To avoid spoilers and repeats, skip to 1:45
This week; the 1980s.
My school years.
I was in my teens during the 1980s, let’s see how familiar this episode feels.
Mind you, I went to a Montessori school, so not quite as traditional as this regular British school.
We didn’t have as many rules… unfortunately.
Is it me or do some of the kids skip some of the episodes?
Oh the memories, sweatbands, fingerless gloves, covering your schoolbooks with wrapping paper, weird looking and smelling rubbers…
I never had this “house system” but I like the idea.
Must be nice to come to a new school where you don’t know anybody but automatically be part of something right away.
Competition and team-spirit are good ideas.
Back to strict rules and order.
Good.
Mind you, we didn’t have any of that in my school in the 1980s…
I don’t remember the fascination for robots, we had a toy one at home but we didn’t take it very seriously.
To me it seems that robots are a much bigger deal today than they were during the 1980s.
I loved ‘Tomorrow’s world’ though, I wish it came back.
We didn’t have robotics in school, but I wish we had.
Loving the exciting science lesson, we didn’t get much of that.
Mind you, I did actually see the space shuttle fly over the beach back in 1983!
Very weird to see some of the girls have really short skirts and high heels
We all wore jeans, baggy t-shirts and speakers.
Much more comfortable and comforting when you’re a young girl of an age when weird stupid things start happening to your body.
Must have been depressing to hear that there won’t be any jobs waiting for you when you come out of school.
They never told us that, or maybe they did and I just didn’t care.
I never planned to get a regular job.
I do remember hearing ‘no future’ a lot but assumed that had to do with the ever looming nuclear holocaust.
I grew up expecting the bomb to fall at any moment so who cared about jobs or even protesting?
Well not me.
Computers!
I somehow managed to avoid getting any real computer lessons in school, which is kind of funny as I know make a living because of them.
I remember using them at home to try and learn stuff but was pretty soon distracted by games.
But yes, I too had to wait for a game to be loaded from a cassette tape!
Try and tell kids that these days…
It is interesting to see the modern kids struggle with these computers.
Not because they are complicated and different but because they’re so used to how easy computers are today.
The girl who realises this is very right and smart for realising this.
The computers are more frustrating to them because of what they know than they were to the 1980s kids for whom the computers would just be very exciting.
I’m very jealous of British schools having dinners.
While these kids have chips and bacon and beans, I sat in a corner of the school munching on some soggy sandwiches my mum made me.
But er… Diet Coke wasn’t introduced into the UK till 1983 and it is supposed to be 1982… and although already produced in 1982, Quatro wasn’t commonly available till the next year.
On top of that, soda cans didn’t look like that back then.
Here’s Nik Kershaw!
Brilliant, but again it drags us out of the 1980s immersive experience.
But what he has to say is interesting and he brings the subject of nuclear war back to the table, something that played a huge part in my life but has only brought up once, in the 1960s episode.
Brag moment; I was the first kid in my school with a Walkman.
For some reason we’re getting a school disco in the middle of the episode in stead of at the end.
I didn’t really like school parties, too stressful and boring at the same time, as weird as that may sound.
I remember doing a bit of breakdancing but only as a laugh, we all thought it was a bit silly and foreign, typical crazy American stuff.
I never liked hip hop and rap either, not till I discovered 1930s rap songs.
Interesting to see that modern day kids still know a bit of that type of dancing though.
I thought it died out.
I really don’t like the obviously staged scenes, we had a stink bomb one earlier and now kids throwing water balloons are caught by a teacher who just happens to walk past.
This is supposed to be an immersive historical experience, modern kids going back in time not some kids drama show.
Corporal punishment has been abolished.
I remember this being in the news and being flabbergasted by it as it had not been a thing in our Dutch schools since, well since before I was born.
It is nice that they celebrate this but it would have been a bigger celebration if… they’d actually used it in previous episodes!
Surely they could have found a volunteer or gotten around health & safety regulations?
If I had taken part I would have accepted a caning, if I had been a teacher in this TV show I would have been fine with caning a child… for history sake!
It would also be interesting to take a impartial historical look at corporal punishment in stead of a modern view.
To those who lived through it it sometimes was less of an evil thing that it appears to be to our modern sensitivities.
But that is a different subject for another time.
I do know that there were times that I’d preferred a clip around the ears than a “We’re not angry, we’re disappointed” chat.
Apparently there was some sort of football thing that was big and so the presenter has to go come and kick a ball for some reason.
I remember the 1987 AIDS public information film but I didn’t see the video on school and it wasn’t really something that was a big part of my world.
Selling modern gadgets, that sounds like a fun lesson.
A disposable camera, I don’t thin I ever really used one, but goodness me what a bad idea, so much extra rubbish to be thrown away.
The Discman was a disappointment, it kept skipping!
The mobile phone… if only we had known what those would turn into…
Why are the kids watching neighbours in school?
Is this an after-school club again?
Never happened to me.
The episode and decade are ended with sports day.
Worst day of the year.
The children seems to have enjoyed the era and the modern gadgets and that they’re now sort of living through the childhood of their parents.
Next week the 90s.
Historical Reality Television 