What's public school like?

[TehCow]

I'm homeschooled, and I have been my whole life. So when trying to write about public school (specifically high school) experience, I fall short in a lot of areas XD I mean, I understand the idea of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, period etc. and sports and that, but I don't understand social experiences in school? Is there free time for students to talk to other students (besides like lunch and stuff)? Lots of it? Not much at all? Any response is appreciated!

EDIT: Thanks so much for all of your responses guys! I read every one and it was fun to get to hear about everyone's experiences and also very informative!

[respheal]

Ehh, it differs pretty wildly. I grew up in the country so my experiences would be vastly different to someone who grew up in suburbia or a city (Country kids get up to some crazy shenanigans--my class president rode a pony into the gymnasium to give his acceptance speech. That sorta stuff.)

There's a bit of time to socialize between classes, depending on the size of the school. There's usually like five minutes between class periods, so either your classes are fairly close together and you can relax and talk between classes, or you're booking it to the next class to get there in time. Some classes are super relaxed (My Spanish class was pretty much a semester of watching Monty Python movies and hanging out with classmates) or really strict (no talking or out of the class with you!). Gym classes are probably the best for socialization.

[NickRowler]

I went to public school in a richer area so my experience might not be the norm. Teens in my area tend to be a little more spoiled. There is also a lot of pressure to be highly successful. My school had very low gang violence and school fights but a very high suicide rate.

But I will say, the whole "mean girls rule the school" isn't a thing. People don't put a lot of effort to be the "popular one", that is more a narrative that Hollywood created. Heck my year's prom queen went to a artsy girl who took a lot of college level classes. She wasn't a cheerleader, heck most of her friends were more nerdy. Also the whole "preppies" picking on you isn't a thing. If anything, the kids were the nastiest to me were the nerds or the anti-social kids who liked to skip class.

When it comes to chatting with other kids. People chat between classes. They also chat in the classroom before classes start. And if you are working in a group, people will sometimes chat with their partners. I took a lot of computer classes and people would always be talking to those sitting next to them. People also chat a lot in art classes or home economics.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I've never been a social animal, so public school wasn't that fun.

Basically, I showed up, I did my work, and I was a pretentious ass to people I didn't know. It was any wonder I got bullied because I was a goddamn weirdo. I had it coming.

One good thing about public school was that I met my best friend that I'm still friends with today. So, you win some, you lose some. That's pretty much it.

[joannekwan]

There weren't really jocks, preps, and whatnot that sort of thing at my school. Sure there were different groups that hung out together and it was a little clique-y but it wasn't over the top like in a lot of young adult media. Most of the groups had to co-mingle anyway in the non-advanced placement classes.

I was probably a unique case because my core group of friends were all in honors and AP classes, (I've only ever been in 2 honors classes and 0 APs all of high school) but I enjoyed chatting with the "normal" kids too in my regular classes. Actually I found them to be more entertaining to talk to. I hung out with my core group before first period started and during lunch. Then I'd talk with everyone else before class started or during class when appropriate. The best class for chatting was Photo, we'd just be sitting at the computers in Photoshop yaking away.

[shazzbaa]

Hello! I'm American and was homeschooled in 7th & 8th grade, but I went to public school for 9-12th grade. At this point that was over 10 years ago so I might mess up specifics, haha.

For my highschool, free time to chat was before and after school, and lunch, and a few little small spaces in between classes. I was in band, so that's where most of my friends were -- a lot of us would get there early so that we could hang out before class. Everyone would loiter outside the band room, no matter where our first class was -- ostensibly we were waiting for the room to open so we could drop our instruments off, but honestly that was just where that social circle met. There were a couple kids who weren't in the band, but had bunches of band kid friends, and they'd show up outside the band room every morning to hang with us as well.
There's a bell (the sound was more like the tone of an answering machine) to let you know you have X minutes to get to class (5 sounds right, so I think it was that for us too) and that's when we'd all leave our morning hangout and get to wherever our first class is, and then there's another bell when class starts.

In between classes is X minutes again to get to your next class and/or stop by your locker (for the sane people who don't want to carry literally all their books to every class. I didn't usually stop by my locker after every class -- it was more like "okay, my history class is near my locker, so after history I'll stop by, drop off all my other books and grab the books for the next two classes").
I could catch other people -- I remember dating someone during one year and meeting them every day for precious few minutes on the stairwell in between classes where our paths crossed -- but it's not long enough to like, sit and chat; more like running into someone on your way to an appointment. With the exception of the one year that I was dating, I would usually get to class as fast as possible so that I could chill -- if I liked my classmates, I'd chat with them for a few minutes; if I didn't, I'd sit and draw, haha!
There's also some classes that don't start right away -- band was a big one, since you gotta get your instrument and everything, it's not practical to start at the stroke of the bell -- and everyone would kind of tend to chatter until the teacher actually announces that class is starting. So the people that I got to spend the most time with during school hours were usually people I shared a class or two with. In some classes we were alphabetically assigned our seats; in others we could choose to sit where we liked. I've had years where I became really good friends with someone just because we were sitting near each other and could chatter in between lectures, and once that class was done we never hung out again.

After the school day was done, a lot of my friends didn't have a car and we'd wait for parents to pick us up. I don't think I knew anyone who took the bus, but I know my mom ended up driving a lot of my friends home. So that was time to hang out as well! People who are in clubs or extracurricular activities would meet afterschool, too -- during marching band season, we would be outside in the parking lot every day for a couple of extra hours practicing, and I was very briefly in an art club that met like... once a week after school to paint murals for the school.

But I will say, the whole "mean girls rule the school" isn't a thing. People don't put a lot of effort to be the "popular one",

This was my experience, too! There were definitely like..... cliques? Like all the goth/punk kids kinda gravitate towards each other and loiter in the same space outside the school before class, all the band kids hang out together, all the drama kids know each other, all the kids who are secretly smoking weed know each other. There were kids who were sort of... more interested in their appearance being more socially put-together? So I guess they could be called the "popular" kids? But not in the sense that everyone in school worshipped them or anything, there wasn't really a pecking order, just in the sense that they were involved in enough things and had enough connections to be known throughout the school.

[alaingrey]

My public school was urban so we had very prison-like circumstances with metal detectors at the doors, intercoms to be let in if you had a doctor appointment, and a school cop. The cop would hang around and break up fights and also did drug education. Twice a year we did a lockdown where the police brought in dogs and searched everyone for drugs. That said, there wasn't a lot of drug use at my school because no one had enough money for anything but weed. In rich neighborhoods I think kids get crazy into drugs and start doing heroin and coke in school. Now that I remember it, at proms and stuff kids would do coke, and there'd been a few overdoses which were kind of legendary. Around the time I left there were some gang-like issues with parents coming to the school and fighting and there was one day there was a racially motivated riot. But that's all the bad stuff.

Most schools have 50-minute classes about and there's usually about 6 a day plus a lunch. You can talk to friends in the 5 minutes between classes where you're allowed to go to your locker to get books and briefly socialize. Otherwise the best social times are during class work periods, lunch and afterschool. Because its free, there's some really incompetent teachers, and some really great ones who want to do everything they can to help young people.

I also don't really remember cliques, but that's maybe because I was sort of universally not disliked or liked. I could sit with any group and they'd be happy to have me. I don't really have any friends I've kept since, though, aside from a few people who live in my current neighborhood.

I think 80s school movies are surprisingly accurate, minus the rudeness of cliques and the whole social strata thing. Oh- also if you're gay and closeted in high school there's a whole underground ring of kids dating that no one knows. I don't know if that's relevant to your story, but it was probably the most diverse group at my school racially and economically because everyone was just secretly united in this brotherhood of not outing each other.... till senior year and then it was all open lol.

[spadesart]

In high school there was about 7 minutes between classes which didn't give you time to do much but kids still used it up to talk anyways, lunch was always too short (i could barely finish my meal)

I was really reclusive all throughout school due to excessive bullying in elementary school (not like physical bullying, it was the popular kids who were friends with EVERYONE telling EVERYONE that I was weird and to not talk to me. I remember a classmate saying when I switched to a different teacher someone in the room went "oh god it's nicole. don't talk to her she's like, weird." and thats why he made an effort to be friends with me :^(. ) If you stay in the same town you'll have almost the exact same group of kids all thru the year u graduate, so I was never really able to get above "invisible instead of bullied". There's this weird social hierarchy where most of the rich kids or sports people like football players were at the top and acted like they were top shit and above everyone (even the teachers), during our senior "prank" they vandalized the school and spray painted "seniors run this bitch" on the door and threw toilet paper all over the student parking lot. they're fucking horrible people and i'm glad that all of them got found out and barred from walking at graduation. theyre also the same group that bullied me in elementary school so heheueughuhueughueeehehehgueh

outside of those kids the social ladder just kind of goes down depending on how outgoing you are and what programs you're in. anxiety ridden introverts in the art programs like me were usually at the bottom where like fucking everyone ignores you.

i had some really GOD AWFUL teachers, two of which constantly spewed their hateful opinions towards the class (even though teachers arent technically allowed to talk about their political views :/ ) and a math teacher senior year that just. constantly bullied the kids trying to be Hip And Cool with them. i hated his guts. he slammed a book down on the floor once to scare us and then yelled "WAKE UP" as loud as he could while we were doing silent classwork for no got damn reason. He made fun of one girl who had a pimple on her face and she spent the whole class period covering it with her jacket after that. he got let go after that one year lol

I'm a freshman in college now though and like all of that is??? gone??? It's so weird because it's the first time I've had people talk to me just to talk to me and honestly it's such a relief. someone even asked me to sit next to her which never happened to me before :'v

oh also we had a cop too and one kid got tazed during a fight there's a video of it still up, he lives in my neighborhood and i didn't see the fight but i saw the kid that he was beating up on and his shirt was completely ripped open, apparently he has a heart problem and she definitely tazed him when he was down which was pretty fucked up

dress codes were absolutely ridiculous. i left right before this but now they have a uniform policy??? you're only allowed to wear two types of collared shirts and you can only wear them in 3 colors and youre only allowed to wear 3 colors of pants or something. last year you weren't allowed to wear anytihng without sleeves or wear hoodies with the hood up (i saw an administrator literally chase a kid down the hallway just to tell him to put his hood down). theres no dress code in my college now too so that's pretty cool because i love wearing tank tops.

[Kura]

It's been a while since I went to school (late 90's - 2010's), so I can't really give you info on more modern school settings, all I remember is it f***ing sucks, at least in my experience. Also my experiences are Canadian schools not American ones.

The bully are not the other kids like they tell you, they're the teachers. This is gonna maybe sound some bad emo fanfic shit but these are actual things that actually happened in my schools. Stuff like give you detention because you're one of the brown kids so they don't trust you because they think you have a gun (6th grade). Take stuff from you and throw it away even though they know your family is poor and can barely afford anything (one time me and my siblings had to walk home without shoes because the janitor threw every ones shoes out because they were on the floor under the coat hooks with our jackets and she did not want them there. She wanted them to stay at the front door (though no one knew this cause NONE of the staff told us) Principal telling the girls in the school they're gonna be prostitutes when they grow up if they don't listen better (this was the 4th grade). Pick someone and mock them or shame them in front of the class and get the class to mock with them (was a common thing that happened not just to me but other students as well. One kid got called out in a public assembly to be made an example of and mocked in front of the school for one of the grade schools I went to because he had a shirt with ninja turtles on it and shirts with licenceed prints were not allowed). Getting the marks to pass the class but getting deducted marks in class to barely make it or just plane fail because the teacher will find a reason to fail you even though you did well. One reason I remember failing an assignment for was "didn't smile when handing assignment in"

Actually on the clothes note. F***ing stupid dress codes. I mean some things I guess were reasonable, others were so wtffff. Like the above mentioned 'no licence prints', there was a another were you were not allowed numbers on your clothes. A lot of schools with no bracelets or jewellery with the exception of earnings, no piercings except for the ears. Acceptable hair styles and lengths for both male and female students. No make up. No nail polish. No scented stuff (though that one I can kinda understand cause some people, will load themselves with axe spray or perfume like it's their second skin) No overly bright clothing (I guess... neon colours or something?).

In the winter they force you outside in the freezing snow for breaks and will not let you in unless it's under -34. Even if your family cannot afford snowsuits.

No windows on most of the classrooms, and if there are windows they're covered to prevent outside distractions.

Recorder assemblies (I hated the sound of those things even when I was a kid and playing it myself)

Random locker checks and suspensions for anything suspicious even though they thing that's suspicious is not the thing they thought. My brother got a suspension for a crushed up bag of rocket candies they thought were drugs. Another friend of mind got suspension for some vitamin supplements, and another for perception drugs, even though they were prescription and he needed them I guess you are supposed to inform the staff before starting school if you have them and because he didn't well suspension. (though his parents came in a ripped the staff a new one about that so I don't think they actually got a suspension. Though it was not cleared up very nicely or quietly)

Social Workers.

The first girl to have her boobs grow in getting flocked by guys thing is true though.

Lunchrooms and cafeterias are not as common as you think. You eat lunch at your desk, in the hallway or outside. Of the 11 or so different schools that I remember going to only 2 had rooms for eating lunch in. And only one of those two actually had a cafeteria (which was high school) Also, cafeteria food was not bad, and there was no 'cafeteria lady' so to speak, it was all worked and cooked by students.

If you have diagnosed disabilities or handicaps you get separated from the other kids and put in special classes, you also get put on the special bus and leave school before the other student. All your breaks and lunches are at different times than the other students. Generally the other students actually don't know you exist and only find out you exist at assemblies or events, to which the conversation usually goes "who the fuck are those guys???" "They're in the special classes I guess."

Everything fun is banned. Especially if the school can use "it reinforced gambling" as an excuse. Like Pokemon ANYTHING, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, pogs, marbles, jacks, digimon, tamagochi. All banned because 'promotes gambling in children' and really anything else that kids get into is eventually banned.

No phones in class is also a rule. But no one listens to that one, especially the older the students get.

[tayo_rafferty]

Hey @TehCow, there's an old adage which says "Write what you know," because what you know and you're experiences can make for a very strong foundation to any story. If you're writing about something you have never experienced then you are bound to miss the little details and intricacies of that subject or setting, the sort of things that are privy only to those who experienced it.

In your case you could adjust the story so that it's about characters who are home-schooled (which would be a very unique perspective in what I assume is a Slice Of Life story). Or you could try and visit a school and take a tour so that you at least know what it's like to navigate the halls. Of course I think you asking others who have experienced that sort of education is a good start, it might still be a good idea to adjust the setting, it might even reveal some untrodden avenues for your story.

[indagold]

I live in NY which is an exceptionally shit school system. High tier shit. High tier horrible. Most people I know literally have ptsd and emotional problems from school so it's pretty fucking terrible.

My elementary school was hell. In any other school I would've received care and a diagnosis for being disabled with dyslexia but they were too cheap to do it and fired a teacher for wanting to get me help. All the other disabled students left to special ed schools while I had to struggle there. The principle was a raving bigot who would harass any students she deemed too ethnic. My kindergarten teacher would openly mock and make fun of me in class when I misbehaved and gathered students together and made them tattle on me and she would write it in her books even if the students lied. A kid even lied and said I bit her even though I didn't and I had to lie and say I did because no one believed me, not even my parents til this day still don't believe me. The guidance counselors were awful, one who couldn't find anything wrong with me told my mother I would become a drug addict and a goth.

My middle school was decent, I don't remember it ever being too bad but my highschool was horrible. They were building a new one nearby so they let the whole place fall apart, no gym, no theatre, small lunchroom. The school aids did nothing to help you either sending you away when you needed them or getting angry with you. Kids would openly deal drugs in school, right next to the principles office they would deal magic mushrooms. You had to be careful if you bought food from someone, they might of been filled with weed. Students would get wicked stoned in the school everywhere. Kids would attack other students, seniors once covered the stairs in vaseline sending people to the hospital.

There was this nazi black girl... yes I do believe she was a black nazi, like wtf even is that. She attacked me once saying anti semitic stuff and later when I went to the computer labs her computer had a big hitler photo as the screensaver. The teachers were insane. I had a science teacher who constantly screamed and told everyone he had a dog, told stories about the dog, took photos of the dog yet other teachers laughed and said he had no dog. I had a deranged spanish teacher who was basically a walking spanish stereotype. He tried fucking every damn teacher in the school(and succeeded with a few), he was married but he would tell his students that he hated his marriage. He even would buy lunch for my english teacher and she had no idea he wanted to bang her. He would say racist and sexist stuff, being really creepy, telling my mom I'm too frumpy and I need to pretty myself up. My friend called it the most ghetto highschool and I don't blame her.

There is wayyy too much I left out but yeah. It sucked.

[Mocha]

Just a heads up, public schools can be drastically different depending on school district, city, province/state etc., and country. I think the best thing to do would be to research online what public schools are like in the exact location you plan to have your story take place in.

I went to a public school in a rural but wealthy area in Canada, so my experience might be a bit different from what other people have posted so far since I think they're mostly Americans. At my school most people (except for two immature assholes I knew) had grown out of the middle school phase were everyone wants to be popular and constantly judges each other and spent more time worrying about school, however people did enjoy the occasional gossip fest ( especially after parties where weed and alcohol were involved). Supprisingly enough about 80% of the kids who did that kind of stuff actually had really good grades in school. During our school days we would have 2 breaks. One 20 minute break between first and second block, and a 50 minute break for lunch between third and fourth block so there was quite a bit of time for students to socialize during that time as well as before class time. Our school had a tradition that all the students in the twelfth grade would join in, which was playing a huge prank on the entire school. Other than that my school didn't have any stereotypical high school thing like popular cheerleaders and football jocks. My school was more focused on rugby, volleyball, rock climbing and basketball. Also it was socially acceptable at my school to come dressed in pyjamas or have "nerdy" type merch. Hope that helps ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I dunno what else to say.

[shazzbaa]

there's an old adage which says "Write what you know,"

"Don't be afraid to use your own, more unique experience rather than defaulting to the experience you usually see in stories" is good advice! But I do wanna also add that "Write what you know" doesn't always mean "don't write the things you haven't experienced." Write what interests you!

A story that specifically focuses on public school life and what it's like might ring inauthentic, but just setting your tale in a place you've never been isn't a bad thing, especially since you're double checking to make sure you're not missing something you wouldn't have thought of!

[almondjoy445]

It's a different experience for everyone but it's not scary. There will be bullies unfortunately but there will also be a lot of really cool people too and you will find that little group of friends, it might just take a little time but try to focus on finding a group that share a lot of your interests.

Personally I was rather...socially challenged in school and a lot of people disliked me. It wasn't that I was trying to do anything on purpose, I just didn't understand social cues and still struggle with it today; it doesn't excuse some of the stupid crap I did and I wish I could go back and stop myself but that was then and I'm no longer as inept. I did have a group I'd hang out with and they were pretty nice, we were generally into manga and drawing.

Also, pack your lunch as much as you can. I know some schools offer pretty healthy choice, but the majority of lunch from a public school is junk.

[joshuashima]

College is wayy better

[joshuashima]

Whaaat that sounds terrible.. D:

[GesuGesu]

I don't have many big memories of highschool. I went to a sports academy from 8-10, then moved out to the regular school for grades 11-12.

The sports academy is a mini-school. It's a specialized program of students that is hosted within the larger high school. We got our own wing, and the school had a total of 90 students (30 per grade) and 4 teachers (1 French, 1 Socials/English, 1 Math, 1 Science). The 30 students in your grade are your classmates for every class until you graduate the program, so you'll get to know the same people all year for 3 years straight. It's a good opportunity to make close friends, but also really easy to find someone you dislike and want to leave the program ASAP because you're stuck with them every day, all year. We had the basic classes plus electives that we could choose at the beginning of the term. There was usually a camp requirement at the beginning and at the end of the school year. P.E. was the special class since it was an outdoor-education school. We usually had P.E. outside of school, at bowling alleys, skating rinks, swimming pools, horse-back riding, snow-shoeing, skiing, snowboard, etc. We paid about $900 yearly for these activities, but there were stay-at-school P.E. options if you wanted to save money since activities were pay-per, and you could get your money returned if it the deposit wasn't used up by the end of the year.

High school in grade 11 & 12 was pretty chill. I had my friends from grade 8-10 in the academy move out into the larger school with me so I had people to be with. I also got to know a few more people due to similar interests, friends of friends, and simply by proximity in classes. We had an advisory class, or home room class before lunch that was meant for students to just have free time to work on their own work, learn about life skills, hang out, and just chat with the home room teacher. Technically, advisory class was our "home base". I liked my advisory class: A lot of my Japanese classmates were in there with me, and my advisory teacher was my Japanese teacher. We would often just watch anime on the projector screen during advisory since the teacher was pretty lax. Eventually, I ended up playing a TCG game with some of the guys, so we grew pretty close over the course of two years.

Grades were not hard to achieve in HS grade 11/12. What used to be fairly hard to get an A in minischool was nearly effortless in high school. My province's standards were 86% to get an A, so people would often ask, "Did you get like, an 86 A, or like an 'over 90' A?"

As for the diversity in my school, it was pretty high. About 90 percent of the school was Asian. Breakdown: 60% Chinese (Hong Kong, Mainland, Taiwan), 20% Phillipeno, and 10% Indian/South-Asian. There were a couple miscellaneous ethnicities mixed in there as well, like Japanese or Vietnamese. Out of the about 900 students at my school, there were about... 15 "white" students? I was friends with only one, and another who was more Russian than English. Washrooms were usually confusing for transfer or exchange students, since there was a clique of "tomboys" who looked very, very masculine, but you would see them in the girls' washroom. There was also this one Phillipeno student I wasn't sure was male or female, but everyone loved him/her because they were sassy diva/on fire and on the dance team.

Teachers were on the young side: Most of them were in their late twenties or early thirties. A few were in their forties. Parents would often mistake the young female teachers for students because they dressed young. Most were inviting and helpful, hosting Mario Kart parties in their class at lunch, letting you use the computer lab to play games at lunch, or just opened their classroom for students to work on stuff (like the home-ec room).

This was my high school experience from grades 8-12 from 2007-2012 on the Canadian west-coast, in a city with very high percentage of visible minorities.