1. Uniforms
Yes, uniforms. Do you remember that moment after you graduated and you were about to go off to college and you looked in your closet and smiled knowing you would never have to wear it ever again. But then you looked at you regular people clothes and cried because you didn't own enough to wear so some shopping had to be done. Though you hated those uniforms, it made getting ready in the morning very easy since there wasn't many options from which to choose.
2. Dress Down Days
Even if you had to pay every once and awhile these days meant freedom. You could finally wear something that was your style. It was nice to wear sweatpants or even jeans to school knowing that it was one day you could relax and look like yourself and not the same as everyone else.
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3. Small Classes
To public school kids this is such a confusing topic because to them a class size in the teens is a mind boggling concept. You didn't have every class with those in your grade, but a majority of you grew up in the same classes together. This also meant that there was no such thing as a secret because you were all one big family. If anything happened in the morning at homeroom the whole school new about it by lunch time.
4. New Kids
If anyone new came to your school they were welcomed with open arms. They were also the new mystery of the school and everyone wanted to know everything about them. It was like everyone in the class turned into the paparazzi trying to get the littlest details about the new kid. But, once the hype was over after a few weeks, they blended in with everyone else at school and found their place. Almost as if they had been there for several years, even if they didn't get some of the school's inside jokes, they quickly learned.
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5. Field Trips
You went on way more field trips than your fellow public school counter parts, but it was often a rule that you still had to wear a uniform that day as well. For my Senior class trip I went to the Dominican Republic on a missions trip. My fellow friends at public school went to Disney…to say the least they were jealous of my trip. Just because you entered high school didn't mean you were too old for field trips. The small class sizes made it all to simple and easy to go on several of them a year.
6. The "Shoulder Complex"
Something I have never understood is why we could never wear clothing that showed our shoulders. On game days we were allowed to wear our uniform tops, but for track and basketball they were tank tops so we had to wear something over it. Shoulders are not attractive no matter what you say-- they're not a distraction for boys. This meant though, on dress down days you couldn't wear anything that showed your shoulder.
7. Super Star Athlete
Playing one sport at your school meant you were pretty cool and well-known. Playing more than one made you a super star to everyone else, basically an olympic-athlete level is what it felt like sometimes, especially after a win. Though this happened often if you were an athlete, you played all three season due to the smallness of your school and limited athletic students. But you loved it and once you left school and didn't go on to play in college you didn't know what to do with your time because lets face it, you finally had free time and who wants to do homework when its nice outside.
8. Bible Verse Memorization
Bible memory verses were something that we had to do for Bible class. In my school we would have six verse due every two weeks and we would eventually memorize several chapters in one book over the course of the year. This process turned into homework more than just learning it to learn. You would read it out loud a million times and write is a few times in the hopes that it would be perfect enough to get an A+ the next day when you had to recite it or write it. For once I just wanted to learn things that actually effected me and that I could use on a daily basis.
9. Community Service
All those kids in National Honors Society complained they had to have 70 hours of community service, while you sat back and laughed because you did five or ten hours a quarter and you easily had more than 70 hours come your junior year to get accepted into National Honors Society. It was difficult to find something that your school would approve of and you could easily get it done. While it was a hassle, you learned a lot from whatever you were doing-- from helping the janitors, to watching kids on Sundays, or even sorting clothing and food for the homeless. You were making an impact whether you felt it in the moment or not.
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10. Long Commute
Since you didn't have to live in the same town the school was located you could be a long ways away. This made it difficult to get there in the morning, which meant sometimes getting up before the sun was necessary. Also, if you wanted to hang out with your friends sometimes you could live over an hour from each other and it made it very difficult to plan things around a commute like that.
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11. The 3" inches above the knee rule
The rule that meant teachers would be coming up to you with rulers to check your skirts length. This also let them check on dress-down days on dress skirts and even shorts. Now I understand the rule of modesty, but I wonder if they had ever tried buying fashionable shorts that reside within three inches above the knee. It's nearly impossible, so it was just easier to not wear them at all. If you were a taller girl everyone was always checking your length because wow you had a lot more leg showing than other girls…little did they know it was because you had more leg to cover than the other girls.
12. Knowing where your teachers lived
Your public school friends didn't understand why you knew where your teachers lived and why they had even been to your house. Sometimes you were even friends with their kids and you would carpool together. Your teachers were a part of the family too and knew everything that was going on.
Photo by Zac Gudakov on Unsplash
13. Losing a classmate
Saying goodbye to a fellow classmate was one of the hardest things you had to do. The class was already small and you were losing another person. It was someone you had probably known from kindergarten way back in the day. This was also difficult as the seniors graduated because you didn't know how different the school would be without the old crew back together.
14. Dating was odd
Everyone knew everyone so if you had a crush on someone the entire school found out about it. The teachers even knew who was dating whom. It was awkward though, because most of them were people you had known since grade school and thinking about dating them was just gross. You were a family but sometimes it didn't stop those few couples who tried to make it work and then made it awkward for everyone when they broke up. Realizing that the school was small and they would still have to see each other till one of them graduated was even more awkward.
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15. The male and female separation that just happened
This is something that just occurred naturally since you were in a small private school-- everything was separated when you were younger. In the lunch room it was always a guys table and a girls table. On field trips the girls sat together and the guys sat together and there was no intermingling, not that the teachers would allow it. It always separated into groups like that, even if you were friends with everyone you always chose a side.
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