WTF moments from childhood

[Lyannaa]

I vividly remember sitting in a circle at primary school and playing a game (facilitated by teachers). It was a variation on ‘spin the bottle’ and this boy named the girl he wanted to kiss. The feeling was not mutual from her end and she began running around and around the circle, trying to evade both the boy and the disgraceful teachers trying to hold her down. Vile. How was this a thing? All I remember was sitting there thinking ‘thank goodness this isn’t me’.

This was 1989…

At school discos we used to play ‘under the arches’, the girls would all pair up and hold their arms up and join hands, the boys would then walk in a line under all the hands. When the music stopped the girls would bring their arms down fast, if they ‘caught’ a boy they had to kiss him. If that isn’t wtf enough a few male teachers joined the line and would kiss students.

Also stripping to pants and vests for pe in primary if you forgot your kit.

The late 80s/90s was an amazing era to grow up in but my goodness there were some bonkers things I was subjected to and witnessed. Like so many of these examples, nobody batted an eyelid. It’s so strange to think how we perceive things so differently now!

Now that is blooming disturbing!

I remember the geography teacher chasing a girl around the classroom and then kissing her.

I found out my O level and A level results as lists of the whole year groups results were stuck on the windows of the chemistry labs.

90s primary school, our class teacher was moving house and brought all of his many house plants into the classroom for a term or so - it may have been longer. He ended up sofa surfing for quite a while as something went wrong, I can't quite remember what (and probably should never have known in the first place!!)

He nominated pairs of kids to look after them each week - missing our break times to do so, and also requiring us (or rather our parents) to supply various concoctions from home to feed and clean / mist them with.

Utter CF.

At my middle school (age 11-13, early 70s), my English teacher told my friend and I to go and clean the staff room kitchen. It was a dense fog of cigarette and pipe smoke because all the male teachers smoked (and probably most of the female ones too). We missed an English lesson but felt really important! Washing up coughing our guts out.
Psycho PE teachers who slapped girls around the face. Same teachers pushed my friend in the pool- she was terrified of water. Another time a girl forgot her shorts and the teacher made her walk along a busy main road to the playing fields in her aertex top and knickers, with cars tooting at her.
At 13 I moved to a girls' grammar, which was lovely and I no longer felt like I was at St Trinians

Primary school about 1977 - last day of term before Easter holidays. We had some kind of Easter assembly with parents there. I would have been about 5 or 6. We all filed out one by one and were given a Cadbury's creme egg which was incredibly exciting. But then the headmaster leant down to shake the hand of each pupil (boy) or give a KISS ON THE LIPS (girls). I remember it clearly because I recoiled in horror when it was my turn and all the parents laughed at me.

Age 14, school trip on a barge. Each evening the teachers would moor outside a pub. We would all go the pub. Teachers told us not to acknowledge we knew them and if we got refused service to go back to the boat alone

Was Charlie in the Gambia by any chance? If so, I stroked him while you husband at the time hid behind a tree.

In the 70s our headmaster in primary school used to send us to the local shop for his cigarettes. He would then chain smoke incessantly in the small classroom.
I also remember younger children aged around 7 or 8 who had trouble reading getting sent to him. He used to force them to read out loud in front of us and smack them hard around the head when they couldn't understand some of the words.
Horrible man

1 male teacher used to make us hold up our jumpers and measure the length of skirts with a ruler. If I stayed late for anything and had to walk home, another male teacher would catch me up and give me a lift.

Yes it was, in Bakau!

I grew up in a little village and attended the local school which was tiny with about 70 kids. Headteacher was a very eccentric and short tempered woman and I remember being terrified of her. If kids were misbehaving she'd shout (more like roar) and thump her fist onto the table right in front of kids and I remember all the pencils and rubbers flying onto the floor. She called a boy a sissy girlie once because he preferred to play dolls with the girls. This would have been 1985 -1989 ish.
I was a shy kid and she'd always pick on me to read out in assembly and put me on the spot to answer questions. I remember being a nervous wreck!!!!
Everyone accepted it as it was just the way she was!!

Definitely the same Charlie then!!

Me and another woman were up for it, both husbands hid behind a tree, and his keepers were laughing their heads off.

Blimey... that is a bit 😳 😬

My a level Latin teacher had a party for us with the other Latin and Greek teachers there was booze and fags and a great time was had by all. All our parents knew where we were.

Goodness, I remember doing this at a birthday party of mine! I was only about 10, and I think my parents still have some photos of my classmates lined up with their arms held up, making arches and the other children going under them looking very hot and sweaty!

Last year of primary and I hadn't been picked up after a netball match. Headmaster gave a lift home so that I didn't walk home on my own. All OK and nothing inappropriate, but definitely wouldn't happen now.

My mum made frilly knickers for a show put on at Brownies. It was the can can and we all pulled up skirts. WTF mum.

At primary in the 1970s, stripping down to vest and knickers for PE (or "music and movement" as it was called then). Kids being made to stand in the corner if they misbehaved, a ruler across the knuckles for bad writing, and smacking being commonplace from teachers. Particularly naughty kids were caned (girls got the slipper) by the headmaster.
Staff room full of smokers.
At secondary in the 80s, teachers sending kids to the shop to buy flags for them, teachers going to the pub at lunchtime and coming back pissed, teachers throwing board rubbers at kids, teachers grabbing kids by the shirt collar/lapels and shoving them against walls, shouting in their faces, and other staff being openly racist and sexist.
PE was awful - we were supposed to shower but had all of 10 minutes for 30 of us to do so, so we would just dunk our head and shoulders under the water and dive out. There was a flasher in the park we ran through for outdoor PE and teachers did nothing.
Teaching assistants getting 15 and 16 year old pregnant.

Looking back, it was terrible. How we ever learned anything is beyond me.

2024 in my school, this week. A child has trashed the classroom (during an evacuation for his behaviour) I’ve actually been called a fucking cunt by an 8 year old (tbf I did try to empathise and be supportive to him) Another child has been slam dunked with a punch to the face. A parent has screamed at a TA for trying to encourage a child to go home. I’d love this thread to be for the future generations. It’s really not better or worse.

One of my science teachers getting me to clean scum off a beaker of Mercury. I had to dip paper towels in petroleum jelly then wipe them across the top of the liquid metal. I wasn't even given gloves, just bare hands. I had no idea how toxic it was.

I remember how heavy the beaker was when she asked me to move it.

Scalding water dripping off the light bulbs if it rained because the roof was knackered. Although they did get that fixed.

Yup I agree! My daughter is year 4 now and they all get changed in the classroom in front of the boys. I don't understand why they can't either wear PE kit to school on PE day, or not get changed at all.

I have a horrible memory of being about seven and daydreaming in class. Our male teacher suddenly said "Xxxx so what do you think?"

I couldn't answer so he asked me to come to the front of the class and bend over his desk. I had a very short skirt on (it was the mid-70s) so I was very aware of my knickers showing,

He then gleefully pretended to cane me for about five minutes. I was so humiliated but so ashamed that I never mentioned it to my parents. He was eventually sacked years later for inappropriate behaviour (it was a mixed school too!).