Things they banned while you were in school/work?

PopePalpatine · 23-07-2016 04:44PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

It was called The American Dream

Just the name had me bursting out laughing. :pac:

I can't remember any outrageous (from a primary/secondary student's POV) bans at the schools I've been to which haven't been mentioned already (e.g. junk food, phones, handheld consoles), unless you count being sent to a different primary school than the girls from 2nd class onwards.

cbyrd · 23-07-2016 05:09PM

RayM wrote:

Does anyone remember that game where you'd deliberately hyperventilate and then your friends would press your chest until you pass out? And then they'd catch you (unless they didn't, in which case you'd split your head open off the edge of a radiator).

My younger brother was hospitalized for 3 days after doing this.. he fell over and smacked his head on the concrete steps at the back of the school! He's still a doofus!
In first year, we were in prefabs beside the main building, we were banned from using the toilets there at lunch time because of a game we used to play.
At little break someone would be chosen to be the victim.. they'd be tied to a chair with scarves and brought into a cubicle. We'd lock the door and climb over into the next one and leave them there for the hour. If they managed to make it out themselves they got to choose the next victim. If not they got humiliated for the rest of the day.. we got discovered when nobody let the girl out and she was absent from maths class.. the teacher asked where she was.. there was uproarious laughing and then we all got detention for a week.. it was worth it though ..

stampydmonkey · 23-07-2016 05:25PM

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Kick the can. All the classrooms in the school would be locked and the corridors were pretty narrow. After lunch you'd have 100 or so lads lining a corridor, bored and waiting for the teacher. We'd put the can down in the middle of the hall and any poor unfortunate who touched it got the ****e kicked out of them down the hall.

We used to do the same but with pound coin in the middle of the locker room. Lads lined the walls and anyone who picked it up got battered. Was great until one of the bigger lads arrived in....picked it up and walked on....not a soul moved a muscle....bunch of wusses we were

LoonyLovegood · 23-07-2016 05:44PM

Banned in primary school was running, any games involving balls in yard, skipping ropes, and that was about it. We had a wall you had to stand at if you were a little shít in the yard.

First secondary school was really strict. No jewellery (not even stud earrings), no make up, black shoes only, girls skirts had to be knee length, ties had to be worn. We had a fire when I was in fourth year, and most of my uniform was a casualty. It was five weeks before the end of school, and I was leaving the school anyway, so I ended up wearing trousers, a white shirt and the school PE hoodie for the month. Best month of my life!

Second secondary school had no dress code, as long as you weren't coming in in your underwear it was grand. Made a change being able to have my nose ring in in school!

TheBiz · 23-07-2016 05:45PM

We had a game called kick the can.. One lad stood on a old bin, can or barrel and everyone else kicked it the person on the can tried to stay on top and pushed or kicked those who came near him. It was stop after one lad kicked another breaking his nose and he then fell breaking his wrist..

sjb25 · 23-07-2016 05:53PM

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Kick the can. All the classrooms in the school would be locked and the corridors were pretty narrow. After lunch you'd have 100 or so lads lining a corridor, bored and waiting for the teacher. We'd put the can down in the middle of the hall and any poor unfortunate who touched it got the ****e kicked out of them down the hall.

Also, rafters. Our common Hall had exposed steel rafters on the roof. The older lads would stand on a table, jump up and grab them and have gladiator style kicking matches until someone fell off. Banned after one chap fell and broke his arm and several teeth. Good craic all round.

We had this as well really lads just got battered because if you tried to be smart and avoid the can you would be either pushed into it possibly hit with the can or just battered anyway ahhhh good times

shaunr68 · 23-07-2016 05:55PM

Burning witches!

I'm getting on a bit...

Outlaw Pete · 23-07-2016 05:56PM

We had some 12" picture discs confiscated off a few of us back in the mid to late 80's.

W.A.S.P.'s Animal and Scorpion's Virgin Killer. The former was an image of a woman on a chair being taken advantage of by a doberman and the latter an image of a naked seven or eight year old girl, her genitalia only concealed by a smashed glass effect.

They told us that if we wanted them back we would have to have our parents come in and get them and so in the school's office they remained. They may very well be there still :P

Olishi4 · 23-07-2016 06:06PM

Friendship burns

In secondary school, passing the classroom of your next lesson and doing a lap of the school twice before heading into the class.

Frigating · 23-07-2016 07:53PM

Primary school, any drinks other than water, going to the shop across the road before school, running or any sort of playing in the yard.

Secondary school was very strict with the uniform. You could only wear the official school coat, no other jackets, even if they matched colour scheme. They even tried to bring in a hat and scarf rule too, but eventually realised having the school badge emblazoned on your forehead was ridiculous and (rightfully) led to abuse from the other schools, and accepted anything as long as it was black. I suspect the prinicpal was related to the owner of the shop who made the uniform. Had to have fully black "proper" shoes. White stripe on them? Come back with different ones tomorrow. Have a long walk and need to wear something more comfortable? Too bad. Don't even think about changing your shoes when you get here. The exception was Dubarrys, which happened to be sold by the same uniform shop.

Had to stay in the canteen or outside at lunch. No loitering in the corridors, no sitting on the stairs, even if you weren't blocking it. This is despite the fact the school numbers tripled while I was there, there wasn't enough seats to start with, and in winter when everyone had to stay inside the canteen got uncomfortably full with 1000 people standing in a smallish room.

No cameras allowed, the reason being people could take photos and use them to bully people, which is fair. However, they recently brought in iPads to replace paper books, which means everyone now has a camera on them at all times (eg, in the changing rooms), and the means to send them to everyone else. Still no cameras allowed though.

tomofson · 23-07-2016 07:55PM

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

We had some 12" picture discs confiscated off a few of us back in the mid to late 80's.

W.A.S.P.'s Animal and Scorpion's Virgin Killer. The former was an image of a woman on a chair being taken advantage of by a doberman and the latter an image of a naked seven or eight year old girl, her genitalia only concealed by a smashed glass effect.

They told us that if we wanted them back we would have to have our parents come in and get them and so in the school's office they remained. They may very well be there still :P

Those were some risky images for the time though.

Outlaw Pete · 23-07-2016 08:10PM

tomofson wrote: »

Those were some risky images for the time though.

Of course, which is why we didn't even consider asking our parents to retrieve them for is.

Indeed, the Scorpion one would be banned even today I would say.

I think the image was the lead singer's daughter, or maybe the photographer's, one or the other.

tomofson · 23-07-2016 08:45PM

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Of course, which is why we didn't even consider asking our parents to retrieve them for is.

Indeed, the Scorpion one would be banned even today I would say.

I think the image was the lead singer's daughter, or maybe the photographer's, one or the other.

That even makes it more bizarre...

But one of the most bizarre covers for an album I have heard of was a band in scandanavia somewhere cant recall their name, but shortly before the band released the album they found their friend dead from a self inflicted shotgun wound to the head... So they took a photo of him lying there with brains hanging out anall and put it as their next album cover...

Edit.... Mayhem - Dawn of the black heart... Just in case you were interested.

Stasi 2.0 · 23-07-2016 08:58PM

LoonyLovegood wrote: »

Second secondary school had no dress code, as long as you weren't coming in in your underwear it was grand. Made a change being able to have my nose ring in in school!

Without a uniform to instill discipline how did you avoid degenerating into cannibalism ?

Shenshen · 23-07-2016 09:11PM

I can't really contribute anything to this thread other than my astonishment.
Most of the things mentioned sound like things my parents might have experienced on the 50s and 60s :eek:

sjb25 · 23-07-2016 09:16PM

Stasi 2.0 wrote: »

Without a uniform to instill discipline how did you avoid degenerating into cannibalism ?

More importantly it Would have also took the thrill out of no Uniform days or national boobs and arse days as we liked to call them in our secondary school was always worth the 2€ to charity

luluzade · 23-07-2016 09:23PM

In primary we weren't allowed play football in yard, all the other classes were though just not my class.

In secondary it was fairly relaxed although we could only wear the official school jacket and not any other jacket, but we weren't allowed wear the jacket or scarf in the school even though they didnt fix the heating til I was in third year, we got sent home early plenty of times in the winter cos it was too cold to function..
In fifth year we got a new principal and we weren't allowed do pranks, when I was in fifth year a group of sixth years played football in the halls during class and they all got an absolute bollocking, about a week later, a few weeks before the leaving cert, 2 girls let off a stink bomb and the whole year were suspended but they were allowed come back in to finish off their coursework
The principal also told the owners in the local shop to not serve any of us if we were there in our uniform so we all had to go to another shop, about a 10/15 minute walk away

Stasi 2.0 · 23-07-2016 09:43PM

luluzade wrote: »

The principal also told the owners in the local shop to not serve any of us if we were there in our uniform

Why didnt the shop owners invite her to depart and copulate with herself ?

pickarooney · 23-07-2016 10:00PM

childsplay wrote: »

At primary school we had this colonnade with benches along it. We used to play a game called squash. The aim was to squeeze as many people as possible on the bench. It got banned when people started fainting.... Wimps ;-)

Did you have to try and 'pop out' whoever was next to the wall?

23-07-2016 10:14PM

Bolt bombs!
They were all the rage in the 70s, the 1/2" ones were almost lethal!

dusty207 · 23-07-2016 10:41PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Bolt bombs!
They were all the rage in the 70s, the 1/2" ones were almost lethal!

Yah, forgot about those yokes. We were banned from shooting at each other with pellet guns, you stuck a biro in your mouth and the other guy had a go at it from 20 feet. Never missed but the head walked in one day and that was that.
The other thing was blow pipes, one inch pipe about 2 feet long and a cork with a darning needle, holy sh1t, talk about arms race, they got bigger and bigger, sense took over when we could see that somebody was going to be in serious trouble.
I won't even mention copper bombs.....

childsplay · 24-07-2016 01:43PM

pickarooney wrote:

Did you have to try and 'pop out' whoever was next to the wall?

Nope. Just squeeze in as many as we could....although that would have been a good twist for an alternative version of the game :-?

feargale · 26-07-2016 12:56AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Was reading somewhere an interview with Manchán and Ruán Magan recounting their days in the fee-charging Gonzaga College of all places. Apparently during the Hunger Strikes in 1981 they arrived into school with black armbands on them. The principal was not impressed and instructed them to remove them immediately.

They weren't able to as their granny had strong views on the issue and sowed the black armbands on to their uniforms the night before so that the buachaillí would be unable to facilitate any requests to remove them and the lads were duly banned from attending classes and sent home.

This ferociously spirited Irish granny? Síghle Humphreys (1899-1994), famous Cumann na mBan member during the War of Independence who went on hunger strike for 31 days when imprisoned for republican activity as a 24-year-old in 1923. Brilliant! Ireland needs far more of these fiery principled sorts!

No. Ireland needs less, not more of Sheila Humphreys' sort. How would you like it if kids turned up at your childrens' school on the eve of an election wearing "vote Fine Gael" rosettes? Politics should be kept out of the classroom. Apologies to devotees of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Russia and China for saying so. For once the school authorities were absolutely right.
Around that time I had a daughter taking music and singing lessons. The teacher, without any reference to her or her parents, used the pupils, including our daughter, to make a tape of song, not telling them or us that it would be used in support of a political cause in Northern Ireland to which we did not subscribe. The children at the time were hardly old enough to know where Northern Ireland was.
There are many instances in this thread of teaching authorities making bad decisions, but I have read few or no assertions that any of those ill-considered rulings was inspired by a perverse motive. On the other hand the case cited by me concerns a mean, underhand misuse of innocent children by a person who allowed her political opinions to trump children's and parental rights, and who abused her position of trust as a teacher. A teacher cannot go much lower than that.

_Whimsical_ · 26-07-2016 01:29AM

Running in the playground lest someone fall and one of us sue.

Judy Blume books - I got a letter sent home for being found reading a book called "Tales of a Forth Grade Nothing" by her, it was as tame as it sounds, but it caused ructions for my 3rd class teacher.

Being blood brothers (or sisters in our case as it was a girls school). It became a fashionable way to declare undying childhood friendship somehow. I resisted overtures from would be blood sisters but was flattered to have been asked. Then it was banned and became even more attractive!

The singing of The Rare Old Mountain Dew which we learned in school in advance of a visit from the bishop, seems it was his favourite song. Then ten mins before we were to go to the hall to sing word came that this was highly inappropriate to have small girls singing about their love for poitin and we were told it was a very bad song and never to sing it again, even at home. We sang a song about a leprauchan for the bishop in the end but I've never forgotten how to sing The Rare Old Mountain Dew! Rebel!

bmwguy · 26-07-2016 01:43AM

The javelin at sports day. Sports day, in fairness to my school, was well run and a big event but they thought it was the Olympics, 1 or 2 of the teachers were big into track and field one of them was into the throwing events.

A couple of years before I started though a javelin was launched down the field and an unsuspecting student walked into its path, it hit him in the shoulder, going the whole way through and into the grass basically implaling him.

Took hours to get him off to hospital so one of the teachers told us, very life threatening event.

r93kaey5p2izun · 26-07-2016 02:21AM

childsplay wrote: »

At primary school we had this colonnade with benches along it. We used to play a game called squash. The aim was to squeeze as many people as possible on the bench. It got banned when people started fainting.... Wimps ;-)

We had a colonnade with benches too in primary now that I think of it. We never tried to squash each other but we were just banned from sitting on it altogether. The principal nun used come along with a sweeping brush and sweep us off it saying we needed to exercise. But since we were also banned from running and games involving a ball we just had to stand around.

01-08-2016 05:09PM

Sticky biscuits!

Never played it but heard some sick stories from school pals.

mhiggy09 · 02-08-2016 01:46AM

IvySlayer wrote: »

When I in school they decided to make the halls a one-way system, disastrous. Fancy signs on the walls and floors. Teachers, staff would abuse it, some teachers didn't care what direction you were walking, some would. Most halls had lockers so that plan wasn't thought out well at all.

Worst was going literally next door one teacher made us do a lap of the school in instead of a 5 second walk.....The rule was eventually dropped!

Haha we have the exact same thing. And it's also disastrous.

scdublin · 02-08-2016 12:55PM

Fake tan, heavy make-up, braids in your hair unless it was a cultural thing, popcorn.

bodhrandude · 02-08-2016 01:18PM

I remember Space Dust being banned in my secondary school in Glasgow in the late seventies, Space Dust was strawberry rocks of sugar that crackled and exploded in your tongue, also called Pop Rocks and Fizz Wiz. Everyone in class would get this stuff and it drove teachers demented trying to talk over the fizzing and wizzing on everyone's tongue.

Things they banned while you were in school/work?

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