just say the numbers got blurred :(

^ Tragically…not a joke :D

How embarrassing. I’m so sorry @ucme.

Hey, I got over it. I thought our maths books being assessed was just too important for me to ask to use the loo.
Top tip kids, when ya gotta go, nothing else matters…go with the flow :D

There’s no way I’m gonna leave my good mate @ucme hanging then. :D
I also pissed myself in school, in kindergarten. I went to the bathroom, but I couldn’t undo my pants. It was one of those buttons you slip inside a slit to hold the pants in place. But I just couldn’t undo it, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Maybe if I was a dude I could have just slipped my pecker out the zipper, but there was nothing I could do and I soiled the pants.
So of course I went back to class, and of course all the kids laughed at me. I just went into a corner and hid there, trying to male myself as unseen as possible.
And that day was pudding day, so the teacher goes, everyone who wants pudding, raise your hands. I didn’t give a shit about no damn pudding, didn’t want peeps looking at me so I didn’t raise my hand. But some kid just points at me and screams, hey she didn’t raise her hand, she doesn’t want pudding!
That day sucked. But I still got to have pudding. Damn well better.

@Symbeline I feel ya pain sistah :D
I was 6yrs old & I too was laughed at by some kids, but I just rolled with it & laughed back.
You could say I dealt with it by taking the piss outta myself…twice.

My dad told me once that he shit himself in gym class while running. And he was like, 10 or so at the time. At least that didn’t happen to us. :D

Wow, hardcore soiling right there.