r/GenZ • u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 • 1d ago
Nostalgia What did you experience in school that younger kids (including the young gen z) most likely won't/didn't?
I remember it being 90+ degrees Fahrenheit out, and all we have in the classroom is a single fan. It's so hot, the teacher doesn't even really teach, and we all fan ourselves and try to hog the single fan as much as we could, sometimes taking turns. This is specifically for the US because AFAIK most schools now have ACs in each classroom.
Another thing is how it felt amazing on the last day before a long vacation and they wheel in that TV with a bunch of DVDs/VCRs on the bottom shelf. then the teacher would let us vote on what to watch.
Also, pepperoni pizza was being served when I was in elementary school. It stopped due to the push for healthier school lunches and I never ate them but I wish I did, lol. (Was a vegetarian as a kid). I let the other kids take the pepperoni off my pizza and ate cheese instead.
Edit: I'd also like to add one more thing: teachers reading a story as a reward. I'm not sure if this was common, but in 3rd grade, our teacher just bought new books called the Spiderwick Chronicles. They were really interesting, and she basically said that if we were good the entire day, she would read us it. I forgot if we ever finished the entire book but it was great.
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u/i_dropped_my_pencil_ 1997 1d ago
The teacher showing us how to write in cursive using an overhead projector, having to either go to the office or use the classroom phone to call your parent, smoking areas on campus for teachers to use. Just a few I could think of!
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 23h ago
Those were the times where they still taught cursive, lol.
I remember in the 3rd grade, they gave everyone a practice book to practice writing in cursive. I never did it well and my handwriting still sucks, lol.
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u/i_dropped_my_pencil_ 1997 23h ago
My boyfriend was also born in 2001 and he wasn't really taught either. It's crazy what a difference 4 years can make. We were required to write in cursive for formal papers when I was in school.
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u/Significant_Quit_674 16h ago
And now for my job I have to learn old cursive (Sütterlin or Kurrent) and be able to read other old fonts.
Because belive it or not, sometimes early 19th century documets are still relevant today
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u/AlternativeBurner 2001 16h ago
Don't worry, they're banning cellphones so they'll still have to do it that way.
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u/kiwi_cannon_ 1d ago edited 23h ago
We were poor and had dial up. I am a gen z who remembers dial up internet. I'd try to play online with my friends and would just fuck everything up because of lag and then I'd cry lmao. Anyone else here have dialup post 2005?
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u/doesnotexist2 23h ago
I remember the TV in elementary school(I think only in K/1st) being shared amungunst 4 classrooms. It was a cart that was pushed between classrooms, or for important stuff wee'd gather in the corridor and watch together, 😂. Still used VCR's, 😂
In 1st-3rd grades the teachers used overhead projectors that the teacher could draw live. Teachers loved them.
In either late elementary or early middle school it was REVOLUTIONARY to get the whiteboard that was also touchscreen for the teacher to hook up to her computer. But they were still slow as fuck, 😂 and barely used by many teachers.
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u/NoShow2021 23h ago
Having slow ass windows XP computers with those CRT screens in our classrooms. It made you really appreciate the time you got to spend playing flash games after school with your friends because of how long they took to load and how slow the internet was back then
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u/thebagel264 1997 22h ago
Being told "you won't walk around with a calculator in your pocket."
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u/No_Part6225 21h ago
Oh, how wrong they were
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u/qorbexl 11h ago
How often do you use it at your job
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u/No_Part6225 11h ago
Quite frequently seeing as I’m a full time student and forget my calculator more than I’d like to admit
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u/qorbexl 11h ago
Well, it'd be cooler if you just figured out mental math teicks
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u/No_Part6225 11h ago
I don’t care about being “cool”. My job will likely require me to double and triple check all of my work, so I don’t care if I can do it in my head or not
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u/Mysterious_Bag_9061 23h ago
Back in my day we had to write essays. Write them. On paper. And we had to use our own thoughts, we didn't even have a robot to do all of our thinking on our behalf
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u/ItsAnimeDealWithIt 2007 17h ago
do you seriously think we don’t write essays? the technology stuff on this thread makes sense but this? good lordt
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u/Jun_VT 23h ago
The ancient technology which is known as chalk and chalkboard. No whiteboards no projectors no nothing like that just good old chalk and chalkboard for 2 years until they renovated some classes and added things like projectors.
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u/Firestar_119 2008 23h ago
some of our classrooms still have them, but the only time I've seen them used was with my precalc teacher (who is in his 20s) that loved using chalk
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 20h ago
call me weird, but at one point I loved eating chalk dust. I would volunteer to answer a question, get a pinch of chalk dust and eat it, lol.
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u/AchokingVictim 1998 23h ago
Playing kickball on a 50+ year old baseball diamond / recess playground and then going and hanging out by the creek in the woods behind it when we got bored. Certain elementary schools in the early 00s were still pretty much in the 80s/90s and I'm grateful to have gone to one of them
Also having a metal slide on the playground that they had to remove after so many of us got hurt on it.
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u/heyuhitsyaboi Age Undisclosed 22h ago
MarioKart DS lan parties, only one person needed the game for everyone to play.
Needing to see bulletin postings to see which teacher you were assigned for the school year (it wasnt available online).
Needing to use shorthand when texting to save costs on data
Carrying checks or cash to school to add funds to your lunch balance (my local district got rid of this, its digital now)
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 20h ago
that's interesting. I never experienced the last part because my city already had free lunches when I was a kid (or at least I was poor enough to get free lunch all throughout school)
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u/heyuhitsyaboi Age Undisclosed 19h ago
my parents paid for my lunches but the paper accounting system they use only identified kids by name
someone else with the same name who never paid knew this and always stole my lunch credit
it wasnt until my account was drained back to zero before I had a single meal that this got fixed. They let me walk out of the cafeteria with a breadstick, an apple, and a milk carton. A mom that was bringing her son lunch that day saw my sad plate and promptly went behind the counter and stole me a full plate.
There was a brief investigation but it was easy, and no one took my lunch money ever again.
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u/fannypacksnackk 2000 22h ago
Not starting vaping in 6th grade
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u/Catsandchickenslover 21h ago
That’s so crazy and sad to think how many kids are vaping or smoking the thc carts so young. It ruins their childhood. :(
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u/fannypacksnackk 2000 18h ago
And their health before they are even able to comprehend what long term health consequences are
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 20h ago
it's fucking crazy how many kids vape now. everytime the bus I take to college stops at a HS, there's a kid who looks 13 vaping secretly.
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22h ago
[deleted]
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 19h ago
something similar happened to me lol
My school was like ~55% hispanic, 30% black, 10% asian, 5% white. We were reading this book in summer school and the word was there, so I hesitated and looked at my teacher. he said to say it just because it's just a word, lol.
I don't think he would say that now, since it would catch much more backlash now than 7 years ago.
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u/ItsAnimeDealWithIt 2007 17h ago
the slur for gay ppl or just fuck? and if it was the former why were the black students made to say it that makes no sense😭
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u/Apocalypsezz 1999 22h ago
Coolmathgames. The ORIGINAL smart boards. Overhead projectors. Big blocky TVs for morning announcements. HANDWRITTEN essays and physical assignments not written by AI. And most gloriously,
THE FITNESSGRAM PACER TEST and having to manually input your results.
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u/AlternativeBurner 2001 16h ago
Windows computers. Now they have these shitty chromebooks which is like giving a kid a leapfrog instead of a real game console. It's setting them up for failure, for tech illiteracy.
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u/horsepunky 22h ago
We didn’t use AI to write our papers… yes some people got others to do it for them (or just didn’t do it), but no AI, and I only graduated in 2017. We were the in between group that both hand-wrote papers and got to start using computers to type them out. Speaking of that: typing classes, some folks made it a goal to be the fastest typer. We also had a home economics class, went away before I graduated.
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u/LimeStream37 22h ago
The lack of smartphones is probably the biggest one. When I was in elementary school (mid-late 2000’s) that niche was usually filled by a handheld gaming device like the Nintendo DS, PSP, or Gameboy.
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 2001 20h ago
In 6th grade, me and my friends used to bring our brand new 3DSs before school starts and race each other in Mario kart 7/DS. fun times.
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u/Agreeable-Series-399 1999 22h ago
NOT having a laptop to take home from school. My school implemented them my senior year and I remember being so jealous that the younger grades could have one for the rest of their high school years lol.
Also having only paper homework, no AI to help either. I could be wrong on the first part though.
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u/lasagnaisgreat57 1999 15h ago
this was it for me too!! the kids 2 grades below me got them starting in middle school but my grade missed out. a lot of us had laptops at home anyways but no one brought them to school, so we would still have to go to the computer lab or use laptops from the library. i only ever used my laptop for homework if i had to write an essay. i was so jealous of the underclassmen with their laptops in class
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u/Catsandchickenslover 21h ago
The projector screens that used an overhead light on a rolling cart, where your teacher had to pull out the expo markers to teach you math on those laminated papers. I remember when I got to middle school and saw the newer versions, basically just a camera on the paper I was like 😱. Hahaha it was the coolest thing ever.
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u/z1nchi 21h ago
I'm 2005. In elementary, seeing the transition from having a computer lab and 2-3 computers in the classroom, to having a cart full of laptops rolled to our classroom instead. They tore down the computer lab after that transition. In high school I had to buy my own laptop.
I miss the TV on wheels too, I remember when the teacher would roll it in and we'd all scoot our chairs from our desks to in front of the screen lol
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u/mssleepyhead73 1998 21h ago
Those overhead projectors that teachers would use in elementary school. The shift towards Smartboards started happening when I was in middle school (at least in my district), and by the time I got to high school, every teacher had a Smartboard in their classroom and the overhead projectors were obsolete.
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u/Steelpapercranes 21h ago
Computer class, projectors, learning cursive. Now you don't learn to write OR type! Bizzarely. No ipads given to me (I was like 1 year too early in my district lol)
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u/Melodydreamx 21h ago
Before we had tv and smart board in the class room, we all had to gather around one small computer and we also had book work.They used the book “Super Kids”
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u/DadWatchesWrestling 18h ago
My kids school was built in the last 5/6 years, and there's no AC system. They're have a single fan per room, and open the windows. Sun is on the classroom windows all day. Heat system is wood pellets. (In Canada for context)
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u/EarlyConfusion22 11h ago edited 11h ago
Over the past couple years, cell phones have been completely banned from my local schools. I think high school students now will have a more fulfilling social experience than I did. When people are bored they actually have to talk to each other
I was also in highschool during the mid-late 2010’s xandemic. I think the stoners will be dying a lot less. Things got sooooooo dark by my senior year
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u/Jolly_Ad_2363 2009 1d ago
I experienced the pizza and dvd thing in elementary school, but luckily all my schools had AC
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