what still gives you nightmares from school?

[BrickPoet]

bullying

Not being able to focus. Not doing homework due to poor time management.

Corporal punishment for the slightest thing you did wrong usually administered by sadistic teachers.
I am an oldie, went to school in the 1950s, when this was legal. Large classes of 35-40 pupils with only one teacher, no auxiliary staff.Teachers kept control of us this way.A thick strap was used.

Primary school maths tests. Here’s a piece of graph paper, fold it in half, write your answer on the left. Questions will begin in one minute….

I was hopeless at timestables and still can’t do fast sums or working out years/ages.

The tracing paper like toilet roll. Makes my eyes water just thinking of accidentally nipping my parts with the vicious stuff.

The time when another (unknown) pupil decided to smear the word sh1t on the cubicle door, written with their own excrement. Feral creature whoever she was…

Kerry Morris

This!

Psychologist Peter Gray surveyed his readers about school dreams. Nearly all of the dreams were unpleasant. None were pleasant. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn/201606/they-dream-school-and-none-the-dreams-are-good

Rick Ashworths cock. It was a fedking Pringles tube.

Being the fat one, trying to hide an anxiety disorder.

I don't have nightmares, but still can't eat custard because of how foul school custard was in primary school and it wasn't optional.

Bullying at 2 different secondary schools. I actually went to 3 as we moved a lot for DF’s work & I so wish I could have stayed at the first one.
Oh those dreaded showers! I used to run through, holding my towel above my head.
Being picked last for teams.
Cross country & athletics in general. I still remember a horrible girl jeering at me for being so slow. I was pretty good at the high jump though!
Loo roll like greaseproof paper!

I went from a really small junior school (a few classes, and you were always in the same classroom and you just did what came next, same teacher) to one of the biggest comprehensive schools going. Massive site, four huge blocks, multiple floors with outbuildings distanced by a 5-10 min walk, exacting timetable. You were expected to go for SCIENCE 1 in Building A. Floor Room 23 to MATHS 3 Temp. PCkabin D in about 5 minutes without knowing where any of these were. I spent many an unhappy time in the car park poring over my timetable and knowing I had missed where I needed to be and hoping to get myself organised enough to make the next thing. Yes, there was bullying, and yes the picking of teams in PE made me feel bad (I was a bit middle of the road so never anyone's first choice, but not the last either) but I do wake up occasionally, even 40 years later in a panic shouting that I don't know where I am meant to be, or knowing that I am late for it, whatever it is. Hasn't scarred me for life and I don't have a back story (happy childhood etc) but it shows what these things can do to you forever.

It’s incredible to me that children were treated this way in the very recent past 😞

Thank goodness we take the rights of children more seriously these days.

Im sorry you had to endure that x

The communal showers, which reading this seems to be a theme, with no curtains or privacy at all and the PE teacher 'supervising', even the one who hadn't been teaching the lesson would come in. I started secondary in 1990, by the time I left in 1995 we definitely weren't showering after PE but I can't remember when and why it changed.

We also had to stand in a line and bend over when we were in PE skirts to prove we were wearing the house knickers.

Doing athletics in navy knickers. Horrible and humiliating.
Also leotards for 'dance'.
Agree with bloodyBorat, fecking hated hockey.
It was always cold, wet, painful (no shin padding) and pointless. Chasing a tiny muddy puck around and getting your fingers and shins smashed to bits by some psycho on the other team.
The PE choices at school were like torture and the PE teachers were uniformly absolute bastards.
Was a revelation after leaving school that there are actually some sports activities I really like doing and that don't require public humiliation!

I didn’t love school but nothing happened that was bad enough to give me nightmares. I didn’t grow up in the UK, which I think is key here.

There were cliques and mean girls or whatever but none of the real viciousness and violence my British friends tell me was usual when they were growing up. No uniforms.

In PE at primary we had a unit on dancing - we were all taught the twist and some basic rock n roll moves but also encouraged to dance however we wanted. We all got to bring in cassettes of our favourite music to play. And we didn’t have to dance if we didn’t want to. (I was too shy but nobody made me feel weird about it).

No picking teams - we were assigned to teams to avoid precisely this. Nobody made us have showers, but we could have them if we wanted. We could change in cubicles with curtains, or toilet stalls with locks. While none of this resulted in a lifelong love of sports, I did grow up understanding that being active didn’t have to involve being competitive.

It’s desperately sad to think how with a couple of fairly easily achievable modifications school could have been so much nicer for so many people.

(My recurring nightmares are about university. I suddenly realise I forgot to go back for my final year, and it’s been 30 years, and I only have 2 days before my exams, and there’s no internet because I’ve somehow travelled in my current body back in time to 1994. And I can’t find my library card. And I’m not wearing any shoes or socks.)

Being physically assaulted by a boy and being told it must be because he fancied me
Being sexually assaulted by a boy and being told it was my fault for flaunting my figure (I was wearing school uniform!)
Then being bullied for being a lesbian because I wouldn't go near the boys! I wonder why when nobody would keep me safe?

If anything like that happens to or is said about my daughter I won't stand for it. Unfortunately I think my parents were misogynistic and internally misogynistic back then as a product of their times, and actually supported the schools assessment in that it was because both those boys fancied me/lacked social skills to communicate that/ lacked self control not that they were in the wrong.

Can't stand the smell of school dinners either! Although I doubt they smell the same now

The nuns - as a 4 year old, they seems like black monsters who glided about with no feet. Scary!!

PE and showers, boarding school. Although we had individual cubicles we still had to strip off in the locker room with the teacher gawping at us. I always kept my knickers on and changed those when I had my skirt zipped up. Sixth form we had our own " showers " where you could lock the doors properly.

Maths.
I went to an all-girls school and had a pretty good time, apart from maths, which I still can't do at all. Hasn't significantly held me back in life though, despite the three attempts at an 'O' level in it, which I got progressively worse grades for!

Some really awful hair decisions.

The high jump.

Basically everything. I can't see that they've changed much. My own DC are home educated - go figure.

Maths, and being made to drop a set to do the Foundation paper which was far too easy.
PE - gym, cross country, athletics...
Sports Day
No friends, so sitting alone all the time/hiding in library.
Not having the most 'in' branded items like bags/shoes/clothes.
Not being able to do all the fancy school trips.
Others knowing you had a free school meal.
Bullying - or just being isolated/ignored/not fitting in.
Mufti/non school uniform days.
Not being able to ask teachers for help/support.

I could go on...