Asklemmy

You can't be late more than x times. Sounds fair till u realise the school bus was always late hence racking up like 200 official warnings. School couldn't change the rule cos government regulations bus couldn't get there sooner cos government refused to change the shedule.

Got detention for having the wrong shoe texture.

Texture.

Anyone who ate hot lunch had to eat everything on their tray, and we weren’t allowed to pass on any part of the meal because children in other countries were starving or something. Lunch ladies checked our trays before we were allowed to leave the cafeteria.

On the days when sauerkraut was served, we’d take turns being the sauerkraut smuggler, cramming that dank crap from about a dozen 8 year old kids’ trays into an empty milk carton, so we could toss it all without the lunch lady catching it. One day when I was the kraut smuggler, lunch nazi grabbed my carton and marched me back to the table. She said I had to eat every strand of the milky garbage we’d all stowed before I could leave.

I tried, but kept gagging and retching. I sat huddled with the collective slop at the table, crying for about 3 hours before my teacher found me and released me from lunch jail.

I've got 2, both from middle school:

1. No card games: Like, why? I even had a classmate who during one period didn't exercise on PE. Perhaps due to previous sickness, I don't remember. As he wasn't the only one, he played some card game with others. The PE teacher noticed it, took that card deck, AND FUCKING RIPPED IT IN HALF. How much strength does that...? Anyway, I remember he cried, I'd say rightfully so. "You are supposed to pay attention!" Pay attention to what, people running?
   Card games were even banned during breaks, not just free classes. What's the problem? Teachers didn't care if someone was beating the shit out of someone else with a chair, they didn't care if someone was playing with a butterfly knife, but card games? "That's dangerous for the youth."

2. No smartphones: I mean, not even during breaks, except for "A" classes. A classes had the "better" students. The weirdest stuff here was that I haven't taken the phone with me to school. After all, why? I could break it, I'd have no use for it and I lived 2 minutes away from school. But, when it came to collecting them, no one believed me. "Everyone has a phone nowdays, so you'll either give it to me, or I'll have to search your bag." Thankfully, after a week our class teacher finally understood that I in fact do not carry a phone with me.

Or perhaps I could also add something from elementary school. I have no idea what rule it would break though:

Some girl reported me (a boy) for apparently having a mascara. Our teacher then searched my bag, as if it was a grenade. I did in fact not have it.
And no, she didn't report me stealing a mascara, just me having one as a boy. And the teacher took that seriously.

During a grade 6 camping retreat, my best friend and I got in trouble for gambling, playing five card draw with evenly dealt chips and no actual money.

It was eventually officially decided that the chips were the problem. We collected rocks from the gravel road and played with those instead. Our roommates who originally complained were pissed, but five card draw with pebbles instead of chips was apparently allowed

I was in middle school when the Columbine shooting happened. The following year, they updated the dress code to require everyone to tuck in their shirts with the stated reasoning that it would prevent people from concealing weapons.

Where I live, the winters get very cold. Not like Canada cold, but cold by my country's standards - think a top of 9°c during the day. My city also has an odd culture where no one remembers how cold it gets, given our summers are so hot, so we're all left confused and freezing come winter - no one has proper clothes for it. It's like a citywide, seasonal amnesia.

That was certainly the case when I was in highschool 20 years ago. At lunch/recess time, the only time students were allowed inside the building was if it was raining. I understand that this was for the teacher to student ratio of supervision. Everyone outside or everyone inside - much easier to manage.

But it meant that every time it got really, really cold, half the student class would go inside to huddle against the radiators to keep warm. Periodically a teacher would come in and kick us out. You'd repeat this process a few times over recess/lunch.

So while it wasn't a stupid rule, given I understand the teachers need to not be spread too thin, it was also ridiculous to expect kids to hang around outside in the freezing cold, in a place where people act like wearing a beanie is being dramatic.

Not allowing to go to the toilet whilst in your lessons and only during break/lunch time.

This was such an issue since needing a toilet is a natural thing and it’s not something we can control/control for very long and it’s very bad if we do so, yet teachers would literally send out detentions/warnings if we even attempted, which was so idiotic of itself.

The reason we couldn’t use the toilet whilst we were in our lesson, was cuz to the teachers, they though it was an excuse for us to skip lessons, which already caused many ppl inc myself to immediately lose trust in our teachers and therefore internalise our problems, which was a huge case at my secondary school.

I hid so much shit from people at the time cuz of teachers behaviour like this but also didn’t help that coming from a toxic household, just made things ten times worse due to it.

No facial hair. 15 year old me hated that he had to shave his sweet nu-metal chin goatee.

No talking during lunch. This was in a public elementary school in the early/mid 90s, at the first school I attended through second grade. Literally the only school I attended that was like that. It was so fucking stupid.

Of course, kids tried to talk to their friends, whispering and such. I got in trouble once because a teacher saw me whisper to my friend who asked me a question and so I got moved to sitting with older kids I didn't know for the rest of the lunch period. That was the first time I got in trouble at school, so I was crying.

Never understood why we couldn't talk. I think because it'd eventually get too loud in there? Which, who cares? Didn't matter; family moved and I switched schools. Where it was totally normal and acceptable to socialize during lunch.

Snowball throwing was banned because a nephew of a friend of a friend of a teacher was supposedly blinded by one. Same school had an assembly that informed us that listening to heavy metal would make us want to kill our friends.

My math teacher one year made a rule that if you skipped more than 3 problems on the homework you got a zero on it. This was because she was assigning 80-100 problems a night and I had only been completing just doing enough to get a passing grade because I didn't have an hour to spend just on math every night.

Write each vocabulary word 20 times if you have to go to the bathroom during class. Not a great policy for seven year olds and resulted in several accidents (including me).

We also could not talk to each other during lunch at all. Paddling was also still allowed.

By far not the stupidest, but it's one that's coming to mind.

The school was in a poor area and had a mandatory school uniform. One of the rules was that for boys, "school shoes" must be worn, not "boots". In many cases, the distinction is obvious, but in ambiguous cases, the distinction came down to how high up the shoe/boot went. I think they defined a length that was the boundary.

What's silly though is that this length was such that if you were wearing regular school trousers, it would be impossible to discern whether it was a shoe or a boot. At uniform inspections, they would literally have people pull up their trousers legs enough that they could see the top of the shoe/boot, and measure it with a ruler. Inspections were usually overseen by a senior member of staff (not the same one each time).

My brother was sent home from school because his brand new school shoes were 0.5cm too high and were therefore boots. He wasn't meant to return until he'd replaced them, but my mum called the school and went nuts because she couldn't afford to replace them for such a stupid rule. They "made an exception" in this case.

In middle school, we had some militaristic gym coaches. Youd think we were in boot camp or something? They have very specific rules that had to be followed to a T.

You had to wear briefs, no boxers allowed. If you did have boxers, you had to have briefs under them.

You had to wear the school gym uniform, no exceptions.

The provided shorts were super short, so you could also wear sweats, but you had to wear the shorts underneath them.

You had to have your shirt tucked in.

You had to form a line in your designated spot and wait on the playground for the class to start before the gym coaches would arrive to take attendance. This was in the SoCal heat.

During attendance, the coach would also inspect your uniform. Youd have to show the band of your briefs and shorts to show compliance with the rules.

You had to use the gym shower, no exceptions. God that was awful and awkward.

You break enough rules and youd collected "non-strips", like a demerit, which would earn you detention.

All that hubub and all we ever did was run laps on the field. We used the gym once or twice, but I cant even remember what we did. All the attendance, uniform crap, and shower took up most of the period.

Its no wonder I hated gym class and exercising after dealing with that shit. It wasnt till I hit my 30s that I realized I quite enjoyed working out and hiking.

I attended a Catholic high school. One of the rules was that if you did not serve detention within a week of it assigned you could face suspension. During my school’s weekly mass a friend next to me cracked a joke. And I burst out quietly laughing. The assistant principal, sitting in the pew behind me, scolded me then gave me 7 hours detention. This was a on a day before a long weekend so it was physically impossible for me to serve all 7 hours within a week. My parents were called in and the school informed them I was facing suspension. My dad ask what I did to warrant to 7 hours detention leading to the suspension. The assistant principal said well he laughed during mass. My dad looked at me then looked at the assistant principal. He sigh and said “that’s fucking stupid”. My dad then turned around and walked out of the office. Days later at school the assistant principal said they were going to show me leniency. Removing the suspension charges.

Shaving. I was obstinate enough about it they ultimately gave up. A coach would pull you out of lunch and hand you a razor. Fuck that. I'm not doing it. What are you gonna do? Shave me yourself?

I was taking classes at a community college around I wanna say 2011 or 2012. Teachers didn't want you to use phones during class because they didn't want you to cheat or be distracted, but there was a big push from the administration to get students to buy digital copies of the textbooks (I assumed because physical copies can be sold used and that was eating into their profits). But reading the digital textbooks on your smartphone was in direct conflict with the no phone policy. So the workaround they found was to say, "phones are not allowed but tablets are ok and encouraged" (which is silly because a tablet can do anything a phone can do). To add confusion around this time phone manufacturers were exploring with making bigger and bigger screens, meanwhile tablets were exploring being more portable, so there was ambiguity in the distinction between the two both in function and physical dimensions. So how did they determine what devices were allowed and which ones were banned you ask? They landed on an arbitrary dimension of 7 inches. Anything smaller than 7 inches was a phone and was clearly being used to cheat, anything larger was a tablet and was an instructional tool. Teachers were given rulers to measure devices and if you were caught using a device smaller than 7 inches you would be disciplined for academic dishonesty. Mind you we also had laptops that also were not viewed as an issue, the school had free WiFi everywhere on campus, and we had apps like fb messnger for messaging and Skype and google voice for phone calls and also access to just Google, so there really was no distinction in mechanisms for academic dishonesty or for distractions between the two.

My highschool insisted t-shirts were designed to be tucked in and thus anyone wearing a t-shirt had to have it tucked in or be sent home. I have always worn button-up shirts untucked and they didn't seem to have a problem with that...

The school where I did the equivalent of elementary/middle school education had a strict "absolutely no hats" rule.

I have no clue why, but if you were caught wearing a hat (or cap or...) you'd get into trouble. First time a warning and you take it off. Second time they take the hat away from you and return it after seven days. Third time you get suspended.

Most of them are stupid especially when related to uniforms. Example: jumpers must be worn in class even if in a heatwave. (I kicked off about this and they amended but the fuss was unbelievable). Coats off at the door even if it is cold and raining. You have to put coats on once you have left the building. Insane.

I'm sure I can think of more but I remember an assignment in middle school where I could type it out or write it out by pen, but if you wrote it in a pencil, you get a zero.

In elementary school, we were only allowed to have up to 8 people at each lunch table. One day we sat 9, and all got detention for it.

No hats. Toques are allowed, everything else is banned. Thankfully it was not enforced.