Traumatic Experiences in Grade School

[Mikey]

When I was in kindergarten (circa 1970) we had a substitute teacher for a day.

She was young and pretty

We all went out and played on the grass

She wanted us to move to the parking lot.

She told me to "move to the black top"

I had no idea what black top ment so I told her I didn't understand.

She got real mad and yelled at me --- she pointed and said "get the hell over there"

The SOB made me cry and I still remember the incident today like it was yesterday.

Any harmless incidents in your school years ?

[Figuremod73]

I know i probably had little accidents in my pants on more than a few occasions. I was most likely laughed at.

This is probably one of the reasons I was real shy going into middle school.

[Brazoo]

Wow - that brought up a couple of weird memories that are a little strange for me to think of - along those lines...

Grade one - amazingly, it was the one time in my life where I was a top student and - I'm told - I was very well behaved for my age. A couple of years later I was a terrible student and I had a giant chip on my shoulder - but anyway ---

We had an incubator for chicken eggs in class - one day the eggs hatched and it was time for the teacher to show us the chicks. She had us circle around her as she cupped the chick in both of her hands for us to see. I remember being so excited - and I really wanted to know what what it felt like to touch one - so when it was time to ask questions I put my hand up and asked "can we pat the chicks?"

- Some explanation needed here - I didn't know the usage of the word "pet" as in "pet the dog" - for some reason my parents would ALWAYS say "pat the dog" not "pet the dog - so to me a "pat" was anytime you touched an animal and "pet" WAS the animal itself - if that makes sense -

The second I said I wanted to "pat" the chicks the teacher's face went from super-shinny happy fuzzy baby chick mode to a horrible scowl I never saw her make before. "You want to PAT the chick --- like you PAT a dog?!!" and I innocently said "Yes" - she barked at me "You don't PAT a baby chick - a baby chick is very fragile and that would hurt it - I don't think you should be here right now - why don't you go outside and think about what you said" and tossed me out of the room. I was clueless about what I said - and horrified. I even felt guilty that I thought of something that might hurt the chick - even though I didn't know why touching the chick gently would hurt it. I sat cross legged on the floor by myself for what felt like hours - and I'm sure I cried. I heard all the kids "awwww"ing and laughing in the classroom as I sat there. To make matters worse I later found out all the kids in class got to take turns "petting" the baby chicks.

[Mikey]

That's so sad and it's weird stuff like that that stays with you for life.

[Brazoo]

That's so sad and it's weird stuff like that that stays with you for life.

Isn't it though?!

[Nostalgiabuff]

my kindergarten teacher was a nasty old *****. no lie, she used to pull my hair and bang my head against the blackboard. my parents had to go in for a sit down with the principal. i don't really tink it affected me long term though. i just always hated school

[Iron Mego]

I pooped my pants in the first grade. Does that count?

It was actually after school, and I couldn't find the toilet in the bathroom (I didn't realize they were behind the stall doors). I don't know if anyone noticed, no one said anything, but it was uncomfortable and embarrassing in my own head . I get a chuckle out of it now though.

[HumanWolfman]

I was in 3rd grade. The girls bathroom door had a vent on the bottom that was a bunch of holes the size of a quater. me and my buddy were looking in the hole trying to get a little peak. Suddenly a teacher, named Mrs Nutt(and see was huge and shaped like a nut) came up behind us. She said, "so, you guys want to see what is in there? Lets go!". She proceeded to grab both our hands and drag us into the girls bathroom as we were screaming NOOOOO!
Have not peaked since.

[Earth 2 Chris]

You got an hour?

1st Grade - I take my Mego 8" Superman for show and tell. It was toward the end of the day. After I showed him off, several kids wanted to see it, including this new kid. The first bell rings and I go to get my backpack and coat. I ask my friends for Superman. They said the new kid had it. The new kid was GONE. Bolted off with my Superman. I was crushed. This would have been 81 or 82, so Supermen were getting hard to come by. I came home, despondent and told my mother. She must have called Congress, because the next day that kid came in with his head down and my Superman in his hand and had to apologize for stealing my Superman. It ruined his reputation at school as well. No one wanted anything to do with him.

2nd Grade - My teacher is out of the room when the fire alarm goes off. The rest of the kids line up like they are supposed to. I think it would be funny if I ran around the room screaming "FIRE! FIRE!" My teacher comes back in during my routine. She grabs her paddle as she exits the building with the class. I get a public spanking in front of the WHOLE school.

That night, my mom comes in with a comic for me (Best of DC Digest #21, the JSA issue). I have to tell her what I had done, and after her and dad talk, I get one of my only few home spankings. I deserved that one for sure.

Chris

[Splitty]

Oh hellz yeah. I call it 'The Bang Incident'. 4th grade class. Weeks of grow-out fun.

Because of the unfortunate way my hair grew on my strangely shaped square-yet-oblong head, my hairstyle of choice from my relatives was a curtain of thick heavy bangs, which was needed to balance my face, as I had a straight eyebrow and huge gleaming white square forehead.

Now, my family had no need of professional hair cutters, so my Grandma had the honor of cutting my bangs.
In the morning during class after one of aforementioned cuttings, while seated at my desk, a boy I had a crush on passed my desk and snickered, and told me my bangs were 'crooked'.

HORRIFIED at my grotesqueness to somebody so influential, I asked if I could be excused to the bathroom, tucking a pair of plastic scissors in my dress. Yes, I sure did.

Luckily the bathroom was empty, so I took my little unsteady 4th grade hands and squintingly tried to adjust the slightly uneven angle. Nope, not right. Again, noo... now it was uneven there. And more...nooooooOOOoo now there's was a tuft hanging down! Sweaty palms and panic set in. Frantically I tried wayward bits that moved and shifted even as I tried cutting them.

Door opens. AGGGHHH!!! A really nice and sweet young teacher I liked came in and complete shock, followed by a struggle to withhold full body laughs over extreme concern. When asked, immediately "My Grandma cut my bangs crooked" was what I was sticking to. She tried her best to straighten the abourous choppy things that now existed as my bangs. The end results were even bangs that were ..... AN INCH SHORT!!!!! MY HUGE WHITE FOREHEAD and straight brows were exposed!! (to massively comic effect).

On the way back to the still in session class I ran to the coat closet. There I donned my blue sweater that had a hoodie, you know, one of those that had strings you could pull and it would *shwoooop* enclose you in a vacuum press head snuggie. So I re-entered class with a hoodie snuggie so only the center of my face showed.

Needless to say the whole class noticed, and the WHOLE REST of the day (which felt incredibly long and sweaty) was filled with questioning murmurs and amused twittering about a 'bad haircut', as when asked all I would say was 'My Grandma cut my bangs crooked".

Upon arriving at home, I was treated with even MORE OUTWARD amusement and chortling, as my evil older sister who only ever meant me the utmost harm was beside herself with joy. My amused but kind mother thought the teacher's cut was also a bit crooked so fixed it EVEN MORE.

Alas, I could not rock the hoodie all week. The next day and week thereafter I presented myself to the entire school with the shortest (and whitest) bangs haircut known to history (of that school).

*sigh*

....note: I don't have bangs anymore.

[Random Axe]

My dad and I found a dead guy when I was in third or fourth grade. He had picked me up from some afterschool activity on a very, very hot afternoon and while driving away from the building we both saw an elderly guy laying face down on the concrete in his Sunday best clothes. We stopped and checked him out. I had learned CPR from Cub Scouts and was confused why I wasn't allowed to do it. Dead.

[piecemaker]

These were not traumatic experiences,but this thread reminded me of some Weird Field Trips we went on.Maybe 3rd or 4th grade,we went on a Field Trip to a small old Cemetary on the outskirts of town.We had big sheets of paper and crayons and put the paper over the names etc on the Gravestones and then rubbed the crayon over that making"etchings"of them.Why?Lol.In sixth grade we went to a Funeral Home.A family owned buisness in an old Victorian House.We checked out the casket room upstairs and then went down into the creepy little embalming room in the basement.I think a trip to the Zoo would have been a little more fun,,but......

[Hector]

The only one I can think of is the beating I got from a girl...I was in the first grade, she was in the second...the entire school saw it, it was epic...lol.

Anyway, I have always wanted a rematch with that girl ever since...I think I can take her now, lol.

Right after first grade, we moved to Mexico for seven years (teachers there were vicious, they would whip you with tree branches, rules, sticks, wooden brushes, etc, but I got used to it, lol). Being in Mexico toughened me up...got into a few fights, nothing major. Once I came back to the States, I was a hardened student, lol.

Other than that...no...no traumatic stuff...I was always the class clown, I'm pretty sure I was the one doing the traumatizing...I used to go to detention all the time...I feel bad for some of the things I did...thankfully I grew up...and got my act together in high school, lol.