What was school like for you in the 80's.  Good times, bad times?

I had some good times in elementary school, but the bad ones are the ones that always stick in my mind ...

I had a horrible time in school back in the 80's.  I can remember during really cold winter days, we were told that we had to stay outside during recess, meanwhile the teachers got to stay inside in their nice cozy teachers lounge  >:(  Often at times, I would ask to go inside to use the bathroom, where I would eventually stay the whole recess time just to escape the cold  :\'(

This one day, what was quite possibly the coldest day of the year, I'd left my toque inside and was told by the VP (who was the acting recess monitor that day) that I wasn't allowed to go in and get it.  See, she was old fashioned, and believed that during recess time, no student is allowed to be inside the school.  So to cut a long story short, I ended up getting real bad frostbite on my ears.  I was rushed to emergency where I was told by a doctor that the skin had been so badly damaged from the cold, that if I ever got frostbite on my ears again, they would have to amputate :\'(

Wow poor you Whistle... what kind of school was it? Some teachers are so insensitive to kids needs... I think they get numb to it after years of teaching.

Well I'm happy to say I loved all my school days (3 schools in all). Life was good. The school was really open plan, we had big gardens in the middle, teachers were like friends and the weather was hot and sunny! I played the fool for most it (terrible grades) but the last 2 years of high school I redeemed myself and got really good grades which led me to college/University and beyond.

Wow poor you Whistle... what kind of school was it? Some teachers are so insensitive to kids needs... I think they get numb to it after years of teaching.


It was a regular elementary school.  I had lots of good times there, but the teachers often at times made it a terrible experience

Was the 'unspoken' law regarding respect for your teachers, etiquette.etc much stricter in the 80s than now? I mean, what would happen if you called your teacher by their first name? Do you ever remember arguing with your teachers?

Mostly good times...

I finished high school in 1984.  I had a few close friends in school, but was always quite shy and never really got involved in clubs and organizations....

I had a few friends, but I mostly kept to myself. Eventually, I went to school in Wisconsin for a year, I had a great time there.

daaaaaaaaaag. remind me not to go to high school in siberia.

i felt like high school was pretty high pressure. i'm not sure if it is much different now, it was pretty cliquish. at least nowadays everybody is less obliged to have big, fancy hairdos and stuff. i was in a kinda snobby clique where we felt that 80s music was goofy and we listened to lots of old-school buttrock. we were very anti-synthesizer.

I started pre-school in 1986 and graduated in 1987. And then late 1987 I started kindergarten. Hmm, actually those numbers don't add up to me, lemme take a look at my little pre-school diploma later .. anyway..

My first pre-school memories were actually fairly vivid. I remember waiting for my mom to come and get me at noon because that's when pre-school would end and she'd take me home and feed me lunch and I'd play in the backyard or I'd watch cartoons, like the Flintstones, Jetsons, etc. I even remember watching Dumbo on TV for the first time after coming home from pre-school. Anyway, to not get off topic. I had some fond memories of pre-school. Nothing really bad. I remember learning how to curtsy and bow. I remember the cubby hole that had my picture on it and that's how I'd identify the spot where to put my backpack and belongings. And I especially remember the nap hours because they bored me to tears.  I had a fear of falling alseep because I thought I'd wake up and everyone would be gone except me, lol.

(1987-1988) Kindergarten was like a big wake up call. The teacher wasn't half as sweet and caring as the one I had in preschool (Miss Paula was her name). My kindergarten teacher was abrupt and dictative. I had learned later that she had been in the Army (hmm, makes sense now). Some of those memories I can forget, but some of the better memories were of going to the circus, going to a little theme park called "Smallworld" park; learning how to tie my shoes; jump roping and hop scotch; I remember looking back at my old report cards and the teacher saying I had a short attention span and that I couldn't focus. Hmmmff! lol. (well, maybe she was right - I'm a Gemini after all)

(1988-1989) 1st Grade - This was an improvement. I had a pretty decent teacher named Mrs. Deeble. She was strict but not overbearing and she could be pretty nice. My brother had her a few years earlier so I kind of knew what I was in for. I don't remember a whole lot from 1st grade except the class room. I remember exactly where I sat - I remember my assigned number which was #18. And pulling too many cards in one day to make a visit to the principal's office. We also had made a visit to the Clayton Valley Pumpkin Patch that year and a few more field trips. Oh yes, I also went on a field trip to go on BART

(1989-1990) 2nd Grade - This was one of my favorite years in school. I had a wonderful teacher who was SO much fun. She was young and sweet and knew how to handle us. We went on a lot of fieldtrips that year, one most notably to the Oakland Airport and we got to explore the insides of a plane (I even got to go inside the cockpit). We made up plays and stuff in the classroom. I remember hitting my head on the bottom of my desk and it hurt intensely. I hid myself to the back of the room and cried a bit and one of my fellow students saw me and asked what was wrong and I said I had hit my head real hard. Well, I kinda got over it and sat backdown, but then my mom noticed it later and said it looked like a big goose egg.

Well, that's all the time I spent in the 80's in school. It was onto the 90's from there... 

I started pre-school in 1986 and graduated in 1987.


I was in college then!  :o

(Now I feel old!)

I'd progressed to secondary school as the 80s crept in...

...hated every last second of it! Vamoosed as quickly as I was legally able to...

(Mind you, this school did have a roof on the toilets!)

I was in college then!  :o

(Now I feel old!)


It's cool. I have a good friend here at work who was born in 1966 and he always makes fun of how old he was when I was a baby or in elementary school...

Someday I'll be saying the same thing to some youngin' kids... (I'm already thinking about it when kids talk about being in 3rd grade when the year 2000 started. That creeps me out, too)

It's cool. I have a good friend here at work who was born in 1966 and he always makes fun of how old he was when I was a baby or in elementary school...

Well he's the same age as me!  :D

Well he's the same age as me!  :D




Yeah, that's right.. he'll be 40 in September. But to me, he doesn't seem that age at all. He's like a big kid. A real genuine person!  ;)

Yeah, that's right.. he'll be 40 in September. But to me, he doesn't seem that age at all. He's like a big kid. A real genuine person!  ;)


That's cool!  :)

Was the 'unspoken' law regarding respect for your teachers, etiquette.etc much stricter in the 80s than now? I mean, what would happen if you called your teacher by their first name? Do you ever remember arguing with your teachers?


I never argued with my teachers, but there were kids in my class who did and they got major detention for it.  We weren't allowed to call our teacher's by their first name.  It was against the school policy or some crap like that

I never got detention at school, but once a friend of mine had a 'spelling detention' so I decided to wait outside the class for her. When the teacher saw me waiting she said "Mandy, your spelling isn't too good either, so instead of waiting there you might was well have detention too!"

School was NOT ran like a prison!!!! ;D

School in the '80s was good, on the whole. I was one of the smart kids that actually liked being a smart kid. Lotsa good times, but kinda lonely too. Never had a girlfriend during high school, and always felt bad about it. Not sure why.

I was in secondary school in the 80s.  For the first two years I went to an all girls school, when I was in my third year the first year was mixed.  It was an o.k. school I guess, some good teachers, some sods.  I was in the choir and the school orchestra here.

From age 14 I went to a different school (it is the system locally to change school at this age).  Here I was more aware of the 'gang' thing.  I mixed with a group of goths and some grebs and we got hassled occasionally by some others.  Again the teachers were a mix.  Some real twats, some good ones (my physics teacher in particular) and some sods.  The in crowd or not thing got to me and I ended up dropping out part way through my lower sixth.

School was ok for me.Towards 5th grade ,found out I loved to sing,so choir made school fun actually.Then around 6th or 7th grade,New Kids on the Block became popular,so that became our obsession.Its all we talked about.In 7th grade we buried a time capsule in front of school,and put New Kids items in there..The other thing I remember was sticker books.We used to see who would get the best stickers(glitter stickers,puffy stickers,scratch and sniff,cartoon characters etc)..So that was a big part of recess.Someone mentioned in another post about how cold it used to be and how they had to stand outside in it.I remember that too.I went to catholic school,so we had the uniform dress.Had to wear pants underneath because it was so cold out.I work at an elementary school as a lunch aide,and the school makes them stay out for recess in 20 something degree weather,so I think back to my old days of freezing.All in all,school wasnt that bad.

Pre-school to 1st grade was FANTASTIC  (1980-'82)

2nd grade to 6th grade was pretty HELLISH  (1982-''87)

7th grade to 9th grade returned to being a GREAT TIME (1987-'90)



It's funny, during the actual real 1980s, for me it wasn't really all that great.  We tend to remember things from the past a lot better then they really were.

Well...I was in elementary school throughout the decade; I was in 4th grade when it ended. Most of the time, I was in private schools; I didn't enter public school until the 4th grade. Overall my experience was okay...although I did have some not-so-pleasant times. :-\\

i got teased a lot for being overweight all throughout my school years from elementary to high school, but overall it was an experience i look back on with fond memories.  when i think about life then compared to life now, it was so much simpler and i'd go back in a second if i could.  don't get me wrong, i love my life now, but i'd just like to relive it all.  the best memories i have of school are elementary school, especially around christmas.  the concerts, the crafts...the unbearable excitement of christmas approaching and counting the days left until school was out for a week! man, i miss those days.

[quote author=whis

School was great back then. I remember how everyone who could do the running man thought they were the coolest. We'd sing Paula abdul songs and "Vanila Ice baby" during lunch. Fruit roll ups and cheetos were popular. so was bubble tape and bubblescious bubble gum. We were innocent back then. we'd laugh amongst ourselves about the few bad words we knew, but that is nothing compared to every word in the book that kids know today. We had great books and activities.

Well, in the early 80's to mid 80's I went to 2 different private schools...I had a lot of good memories there.  When I was in like 2nd grade I used to go to this small Catholic school. I remember in the mornings before school started, you could go down to the office and buy some school supplies, and I would always get one of those light brown erasers (the kind that would crumble easily and had a peculiar scent to them).  We used to have talent shows, holiday musicals, I was involved in Brownies/Girl Scouts at the church basement by the school.  I used to love going to Santa's Secret Shop at Christmas too....my mom would always make sure to give me a little extra money so that I could buy something small for myself.  When I went to my other school for 4th and 5th grade, it was a smaller school. We used to have Olympic games versus other private schools.  We also had a musical every year, which I was involved in. 

Then I went to public school from 6th grade on...and it was, meh, so-so.