Slap bracelets, pogs, laser pointers- what was banned at your school? (<>..<>)Alien

"No pogs are allowed in school!" I remember those words comming from our teacher's mouth. We quickly hid the little cardboard circles in our pockets and pretended like they were never there. Part of the thrill of having them was that they were banned from the school. The forbidden toys we were not to bring on to school grounds ranged from trading cards, toy guns (and real ones), action figures, fireworks, laser pointers, toy handcuffs, yellow t-shirts and a whole list of odd things you would never even think someone would dare take to a learning environment. Most were short lived fads and trends, but others still are banned to this day.

When I had Garbage Pail Kids cards and stickers
I can remember in the 1st grade when slap braceletes were all the rage, of course I had a few cuffed around my wrist. There was a rumor that slapping one of the bracelets too hard could break the bones in your wrist. I find that hard to believe now knowing that all a slap bracelet is made of is a little piece of metal and cloth around it. Even though we weren't supposed to have them I can still remember the lovely sound that they made when they wrapped around your wrist.

As I mentioned earlier in this post most of us remember when pogs swept the nation. I was in the 3rd grade at the time. For awhile before they were banned we would hold pog tournaments in our school gym. We had special little mats we played on, special slammers to hit the pogs down with (my slammer featured "Curly" the skeleton from Goosebumps), pog cases, books on collector pogs and I think there was even a special magazine for pog lovers. This wasn't part of them being banned but here is a funny quote from the Simpsons "Look I got some cool pogs, ALF pogs, remember ALF? He's back in pog form," Millhouse.

When I was in the 7th grade a new trend was laser pointers. They came on keychains, on the end of pens, some were even shaped like spacecrafts and you could switch the laser to a heart, smiley face, and other different shapes. I was never lucky enough to own one of these novelties. Not only was it banned at my school they were also banned in my house. My mother forbid me from buying a laser pointer. The principal banned these when kids kept disrupting class pointing the light at the overhead projector and on the teachers.

Giga Pets or Tamogotchis, this fad didn't last that long. Little digital animal on keychains. You had to push buttons to feed them and wash them. I had one of these, I don't know why? One time mine started beeping in class and I didn't want to get it out of my backpack so I just let it beep until it stopped. These were banned because they made a lot of noise.

Back then it was toys now it is cell phones. I don't have a cell phone though. We are not allowed to have them in school mainly because of the ringing disrupting class, but teachers also want to have an upper hand over students. Teachers are allowed to carry them, but students are not.

I'm going to lump clothing into one big section. Of course everyone knows the usual clothing banned at school no drugs, curse words, or revealing clothes. But here are some odd things that have been banned at my school. 1) Pictures on t-shirts. Not even a harmless picture of a flower. 2) writing on the back of a t-shirt. No pictures and nothing on the back. T-shirts were just plain. 3) Shorts, for awhile there were no shorts allowed in school. This rule failed, so no we can wear them. 4) The color yellow. At my sister's school you can get in trouble for weaing that color. 5) Kids wearing the same outfit. No two kids can wear the same outfit. No playing "twin" for the day or you are suspected of being in a gang. 6) In high school we could have pictures again, but no shirts with bands on the front.

The latest is sort of funny. In one of my classes one year the teacher kept noticing the tv turning on and off all by itself. She just thought there was something wrong with the tv. Until one day she caught a boy with his sister's (or maybe even his own) Dear Diary. With the little electronic diary/organizer he could turn the tv on and off. So now the rule in that class is "No calculators, including Dear Diaries" LOL!

So what are some crazy things that have been banned or outlawed at your school?

Oh yeah and when I was in middle school the year that we could have pictures on our shirts they outlawed shirts with bands on them. No Marilyn Manson, TOOL, Bush, Pantera, Metallica, White Zombie, NIN, Smashing Pumpkins, or Nirvana shirts; everyday kids would get in trouble for this LOL! But what was weird is that you could wear George Straight or country t-shirts, just not rock or heavy metal t-shirts?

(<>..<>)Alien

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