this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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If I may ask, just how large are the classes today?
For reference, in 1980, my 10th grade English class (Mrs. Chase, she was awesome) had 36 students.
That was average for my school at the time.
The BIG classes like general US History (taught by Mr. Conway, who was wildly popular) had 40+ kids.
Mr Conway also kept a real honest to goodness stocks in his class room, so anyone that misbehaved had two options.. into the stocks for the class or off to the assistant Vice Prinicpal's office and spend a day in ISS. (in school suspension)
There would ALWAYS be one jackass Junior in each class that would opt for the stocks, at the start of every year and then NO one EVER caused a beef in Mr. Conway's classes - or really ANY of the government studies (US History, Civics, Social Studies) deparement classes.. Hearing about who chose the stocks and the rumors usually scared the underclassmen shitless, so they rarely ever piped up.. except for the really stupid smartasses that always tried to test how far they could go..
The most I dealt with was around 36. I had around 28 chairs.
However, the feeder middle school had class sizes of 60+. There were literal riots, with multiple teachers injured, that the district covered up.
Stocks would absolutely not be allowed. I had a student that spent fifteen minutes screaming and cussing me out, straight to my face in front of a principle. When she said “I wish I wasn’t in your class” and I said “me too” - I got in trouble. (She was mad because I wrote her up for literally just walking into my classroom to sell snacks. She didn’t attend classes, she just did whatever she wanted.)
This was a public school and they tolerated this shit?
Sweet Jesus the standards have fallen.
Is it the parents, school board and administration or a combination of all 3?
White flight and a state that hates education.
The rest of the science department were “emergency certified” - eg, random bachelors degrees.
I know for the fact the district has put teachers in without BACKGROUND CHECKS.
Holy shit. Lemme guess.. it's a southern state and in a majority black district?
Bingo.
First week of the job: “hey, stop talking about your college experiences with the kids. These kids are never going to college, so none of it will ever connect with them.”