“I Just Don’t Understand”: 40 Baffling “American School Things”

School systems across the globe operate very differently. The regulations vary from country to country, with children in the Netherlands starting school on their 4th birthday for example. Similarly, there are distinct attributes one would find in US schools. While our idea of American schools has been highly influenced by TV and movies, the reality may be far different to our assumptions. Scroll below to check out a collection of photos that shows an honest perspective on what the true American school experience is like.

#1 Florida Teacher Here. This Is Our School’s “Library” Now

Florida passed a law that said no books can be displayed in a school, until they’ve been reviewed and approved by an appointed team. If a teacher shows a book that has not been approved, they could be charged with a felony.

#2 Creepy Surveillance Into The Boys’ Bathroom At My High School

There is a window in the boys’ bathroom that has a perfect line of sight with the security office that doubles as a panopticon of the entire commons area. If this was the girls’ bathroom, heads would roll and there would have been a riot outside years ago. I hate it here.

#3 My School Wants Us To Allow This On Our Personal Devices, Just To Use Google Classroom

#4 My Friend Got In Trouble For “PDA”

#5 Sign On The Nurse’s Door At My School

#6 About Half Of This 50-Gallon Trash Can Is Full Of Perfectly Good Cartons Of Milk, Expiration Date Is In 2 Weeks. Schools Waste A Lot Of Food

#7 I’m A Night Custodian At A High School. This Is What The First Day Of School Looks Like

#8 High School Bathrooms Are Really Wild

#9 My School Blocked A Website Because It Was Labeled As Educational

#10 Our High School Covers Expiration Dates With A Sharpie

#11 What A Sad Country We Live In For My 12-Year-Old To Text Me This

#12 My School’s Bag Check Line

#13 This Is What They Gave Us For Lunch Today. I’m A 6’5″ 160 Lbs Track Athlete, With Practice And Weight Training After School. This Did Little To Nothing To My Hunger Level

#14 Honestly, I’d Rather Just Ask For Cash

So we have to buy a $60 box of chocolate bars (which I noticed are now only 0.8 oz when they used to be 1.5 oz), sell the whole box, and only $22 of that goes towards an end of year trip? Just no. I’d rather donate cash and save myself and my kid the headache. Or even do a lemonade stand, or sell bracelets. Seems like the least efficient way to do a fundraiser.

#15 School Has A “Minimum Donation” For A Fundraiser

My friend’s kid’s school is having a fundraiser. I was like, yeah sure I’ll donate 5 bucks. Nope. Well now they’re getting no money because 15 is a little too much for me.

#16 Toilet Paper Provided At My School

#17 During The Summer, My School Installed Metal Gates Over The Bathrooms To Keep Us From Going Between Classes

#18 This Is The Inside Of My Child’s Homework Folder Provided By The School. At What Point Has Consumerism Gone Too Far?

#19 Our School Spent 1.3 Million On New Turf For A Loosing Team, But I Get To Deal With This Every Time It Rains Because They Can’t Afford To Fix The Roof

#20 My School Blocked Google

#21 When Your School Bans Wikipedia, Only To Copy Directly From Wikipedia In Their Own Lesson Resources

#22 This Map Is In My School’s Elementary Library. Because All Of Eastern Asia And The Pacific Islands Are Apparently China

#23 My Children’s School Folders Are Starting To Look Like Internet Pop-Ups

This is in my wife’s hometown, which is small, so she doesn’t share my anger. She said it was to raise money for the fall festival. Told my buddy from back home about it and he was just as angry as I was, even calling it child labor.

#24 When The School Gives A Big Box To Hide The Size Of The Pizza

#25 This Survey At My School

#26 They Start The Indoctrination Early At My Florida High School

#27 The School Lunch System Is Disgraceful

From my years in high school I compiled some pictures of the horrible things that got served that no one questioned. It really is ironic given how adamant they all are about eating healthy by including every food group.

#28 My School Banned The Dinosaur Game

#29 School Board Policy For Lunch In North Carolina

#30 Bathroom Passes. Each Circle Represents One Pass, We Get One Of These Papers Per Semester. To Get More, We Have To Arrange An Appointment With The Administration

#31 There Was A Typo In The First Sentence Of My School’s Guide To Careful Writing

#32 Bathroom “Stalls” At James Rumsey High School

#33 My School Doesn’t Have Stall Doors

There are also huge mirrors directly facing them.

#34 The Absolutely Terrible Design Of My School. This Is The Place Where Every Hallway Intersects

#35 Bathroom Pass In An American School. I Mean, I Get It, Kids Take Advantage, But This Is Too Much

#36 My School Is Fining Students That Take Too Long In The Bathroom

#37 My Little Brother’s Middle School Schedule. He’s Having Such A Hard Time Remembering When Periods Start And End. Why Are The Times This Specific?

#38 My Blind Child Came Home From School Today With This Homework

#39 I Guess My Daughter’s School Administrator Is Trying To Reprimand Me?

I was late a lot through high school, but I’d never been sent home with anything like this. My mother would get a call from the school every now and then, that’s about it. For reference, my daughter’s in 1st grade.

#40 This Milk At My School

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.