Did you ever attend a school with any of the following?

[Crumpets]

I've come to realize over the years that my schools were very odd in some of the things they didn't have. I used to think that these were all sort-of "legacy" things that schools once had, but no longer do, and were only kept alive by popular culture. But I'm now getting the feeling these are actually still quite common and my schools were just weird. So, for me, the answer is NOTA, and I want to see how many others are also NOTA.

Just to clarify the prom one a bit, my school did have prom, but it was much more a "grad night" event, where teachers would take the graduating class out to a nice dinner, and then we would have some activities afterwards. So "asking someone to prom" wasn't really a thing. There were other dances like Tolo that were more a dates thing, though.

[fhtagn]

all except for hall passes/hall monitors

[DavidB.]

None except prom. I have no idea what hall passes or hall monitors are (European).

[Sestak]

There was a cheer team, dates were expected at prom, there were (several) shop classes but none were mandatory.

No publicized class ranking (having one could have ended with someone being murdered), there were no hall monitors, and no classes outwardly branded as home economics (though there may well have been stuff that would generally fall under that umbrella, I don’t remember).

[Alcibiades]

None except woodwork/metalwork, which came under a subject called design and technology that everyone had to take in the first two years at my secondary school.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

All except option 3 although the second is just that the graduating class had a valedictorian and that's basically it.

[Del Tachi]

All except home ec

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

All of them

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Had all of them.

Shop and Home Ec in Middle School, though not quite like the pop culture experience makes them out to be.
Hall passes and cheerleading introduced in middle school and continued through high school.
Normal prom and very competitive class rankings in high school.

Four years after I graduated, class rankings were abolished in favor of quartiles or quintiles, which absolutely disgusts me.



I think the most unique thing about the Jersey experience is the mandate of PE every year of schooling including every day in high school. I'm always amazed when people from other places only took a year of PE in high school, if that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I believe that hall passes/hall monitors are more of a 70s/80s thing that managed to stick around in pop culture after that and then remained well after that because they were established tropes. This sort of thing happens a lot because 30/40 something movies and TV writers probably aren't very familiar with modern day high schools and thus write more like how things were when they were in high school. Similarly since things like John Hughes movies are still classics that are regularly watched today this perception continues through pop culture osmosis. How many people still associate classrooms with teachers writing with chalk on green chalkboards for example even though this was already outdated by the time I was in high school and marker boards were already universal much less the digital "smart boards" commonly used today.

It's kind of like the ongoing myth that still persists today that students are expected to shower naked in front of each other after gym class, that hasn't been true for decades before today's high school students we're even born and even the most insensitive tone deaf school administrator on the planet would never demand such a thing today if for the liability risk if nothing else.

[Former President tack50]

#2, 3, and 5, though tbh 3 is a huge stretch. Also I don't think either 2 or 3 are the norm in Spain.

Class Valedictorians: At the end of year 12, for some bizarre reason during the graduation ceremony they elected 3 "valedictorians", one from each group (in Spain students stay put in their class while teachers move around, so there are fairly fixed "groups" of students). For year 12 the groups corresponded pretty much to the 3 main paths my school offered: "Healthcare sciences" (intended primarily for future doctors, nurses, etc); "Technology and Science" (intended mostly for future engineers)

I was actually in the running for Valedictorian in the "Technology and Science" group but ended up losing out. Oh well I didn't really want it anyways, it's not like it will serve me in the future and I would have needed to do a cringey speech in public.

Hall passes: We did not really have formal "hall passes" and definitely did not have fixed "hall monitors". However to leave the classroom you needed permission from your teacher, and if a teacher who happened to be around (or perhaps the cleaning personnel) saw you during those hours, they'd question you and later your teacher.

I got one of my very few "detentions" precisely for breaking this rule. Twice in fact (once in primary school, once in year 9 or 10 iirc)

Shop Class: The only one that is actually the norm in Spain, as we have a "Technology" class as mandatory for years 7 and 8 (or at least that is how it worked when I was in school idk if it is still around)

It basically amounts to a carpentry class, where you do stuff with wood (and if you are lucky, even solder a couple things). I did a wooden clock for year 7 and a wooden ferris wheel for year 8.

Technology remained as a class for me in years 9 and 10 (an elective one in year 10, a mandatory class in year 9). Year 9 technology pretty much amounted to computer science, a mix of MS office and a small week where we got to program Lego robots which was very fun (and almost makes me wonder why I didn't take Computer Science in college given my great results back then). Year 10 technology meanwhile was pretty much electronics and electricity.

I did not include prom as a dating event. A part of my graduation ceremony involved couples going down some stairs, but it was not meant as romantic at all (though of course if you had a romantic interest you would ask her out). It was a very small part of the ceremony anyways.

Also not including home economics. Economics classes do happen in HS, but there is nothing about "home economics".

[ProudModerate2]

All of them.
Especially liked home economics (I believe that is what it was called) in junior high school, we learned to bake/cook. We cooked eggs, bacon and lots of baking like cookies. Of course you ate what you made, so this was great.

[TheReckoning]

Cheerleaders and romantic dances. Technically hall passes too, but it was every really enforced so I didn’t count that.

[DaleCooper]

Everything except for the hall monitors and hall passes. I guess there were occasionally teachers monitoring the halls but the notion of a busybody student serving as a hallway cop is something I've never encountered outside of Saved by the Bell and the like.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

None except prom. I have no idea what hall passes or hall monitors are (European).

It’s a little lamented slip of paper or some such that teachers give you if you need to leave the room during class, so that any facility that may see you in the halls knows you aren’t skipping class.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Everything except for the hall monitors and hall passes. I guess there were occasionally teachers monitoring the halls but the notion of a busybody student serving as a hallway cop is something I've never encountered outside of Saved by the Bell and the like.

Like I said it's actually a 70s/80s thing that managed to stick around in pop culture because 30/40something TV and movie writers don't know how modern high school is so they just write assuming it's like when they were in high school. Granted that's well before most modern scriptwriters were in high school as well but now it's a trope that thus remains thanks to its prevelence in classic teen movies/TV shows. Kind of like how the "Save" icon in every OS is still a floppy disk even though those are as alien to anyone under 30 as laserdiscs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly there's two tropes I can think of which are now basically fully obsolete and were already pretty unrealistic even when I was in high school (but fading in usage) that today I imagine high schoolers must find downright surreal.

One is the notion that anyone who is good with computers has to be some sort of mega-nerd who's at the bottom of the social totem pole, almost certainly bullied, and a loser no popular kid would ever hang out with unless it's because they need help with their homework or whatever. It's more of an 80s thing as noted and as said even when I was in high school was clearly fading because even adult writers knew it was a pretty silly notion amongst today's teenagers, but seeing it in older works and some residual examples did happen and I imagine today would provoke a "WTF?" type reaction. There were exceptions even back in the day of course (see how Ferris Bueller was apparently so skilled that he was able to hack a school computer and edit records in 1987), but it was the prominent trope of someone good at computers up until 1992ish or so and took another decade to fade completely.

The other is the idea that almost no girls play video games, and if any did she had to be a total tomboy who wasn't into any "girly" things at all, and was exceptionally more skilled than most people which led to the embarrassment of losing to a girl in a video game which was like the ultimate insult...amazing how sexist that trope must appear today. It was also never truly realistic but is downright laughable today.

Also the standard assortment of cliques, like the idea that high school sports players are the jocks who are mega-popular bullies, that they always date cheerleaders who are the most attractive girls at the school, and kids that are into things like art and theater are always bullied and considered uncool seems to stick around, this might have a kernel of truth to it at least depending on the region (high school sports are a huge deal in some areas), but it's definitely not that simplistic (and of course never really was realistic to begin with, also kind of ignores the fact that there's often quite a bit of overlap between the interests of the "cool" and "uncool" groups, cheerleaders for example are actually probably more likely to be into things like art and theater than most girls considering what they do is actually basically a type of performance art, etc.)

[Mr. Smith]

All except home ec

[GeorgiaModerate]

All of the above.

[The Dowager Mod]

All of them, I was a cheerleader.

[GeorgiaModerate]

All of them, I was a cheerleader.

Two, four, six, eight,

Where do we pontificate?

ATLAS! ATLAS!

A! T! L! A! S!

[Roll Roons]

1. I think so? Don't remember tbh. School spirit was fairly mediocre.

2. We did have a valedictorian, but no formal class rank. Funny thing is that my GPA was much lower than hers, but she didn't get into my university

3. Nah, only ever saw that in TV shows and movies.

4. Yeah, though I didn't go either year.

5. I think there was a woodshop program when I was in elementary school, but it got cut from the budget. Though they opened a new arts building the year after I graduated so they might have brought it back.

6. Nope.

[Hope For A New Era]

All except "home economics." We had hall passes but not monitors, and the valedictorian wasn't a big deal but like got a speech at the graduation and stuff

[HAnnA MArin County]

All of the above except shop class.

Hall monitors only in elementary school.

We had "Home Economics," but it was called Family & Consumer Sciences (FACS).

Every high school in my area has valedictorians (and salutatorians for second placers, of which I was/am one).

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

The hall monitors/campus safety are notorious at our school for wearing bright neon yellow-green polos that make them stick out like a sore thumb. Because of this, we call them highlighters.