Which part of growing up (school) was the best and the worst for you?

[SmileyBoy]

Socially and emotionally speaking, out of these following categories, which were the best and the worst for you???

Preschool
Grade School
Junior High/Middle School
High School
College

As for me, Junior High was the absolute WORST. I got picked on all the freaking time. There were bullies who literally wanted to KILL me. I got suspended for getting into fights. I couldn't make any friends at all.

But the best time for me (before college, which is the present, and I don't want to give premature judgement) was High School, specifically the 11th and 12th grades. I had a good group of friends that I made by that time, many of whom were in the popular crowd. Playing football/being a jock also probably helped my situation. I wasn't sitting alone at the lunch table anymore, and there were other kids I didn't even know who would pass me in the halls and say hi to me. I even finished in the top-10 in votes for "most popular student" in my senior year. But the troubles with females existed then and still persist to this day.

What were the best and worst times for you in school???

[BigMcLargehuge]

1. victim of middle school hell here too

I had all the cards against me :

Played violin
Played D&D
Liked The Who and not Rush
Liked to read
Short
Overweight

I only ended up in one fight though and he changed schools rather than tangle with me again after that.

[SmileyBoy]

2. I think middle school is the worst for most kids...

...although I've heard about kids with bad experiences in high school too. Just wanted to get a bunch of opinions.

[trotsky]

3. College ruled.

Nothing even comes close. I was most definitely unpopular in high school - my family wasn't rich, I wasn't athletic, etc. I was just so relieved to be done with it.

[Loonman]

4. It was all mostly bogus for me

But by junior year in High School I discovered the apathy that set me free and became an underachiever.

[carolinayellowdog]

5. 8th graders are the meanest people in the world

7th and 9th weren't great but not nearly so bad. Otherwise, no problems; 1-6 and 10-12 were fine.

[ronnykmarshall]

6. 6th grade from hell

We had moved from Bakersfield to San Luis Obispo, CA. I didn't know anyone. Wasn't into sports. Was picked on daily.

However, the last day of school my class was playing soft ball against another and I hit a triple and won the game.

Also, the next year when I started Jr. High and had gym class, I noticed that my tormentors weren't so "gifted" if you know what I mean. I on the other hand was WAY into puberty and just laughed at the "little" boys that thought they were hot shit.

[trof]

7. Fat kid in junior high.

Got picked on a lot.
In senior high I lost my baby fat and grew about a foot. 6'3".
No more pickers.
on edit: and LOTS more dates.

College was best. I'd made it to third base a few times in high school, but my first actual homer was in college.
Wonder what ever happened to her?

[Bonhomme Richard]

14. Hah! Went to college in Cullman, AL and first sex with..............

a girl from Mobile.

[Beware the Beast Man]

8. Preschool & college.

They were pretty much interchangeable.

[Trillo]

9. blah, blah, blah

Grades 1-5 in public schools where all the kids picked on me, and I was routinely spanked by the principal for reacting to it.

6th grade was also a very traumatic year for me, being required to disrobe in front of kids of the same gender for showers in PE I found extremely invasive of my privacy. Nobody who was an adult did a thing about it.

Definitely the 10th grade was the worst. I was kicked out of a private military academy for breaking an unstated rule, when I was doing my best to follow their structured rules. I had just been promoted in rank following the plebe year, one of 3 out of 7, if I remember correctly.

It was all downhill from there on: a definite Y in my development, not limited to educational endeavor, either.

I frankly can't think of anything good that I enjoyed in school elsewhere, except--in that same military school I found that I had an affinity for mathematics, specifically geometry.

Many years later I went back to a community college, where I got on the Deans list. It was also where this happened:

A lying professor (name not mentioned), who didn't like my approach to a question about his own test mistake falsely alleged to campus police that I had disturbed class (truly ridiculous, since it didn't occur in any class or during a time when other classes were in session). After that, it was made perfectly clear to me that I was not physically safe from the campus police when I was on campus. I lived next to campus, and they even made a point of patrolling my neighborhood. Fortunately, a month or two later I did prove to the chancellor and the campus COP in a private meeting that I didn't disturb any class, that the claim of the professor was ludicrous, and the chancellor called the dogs (police) off.

But, like I said, I never felt safe on ANY campus after that, and shortly thereafter, I stopped going, NEVER to return. Campus police believe professors over other adult citizens--a true inequity. Why this is was finally explained to me by Will Durant (see my sig line).

School is NOT primarily about the acquisition of knowledge: school is primarily about destruction of the will.

[noonwitch]

10. Elementary and Middle school were the worst, High School was okay

college was great.

Middle school is it's own unique hell. The worst part at my school was the weird teachers. There were:

1. The female gym teacher that made all the girls walk naked to the shower, so she could look at our bodies. We got a towel after our shower.
2. The 8th grade science teacher that asked girls to give him a neck rub during class.
3. The 8th grade history teacher who was sleeping with a 7th grade girl.
4. The 7th grade english teacher who played pocket pool throughout class.
5. The home ec teacher in sewing who made the girls all make a jacket with a zipper and buttons, but let the boys make a pillow for their project. Girls were not allowed to take shop, in 1976.

Gym teachers in middle school always annoyed me. If it wasn't the one looking at us naked, it was the one who expected me to be able to do backbends, balance on uneven bars, walk a high balance beam and do backflips on a trampoline when I couldn't even do an fing cartwheel!
I told her to flunk me, that my junior high gym grade wasn't going to keep me out of college.
At least in high school, I could take team sports for gym class, and the female teachers seemed much more like normal human beings, who had husbands and real lives.

[fudge stripe cookays]

15. Good GOD where did you go to school?

If it makes you feel any better, my mom was freaked out by the whole HS gym experience too. She was a nice upstanding Catholic girl who was freaked out by showering with the other girls.

"Oh come on! It's fun!" teacher remonstrated. She came out of the closet years later too.

[johnnie]

11. All the same to me

When I started in kindergarten I was small for my age. The very first day the crossing guard wouldn't let me cross the street and my sister had to run back and tell her I was old enough to go to school. My mother was at home with 2 others.
By the first grade I would get picked on, but it really didn't bother me because I already had an attitude. By the Jr High years I was able to deal with the "bullies" that said things about me being a bit shorter than the rest of the guys in the class. I got good on comebacks that would cut to the bone if anyone made a crack.
I started playing in bands at the age of 13 and that made me one of the "cool kids" in class.
By high school I had tons of friends and got along with everyone. I had one situation where this kid wanted to fight me. I told him I don't fight and made some jokes and we became friends.
The teachers were 10 times worse than any kids I encountered and I got in a lot of trouble from 1st grade until graduation day. So my whole school experience was a blast until I had to deal with the damn teachers and administrators.
It was all good, but I don't think much of my school days anymore. That was 20 years ago and I have done so much in that time that I look at that period of my life as just another period of my life.
Oh, and btw...I still hear cracks about my size (5'5")and I am 40 years old, but now I just roll my eyes. Some kids just never grow out of being idiots.

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. I hung with a gang as a kid but was a total Dud with.............

girls. I couldn't talk to them at all. Like my tongue was twisted in knots. That sucked.
Preschool - Good, what did I know?
Grade School - OK, not good and not bad. Had a crush on a girl in first grade. First taste of a broken heart. Hah!
High School - Hang out with the guys on the corner, no luck with girls until I turned 17 (first sex) and got anti war and let my hair go. Hello Pot.
College - Learned to play guitar and now I'm cruising and acting like a guy who's been in jail for ten years and just got out. Actually almost ended up in jail but that's another story.
It was a good time had by all.
Sorry to see it end.
Graduated in May, married in August and my first son a year after that and being the responsible dad for the next 25 years. Good thing I sowed those oats in College.

Sorry you asked?

[Nikia]

13. College was great junior high was not

Reading my old diaries from then, I am really suprised that I didn't kill myself or purposely get arrested so I could be away from school and home. High school was better because I became a superstar athlete and I focused on doing well in that and academics so I could escape to college.
College was great. There are some things that I wish that I would have done differently, but it was my promised land. Life on the outside was a little bit of a let down though.

[bobthedrummer]

16. College, as a returning adult student, was the best. The introduction

of The New Math in grade school was the worst-after learning all kinds of stuff like long division, fractions, and the multiplication tables we were told that although our answer was correct the methodologies were wrong:silly::wtf::bounce:

[sundog]

17. It was pretty horrible until college...

then life just clicked -- found a major I liked (film) & had the some of the best times of my life -- started clubbing, found a compatible social group... I learned the hard way that anytime you compromise yourself, you're gonna be miserable...

[kymar57]

18. best/worst

Best-high school,found out about girls. Worst-High school, found out about girls. (best won out. Ya gotta love em) :toast: