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Wow, this is an amazing list. If I had done 1/10 of that, I'd have been expelled. Your school was very forgiving.
There were reasons, some are speculation:
1. It was the late 1970s early 1980s. Things were a lot less strict. If they got someone out and into a good college, that was a success for them no matter what happened along the way.
2. It was a smallish rural school. There were 280 people in my graduating class but it drew form a very large geographical area that included the main town of 3800 people, three nearby townships, two villiages, and the extreme outskirts of a nearby city. It was a mix of kids of factory workers from the local tube mill, farmers and business executives or engineers and the like who felt the rural atmosphere was worth a long commute. There was a contingent of kids where were pretty rough. Our pranks were an annoyance compared to some of the other issues. Still it was rare that anyone got expelled, or turned over to the police. (One guy got caught smoking pot and stealing something from the school and they make him clean the police station and take care of their plants. He grew a huge marijuana plant in the police station. Just before he was going to harvest it, a policeman recognized it finally and he caught hell (but still was not expelled or sent to the CJ system).
3. In my junior and senior years I went from Cs and Ds as a sophomore to straight As. I did a lot of public speaking and was pretty active in the community and school. I was a blazing success story for the school because of my dramatic turn around and they did not want to mess that up.
4. I hung out with a lot of the burn out clique people, but also the jocks, band f**s, gear heads, and I was king of the drammies. However they knew I did not smoke or do drugs, rarely got in fights (I was pretty skinny and not very athletic until the end of my senior year). Thus, I was not as bad as many of the other students. They had bigger problems to worry about.
5. I was really good as setting up alibis, dissembling, making up stories, arguing about lack of any proof whatsoever and lying (although I rarely had to actually lie).
6. My father was a pillar of the community type guy and best friends with the police chief (later mayor) and most of the school board. No idea whether that had an impact, but it may have.
7. They were more into finding a way to correct unacceptable behavior than dumping people in the CJ system or kicking them out of school. It was well known that if someone got put into the system, they were a lost cause and would end up in prison. Thus, they tended to try to handle things in house with punishments designed to fit the violation. Sometimes, I was required to do some punishment when there was no proof whatsoever we were involved. In some cases, we weren't even involved. The ultimate punishment (telling my Dad) was usually avoided.
7. Most of the worse things I was involved in, there was no proof. Yes, they knew I have been busted by the police for making explosives. Yes someone blew up the junior float in my senior year. However I was visiting friend at a nearby college at the time. Want to talk to them?
Last edited by Coldjensens; 01-10-2018 at 04:08 PM..
12. The band teacher in elementary school had nicknames for every student. One girl's nickname was "brain dead". That would likely get him in trouble these days. It was upsetting to that girl, but she would just take it, to avoid getting in trouble. But she finally told him off on the last day of 5th grade, when he could no longer retaliate against her.
This is sort of a side drift to this thread, but we had a Jr. high German teacher who was a doozy like this. We did not learn much German, but we learned how to curse and ask people to have sex. He would stand over your desk and rapidly flick his fingers through his hair yelling "Snowstorm" as you were showered in dandruff. He would put jellybeans in his nose, snort them up, cough them out and catch them in his teeth. He would pick his nose and then pretend to flick a booger at a random student (or maybe he really did). He handed out swats with a particularly vicious paddle for any perceived slight to him. He called people all kinds of horrible nicknames. Pop was not allowed in school so he sold cans from a cooler beside his desk at a 500% mark up. He sold illegal fireworks (firecrackers and M-80s to students for exorbitant prices. He sold his old porn magazines to students after he was done with them. He also sold the concentrated oils to make mint, cinnamon and red hot tooth picks that many students would make and then sell for a penny each. You could make a decent amount of money selling them if you did not get caught. He went to Germany each year in the summer and if he trusted you, you could give him $25 or $50 (I forget the amount, but $50 was a whole lot of money back then, so probably $25) to bring you back a switchblade (illegal in the USA). He probably bought them for $5. He eventually got caught selling switchblades and got fired and went to jail, but it was more than ten years after I had him and my brother five years older than me had him too, so he probably had a 20 year or more run milking money out of students.
Another teacher married one of his students the day she graduated. There were another three who married students after graduation, it was a year or more after, this was the only one blatantly having an affair with a student. Another adopted two Korean students because he could not have kids, then when they were in high school some new development allowed him and his wife to have their own kids, so they kicked the Korean kids out. One of them went to live with one of my best friend's family. he was a great guy. Very respectful, no trouble, no reason to kick him out. His sister seemed pretty decent too, but I did not know her well, she ended up living with a different family. The debate teacher was well known for taking jocks home for a weekend of naked fun. She would also buy beer/pot for parties at her apartment. Mostly she had the parties for jocks so she could choose one to sleep with but sometimes she had parties for the debate nerds (no sex for us though). The typing teacher was a raving alcoholic and kept a flask of gin in her desk drawer. (We would go drink the gin and replace it with koolaide at times. What was she going to do, report someone stealing her desk gin?) The Biology teacher who was also the cheerleading coach became famous in the late 1980s or early 1990s when she forcibly cut the hair of two girls on the squad who refused to get haircuts when she told them to. She said their long hair was in the way of cheer activities. It was all over national news for a week.
We had a lot of dirtball teachers.
On the other hand, there were some amazing teachers. The math teacher hosted advanced math students at his house every night and worked with them, He produced some remarkable math wizards who ended up at Harvard or simlar level schools. The drama teacher found students who were not doing well, but she knew could do a lot better and made them her "project" She usually had 2-4 project students out of each class. I was one. She turned us around, trying different approaches until she found something that worked. Worked on me.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 01-10-2018 at 04:35 PM..
Judging yesterday today, a difficult thing to do, and to explain to anyone who wasn't there. What we now consider to be incorrect was the norm in many ways. The early seventies required a completely different way of survival thinking to get through school. The PC police weren't in every room to protect us so our "widdle" feelings didn't get hurt. Security or regular police didn't cover the grounds to make sure you didn't get your ass kicked by an enemy, or a teacher for that matter. Like prison, you learned the system and worked with it to your advantage until you were released or escaped. Some thoughts....
I was "smokes" in junior high. Each morning I'd stop by the local drug store and grab three packs. One Marlboro for the guys, one Salem for the girls and one Kool for the Black kids. Yes, that's what we called them back then. Take no offense, this is history. Also grabbed three packs of chewing gum. Smokes were fifty cents a pack, gum a nickel. My selling price was a quarter a smoke, a dime a stick of gum. Daily clear profit was around $12. Never got caught. My folks wondered why I needed no allowance. Non-legal substances were handled by another group which I had no stake in. Senior high I closed shop as everybody could carry freely, no need for me.
A few other minor things not worth discussing, excessive absences, refusing to ride school transportation and hitching a ride instead, when I bothered to go in at all.
On the school side of things that would never be tolerated today.....
The fresh out of college hippie teachers were the most dangerous and best avoided at all costs. These flower loving, peaceful little rats would toss you and your desk just for saying good morning. One had a deadly aim with a piece of chalk, another loved to embarrass kids in front of the class. Yet another shouted so loud she could be heard in the next building. Had a bad taste ever since for hippies.
Transportation, a joke, and a dangerous one. Bus routes were routinely overfilled with the last stops standing in the bus aisles or hanging on for dear life by the front exit door. Maintenance was non existent. The brakes failed on bus 5 on a downhill run, luckily after all the kids were off, and ended up inside the local pizza shop. A bus I was riding on made it down a very steep hill and the front wheel fell completely off once we hit the bottom. Just watched it roll away while the bus took a nosedive. No injuries and guess what? Nobody sued anybody.
Finally, segregation, always a hot topic. But I'm not talking White versus Black. I'm talking how they made sure the special education students were kept hidden away. I swear, we knew they were there but we never saw them. Their own bus, the own classroom in the basement, their own bathrooms, their own entry. Sad, but that is how it was.
Oh my, so much has changed. For better and for worse.
1. It was the late 1970s early 1980s. Things were a lot less strict. If they got someone out and into a good college, that was a success for them no matter what happened along the way.
2. It was a smallish rural school. There were 280 people in my graduating class but it drew form a very large geographical area that included the main town of 3800 people, three nearby townships, two villiages, and the extreme outskirts of a nearby city. It was a mix of kids of factory workers from the local tube mill, farmers and business executives or engineers and the like who felt the rural atmosphere was worth a long commute. There was a contingent of kids where were pretty rough. Our pranks were an annoyance compared to some of the other issues. Still it was rare that anyone got expelled, or turned over to the police. (One guy got caught smoking pot and stealing something from the school and they make him clean the police station and take care of their plants. He grew a huge marijuana plant in the police station. Just before he was going to harvest it, a policeman recognized it finally and he caught hell (but still was not expelled or sent to the CJ system).
3. In my junior and senior years I went from Cs and Ds as a sophomore to straight As. I did a lot of public speaking and was pretty active in the community and school. I was a blazing success story for the school because of my dramatic turn around and they did not want to mess that up.
4. I hung out with a lot of the burn out clique people, but also the jocks, band f**s, gear heads, and I was king of the drammies. However they knew I did not smoke or do drugs, rarely got in fights (I was pretty skinny and not very athletic until the end of my senior year). Thus, I was not as bad as many of the other students. They had bigger problems to worry about.
5. I was really good as setting up alibis, dissembling, making up stories, arguing about lack of any proof whatsoever and lying (although I rarely had to actually lie).
6. My father was a pillar of the community type guy and best friends with the police chief (later mayor) and most of the school board. No idea whether that had an impact, but it may have.
7. They were more into finding a way to correct unacceptable behavior than dumping people in the CJ system or kicking them out of school. It was well known that if someone got put into the system, they were a lost cause and would end up in prison. Thus, they tended to try to handle things in house with punishments designed to fit the violation. Sometimes, I was required to do some punishment when there was no proof whatsoever we were involved. In some cases, we weren't even involved. The ultimate punishment (telling my Dad) was usually avoided.
7. Most of the worse things I was involved in, there was no proof. Yes, they knew I have been busted by the police for making explosives. Yes someone blew up the junior float in my senior year. However I was visiting friend at a nearby college at the time. Want to talk to them?
What would you say was the worst issue the school faced when you were there?
What were the punishments they applied to you? You're right about the ultimate punishment being telling your dad. We were lucky back then thathe communication with parents was harder so schools were less inclined to contact them for less serious issues.
Nothing in high school, my issues were middle school. I had someone complain that I breathed too loud and should stop. He was a brat on the football team. In eighth grade in English during a shortened day I remarked "If I had the power of the Force, I'd choke you to death." I imagine today I would be potentially expelled but likely suspended rather than a mega detention. However due to his comment, he would have gotten at least a detention also. For me it isn't so hard as this was post-Collumbine era but pre-bullying era (spring 2001.) Zero-tolerance was in effect, but it wasn't always even.
The closest I had in high school was beating up kids who threw a balled up piece of paper at me on the way home from driver education at the high school. Sadly those kids weren't punished because while the high school hosted the driver ed course, "it was not a school activity." Nowadays, they would be in hot water at school due to the bully era (fall 2004.)
For those that graduated HS before all of this zero tolerance/zero brains garbage anything you did that back then would've seen harmless at best or possible suspension at worst but nowadays you'd likely have had the cops called, arrested, possibly expelled etc.?
One thing I used to do was always carry a knife with me, one I kept sharpen too, but not for defense or to attack anyone, just for things like cutting up food, opening things, mostly misc stuff. Nowadays I have little doubt a teacher would see it, freak out and I'd have a whole squadron of SWAT officers pointing guns at me!
I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Small town high school.
Yes, and though the statute of limitations has probably expired, I'm still not telling.
Tons of kids had gun racks and guns on the back of their cars.
You weren't allowed to bully, make racist threats, or have sex with someone two years younger than you (Romeo and Juliet laws applied but that means you still have to be close in age).
Boy fights got shut down QUICKLY (probably in part due to guns on gun racks on pickup trucks) but girl fights were, interestingly, tolerated, though I know those women now and some of them could use a gun better than the boys.
I was a total geek but we did stupid stuff too... hacking was considered more ingenious and less threatening back then. I'll just say that!
Nope. I always roll my eyes when people talk about their teens and the wild things they did. I did absolutely nothing. The wildest thing I did as a teen was order pizza without my parents knowing.
A better question would be, "What DIDN'T I do that would get me in serious trouble today !" In fact, when I think about it, I'm amazed I am still alive.
All kids sow their wild oats, but some of us really lived on the edge.
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