12 Things That Have Disappeared From Classrooms Since Gen X Was In School
With so many advances in technology, today's students don't get to experience many of the things their parents did.
Shutterstock / Inside Creative House Gen Xers were born between 1965 and 1980, so they’re now between 44 and 59 years old, and given how nostalgic they tend to be, they'd probably be at least a tiny bit sad to learn how many things have disappeared from classrooms since they were in school.
People born in Generation X spent their formative years in school in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and many essential aspects of their educational experience no longer exist. With the invention and subsequent rise of the Internet, the way kids learn has changed and many tools their teachers relied on have been replaced with new technology. Mystery lunch meat and awkward school dances may be forever, but going to school is totally different in 2024 than it was when Gen X was there.
Here are 12 Things That Have Disappeared From Classrooms Since Gen X Was In School
1. Chalkboards and chalk
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Ask any Gen Xer about a definitive part of going to school and they’ll recall the sensory experience of using a chalkboard. There was the sharp, squeaking sound that chalk made as you wrote out math problems on the board. There were the feelings of dread and anxiety as you walked past rows of desks to stand there, chalk in hand, trying to come up with the right answer. And who could forget the sound and smell of their teacher clapping two rectangular erasers together to clean them, filling the air with chalk dust?
By the time millennials were in high school, chalkboards had been replaced by whiteboards: gleaming, blank panels, waiting for some student to grab a marker and draw something inappropriate on them before wiping the image away with the sleeve of their shirt. After whiteboards came smartboards, which provide multimedia presentations and interactive lessons.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha were born into a fully digital age. Gone are the days of staring straight ahead as your teacher transcribed notes onto some flat surface. Younger generations learn through way more interactive, flexible, and accessible options. There are online courses, educational apps, and virtual classrooms, which create a truly immersive learning environment.
2. Overhead projectors
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While some parts of going to school don’t change, like big yellow school buses and trying to fit in with the popular kids, other things have gone the way of wooly mammoths and dinosaurs, which is to say, they’ve disappeared from classrooms completely. Overhead projectors are one of those things, as the invention of smartboards made them obsolete.
Overhead projectors were used for mission briefings during World War II. With the invention of a projectable transparent film, the overhead projector made its way into classrooms as a teaching tool. While those boxy, heavy machines originated with the Silent Generation, they were anything but quiet. Overhead projectors made a constant, humming noise. They blew out hot air through a vent that could easily blast you in the face if you weren’t careful. Much like a solar eclipse, staring directly into the light of an overhead projector could blind you, even if only for a moment.
Overhead projectors have disappeared from classrooms since Gen X was in school, which means students today will never know the joy of watching their teachers realize they’d written onto the machine itself and not the transparency.
3. Manual pencil sharpeners
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Another essential feature of classrooms that no longer exists is manual pencil sharpeners. These wall-mounted beauties had a rotating ring of different-sized holes, meant for different-sized pencils. It took some serious work to turn the tiny handle, which fell off more often than not.
Manual pencil sharpeners allowed for one of the greatest activities a student could participate in: getting up from your desk a thousand times in one period to sharpen your pencil, and when the teacher told you to sit down, declaring that you’d broken the tip of your pencil off yet again and had no choice.
Manual pencil sharpeners were replaced by electric pencil sharpeners, which still gave students the option to complete the classroom’s most satisfactory chore: emptying the pencil shavings into the trash. Yet even the presence of electric pencil sharpeners has declined, as they’re not really needed in digital classrooms.
4. Library card catalogs
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Another thing that has disappeared since Gen X was in school are library card catalogs. Those hulking, wooden cabinets played a central role in school libraries, as students pulled out each drawer and rifled through cards to find the shelving information for whatever book they wanted to read.
In America, the card catalog system started after the Civil War. Charles Cutter, the librarian at the Harvard University Library, discovered that it was easier to use cards than a handwritten paper catalog. Melvil Dewey, who was the chief librarian of Columbia University Libraries, invented the one and only Dewey Decimal Classification to shelve books according to 10 categories.
The card catalog of the olden days has been replaced by a digital system, making it even easier to find books, without the danger of paper cuts. While the stronghold of nostalgia might make Gen X and millennials wax poetic about card catalogs, digital systems are a much more streamlined and faster approach.
5. Paper attendance registers
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Paper attendance registers are yet another thing that has disappeared from classrooms since Gen X was in school, replaced by an electronic system. Gen X got the full Ferris Bueller experience, sitting in a silent classroom while their teacher called out every students’ name in a monotone voice, until that student shouted out, “Here.”
Many aspects of Gen X’s childhood seem outdated or outright neglectful now, especially since technology is used to track kids’ whereabouts on various digital platforms. Gen Z can dress like it's the 90s all they want, but they’ll never feel the sweet freedom and exhilaration of their moms not knowing how to get in touch with them until they decide to go home for dinner.
6. Physical report cards
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Getting an actual report card is another thing that’s disappeared since Gen X was in school. In the past, students would have to walk their report card from class to class, then take it home to their parents. If they got great grades, they knew a celebration awaited. If they got not-so-great grades, they might debate how much more of a risk it was to show it to their parents and get them to sign it vs. trying their hand at forgery.
Much like waiting by the phone and leaving messages on answering machines, this formative Gen X experience doesn't happen anymore. Today’s students don’t really have a way of keeping their grades from their parents, yet another casualty of the digital age.
7. Dodgeball during gym class
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Playing dodgeball in gym class is an activity that has disappeared since Gen X was in school. For decades, slamming red rubber balls at other kids’ bodies was a time-honored tradition in the American education system, which is probably a metaphor for something if anyone cared to dig deep enough into the socio-emotional undertones of dodgeball to find out.
For some students, dodgeball was their time to shine. For others, the very idea of playing dodgeball struck fear into their hearts. Yet by 2004, certain states banned the game. In Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New York, Virginia, Texas, and Utah, dodgeball became a thing of the past. School districts cited the physical dangers of the game, as well as the psychological toll it took on students. Dodgeball was deemed “legalized bullying,” which led to its disappearance in many schools.
8. Encyclopedias in the library
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Sets of encyclopedias are another thing that have disappeared from classrooms since Gen X was in school. When they were assigned a research project, students pored over those thick, leather-bound books, searching for credible information to back up their statements. By the 90s, students started using CD-ROM encyclopedias, a cutting edge technology at the time. The act of slipping that silver disc into a slot on the family computer is something kids did with great frequency, yet that staple of a millennial childhood gave way once the internet came to be.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha can find the literal world’s worth of information in seconds flat online, which is an entirely different academic experience from taking a heavy encyclopedia off the library shelf, turning page after page, and handwriting notes onto paper.
9. Payphones in the hallways
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Another thing that has disappeared since Gen X was in school is the presence of payphones in the hallways. If Gen X students needed to reach their parents during the day, they stood at a payphone, put a dime into the slot, and pressed actual buttons, which were somehow always sticky. They would read the graffiti scrawled across the metal box, written with Sharpies, as they waited for the person they were calling to pick up.
Payphones became obsolete once smart phones staked their claim in almost everyone’s life. Communication became instantaneous. Even making actual calls mostly disappeared, since texting is a more immediate way to get in touch with people. While students were once intimately acquainted with using payphones, now they pretty much all have cell phones and payphones have disappeared.
10. Physical maps and globes
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Physical maps and globes have also mostly disappeared from classrooms. Back in the day, every classroom had a series of maps that teachers pulled down during geography lessons. Classrooms also had at least one globe, and depending on what year it was, those globes declared that the USSR still existed.
By the time Gen X graduated, found jobs, and had kids of their own in school, physical maps were replaced by digital interactive maps. The switch from paper maps to digital maps on a screen is another example of technology’s rapid advancement, which changed the way kids learn forever.
11. Gym uniforms
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Most of Gen X remembers the school-assigned uniforms that they were required to wear for gym class: rough cotton t-shirts emblazoned with the school’s name, ill-fitting shorts, and athletic socks. The pain and embarrassment of wearing a gym uniform was only outweighed by the pain and embarrassment of changing the locker room. The combination of raging hormones, tender emotions, and comparing your body to everyone else’s isn’t easy to forget.
That formative experience of wearing the same gym outfit as everyone else, as though you were in a cult led by jocks, is something students don’t have to worry about anymore. Most students in this day and age are allowed to bring their gym clothes from home, which can go a long way in helping them feel more comfortable in an inherently uncomfortable situation.
12. Handwritten notes between students
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Passing notes in class could easily be described as the most important middle and high school pastime ever, yet that activity has disappeared from classrooms since Gen X was in school. There was nothing as exciting as scribbling down an urgent message onto paper, folding it a hundred times, and stealthily sending it down the rows of desks. What joy, to watch your note pass from sweaty palm to sweaty palm. What exhilaration, when it arrived at its intended destination, and what crushing despair when the teacher caught you passing notes. Oh, how everyone’s heart pounded as the teacher read the contraband note aloud: “Do you like me? Check one, yes, no, maybe.”
Decades have passed, and the modern world has essentially no need for passing notes. Today’s students send texts. They share Snapchats and TikToks, and while they might not be allowed to have their phones out in class, they don’t run the risk of their teacher intercepting a note.
Technology and society are always changing. The unavoidable push into the future means that things become outdated and get erased from the cultural lexicon. Yet their memory lives on, since nostalgia is something that will never disappear.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.