Things that have Changed Since You were in School

[Spot's Meow]

The most obvious example after reading the OP is Brontosaurus becoming Apatosaurus. Of course, we all know that the real name is "long neck."

I am having a hard time thinking of other examples, my brain is kind of fried today.

[nevermore]

Of the things I remember being taught, obviously Pluto, which I made a Papier-mâché model of in 6th grade as part of a class-wide model of the solar system. I guess I would still pass that. Other than that, the Soviet Union fell apart between 8th and 9th grades, so that was a shock, especially when countries started changing their names willy-nippy. And I've just learned about the fate of the poor Brontosaurus.

Thena wrote:

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In first grade, we had a Dinosaur Week where the entire elementary school got together and pained a huge dinosaur mural on the playground. It felt cool knowing that a piece of me would be there forever as a reminder for future students.

It lasted 5 years before they tore up the playground to add an addition to provide new office space, and they build it right on top of where our mural used to be.

I can't even tell you how sad this makes me. At my school, there's this great Dr. Seuss mural on the Lower School wall that was painted by a senior class as their graduation gift to the school in the 70's. Not only is it still there, but every 10 years or so, the senior class will touch it up as part of their graduation gift. It' a great tradition.

[J. Allen]

Yeah, I know the pain of that, too. When I attended the Scripps-Howard Regional Spelling Bee, I placed 16th, which may not seem like much, but it was the first time anyone at our school had ever even made it to such an event, and my Principal shook my hand and told me "you helped put our school on the map". Then, some ten years later, about a year after that Principal passed away, our school gets torn down and in it's place, they created a parking lot.

What makes it worse is that this parking lot has no purpose. It's not used for anything, there are no businesses near it that would need a parking lot, and so it just sits there, empty, while thousands of dreams and hopes from all the children that had ever attended that little elementary school, were paved over without a care.

[SVD]

Pluto, VHS becoming obsolete, bye bye analog TV.

[Starbreaker]

When I was in school, we learned to read by learning all the vowels and the different sounds they made. Now, they just teach kids to learn by sight, which is probably a million times easier than trying to sound out every letter in a word.

I was also allowed to have cokes, ice cream, etc. at lunch. Now, kids gotta eat healthy. I sub a lot, and the kids are excited when they get to eat actual french fries instead of those awful sun chips.

[thestrangequark]

Starbreaker wrote:

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When I was in school, we learned to read by learning all the vowels and the different sounds they made. Now, they just teach kids to learn by sight, which is probably a million times easier than trying to sound out every letter in a word.

Kids still learn the letters and their sounds. There is one method that relies in part on looking only at the shape of the whole word, but it's not been used much for about 15 years as it wasn't very effective.

When I was in elementary school we learned what a good hug was and what a bad hug was...God only knows what kids are being told today.

[scotpens]

thestrangequark wrote:

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Brontosaurus became Apatosaurus, and it is unlikely that Stegosaurus used its plates for protection -- how would they have sex?!

Very, VERY carefully?

Sarek of Vulcan wrote:

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. . . The only kids who had cell phones were the ones with rich parents.

When I was in school, there was no such thing as a cell phone. Only rich people had mobile car phones. And they sucked. (The phones, I mean.)

Starbreaker wrote:

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When I was in school, we learned to read by learning all the vowels and the different sounds they made. Now, they just teach kids to learn by sight, which is probably a million times easier than trying to sound out every letter in a word.

Where do you get the idea that it's easier that way? English is a phonetically written language. It's not Chinese. If kids are taught phonics, they'll be able to learn and sound out new words for themselves. If they're only taught to recognize whole words by sight, they'll have a very limited vocabulary and be unable to pronounce unfamiliar words -- which is exactly what has happened to the generation that was taught the “look-and-say” (more accurately, “look-and-guess”) method of reading.

Fortunately, schools today are returning to traditional phonics -- after raising a generation of functional illiterates.

[RobertVA]

Bipedal dinosaurs (like T-Rex) were depicted as dragging their tails on the ground everywhere they walked.

On the infrequent occasions we had any sort of "media" in school it was usually in the form of 16mm film on a cart that was used to move the projector and an approximately 25 inch diagonal rear projection screen.
On the rare occasion we were treated to video media the only mechanism was trough the program being broadcast on what is now the local PBS affiliate (VCRs hadn't been invented yet).

One of my high school math teachers demonstrated an amazing portable computer that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was only the size of a toaster and only cost about $7000! For our class work we had to use pencil, paper and a mechanical device called a slide rule. The year after I graduated a four function calculator nearly the size of today's external hard drives was considered a bargain at $100 and completely depleted its batteries after 3 hours of use.

Tests and the limited quantity of hand outs were reproduced using a mimeograph process that produced purplish print on the page. Thinking back, the fumes emanating from those pages when they were fresh out of the machine probably would have produced a high if inhaled for a prolonged period.

We weren't allowed candy in class but were allowed all the cherry or lemon cough drops we could afford from the school operated store.

The only time anyone was allowed to wear shorts was in high school gym class (where we changed and showered in the locker rooms). No matter how warm the June or September weather got, boys were required to wear long pants in class (jeans not permitted though). Since it would only be used for a few weeks, the classrooms weren't air conditioned. On the other hand, girls had to wear dresses or skirts to class no matter how cold the winter weather got. The girls were allowed slacks on the bus or walking to and from school, but had to change before the first class and change back to the slacks after their last class if they wanted to wear the slacks on the way home.

[Starbreaker]

scotpens wrote:

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Where do you get the idea that it's easier that way? English is a phonetically written language. It's not Chinese.

I don't have to hear kids stumble across words like cat and dog and truck like I did growing up. Someone can just look at a word and know what it is instead of wasting 20 minutes going c- cuh cuh cuh a - ah ah ah t - tuh tuh tuh Cat. It makes reading out loud excruciating.

[Snaploud]

Phonetics and memorization can complement each other. You use phonetics with the unfamiliar words and memorization with the common words. All words would ideally move from the former category to the latter category over time.

Cuh-Cuh-Caaaat may bother you, but imagine the frustration of dealing with a kid who can read one memorized book fluently while basically having no clue how to deal with an unfamiliar text. The goal of learning isn't to keep kids dependent upon teachers. You have to give them the tools to branch out.

Besides, English is so much more enjoyable once you get a taste for how the syllables flow.

[TheBrew]

We talking HS or College?

Cause a lot has changed since HS, but not college (since I officially completed my degree this week).

[Sakrysta]

B.C. and A.D. being replaced by B.C.E. and C.E.

Elimination of the final comma before the conjunction in a list.

Both of those still annoy me.

[Timby]

Sakrysta wrote:

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Elimination of the final comma before the conjunction in a list.

That's merely a style difference: The Associated Press Stylebook dictates the removal of the final serial comma, but as far as I know, APA and MLA still use it.

[Omnius]

Highschool...I had no internet, we were still using guilders and it was always a pain in the proverbial ass when you went shopping in Germany (I live at the border) where everything was in Deutsche Marken ofc. I do miss the rijksdaalder though. As a dutch saying goes: "On the market your guilder is worth a dollar."