Why do schools have lockers the size of a student?

[Fyraltari]

EDIT: @Fyraltari: alt+shift?

I don't understand the question?

[Lacco]

It was related to following:

AZERTY keyboards usually can be toggled to function as QWERTY keyboards and back through a key combination I never remember.

It switches the keyboard layout in Windows (I use it to switch from QWERTY (ENG) to QWERTZ (SK)).

[Rogar Demonblud]

I think that's in response to the keyboard layout discussion.

[Lentrax]

Hi.

As one of the kids who has been shoved into lockers. As well as garbage cans, tossed down stairs, and occasionally into the girls bathroom, the proposed "No, it wasn't me" defense is actually quite effective. It really all depends on who the parents of the bully are. Because the school doesn't want to open themselves to the risk of being sued for actually implementing the zero tolerance policy.

So the kids get away with it because after all its just, "boys being boys."

[Cazero]

It was related to following:



It switches the keyboard layout in Windows (I use it to switch from QWERTY (ENG) to QWERTZ (SK)).

It switches between keyboard layouts. Provided you digged into your windows to download the one you want.

[An Enemy Spy]

When I was in middle school we would sometimes shut each other in our lockers for fun, but the person being locked up was in on it, it was never done to bully anyone.

[Tvtyrant]

Hi.

As one of the kids who has been shoved into lockers. As well as garbage cans, tossed down stairs, and occasionally into the girls bathroom, the proposed "No, it wasn't me" defense is actually quite effective. It really all depends on who the parents of the bully are. Because the school doesn't want to open themselves to the risk of being sued for actually implementing the zero tolerance policy.

So the kids get away with it because after all its just, "boys being boys."

It's telling that schools don't use cameras specifically because then they would have to deal with crimes committed in them. And assault is still a crime regardless of where it happens.

[Rockphed]

It switches between keyboard layouts. Provided you digged into your windows to download the one you want.

I once gave a coworker a polish keyboard (in revenge for him replacing my desktop with a screenshot of my desktop). It took us months to realize that his computer was messed up because it had a second keyboard layout installed. The polish keyboard is close enough to english to not matter, but we used the switch-keyboard shortcut all the time in our software. It only worked about half the time for him.

[Peelee]

polish

Appropos of nothing, but that's a fun word because the pronunciation sometimes changes with capitalization.

[Aedilred]

The lockers in my school, when we had them, were too small to shove a person in (and most of the time we used desks for storage rather than lockers) so people got shoved into cupboards instead. Or under desks. Or just beaten up and pushed around.

Bottom line is: if students want to bully each other, they'll find a way to do it. There's a limit to how much it's worthwhile to reduce the utility of things with a legitimate function in order to mitigate against that, especially since overall it will be entirely ineffective anyway.

On the policing side of things, as someone on the receiving end of the bullying, I found any attempt at zero-tolerance to be worse than useless. As the victim in such a scenario, it's rare that you have conducted yourself in a completely squeaky-clean manner. It's all very well being told to "ignore it" but when you're being physically manhandled and prevented from leaving the situation, that just isn't possible. But as soon as you raise a hand in your own defence, you're complicit, it's treated as an altercation in which both sides are to blame, and under a zero-tolerance policy you find yourself being punished for being bullied.

What's more, if you're a regular bullying victim, you tend to end up in front of the authorities more than any individual bully, which gets you a reputation as a troublemaker.

Any kind of anti-bullying action by authorities has to be applied with a degree of discretion and relatively close individual monitoring of situations, as well as underpinned by an atmosphere of trust between students (victims in particular) and the authorities in question, trust which is difficult to build up and easy to destroy. In practice, the effort required is far too onerous and intensive, for very little reward (anti-bullying action almost always being reactive), so most institutions not only won't but can't actually deal with it effectively.

[Rockphed]

The lockers in my school, when we had them, were too small to shove a person in (and most of the time we used desks for storage rather than lockers) so people got shoved into cupboards instead. Or under desks. Or just beaten up and pushed around.

Bottom line is: if students want to bully each other, they'll find a way to do it. There's a limit to how much it's worthwhile to reduce the utility of things with a legitimate function in order to mitigate against that, especially since overall it will be entirely ineffective anyway.

On the policing side of things, as someone on the receiving end of the bullying, I found any attempt at zero-tolerance to be worse than useless. As the victim in such a scenario, it's rare that you have conducted yourself in a completely squeaky-clean manner. It's all very well being told to "ignore it" but when you're being physically manhandled and prevented from leaving the situation, that just isn't possible. But as soon as you raise a hand in your own defence, you're complicit, it's treated as an altercation in which both sides are to blame, and under a zero-tolerance policy you find yourself being punished for being bullied.

What's more, if you're a regular bullying victim, you tend to end up in front of the authorities more than any individual bully, which gets you a reputation as a troublemaker.

Any kind of anti-bullying action by authorities has to be applied with a degree of discretion and relatively close individual monitoring of situations, as well as underpinned by an atmosphere of trust between students (victims in particular) and the authorities in question, trust which is difficult to build up and easy to destroy. In practice, the effort required is far too onerous and intensive, for very little reward (anti-bullying action almost always being reactive), so most institutions not only won't but can't actually deal with it effectively.

I got sent home for a few days twice during high school. Both involved me responding to bullying of one sort or another. In hind sight I almost with I had attacked the first one as much as he claimed I did. People mostly left me alone since I was nearly 6 feet tall at the start of my sophomore year (and thus taller than the average adult). If I had been in better shape people would probably have just left me alone completely.

[halfeye]

But when it stops:

After a couple of months I remember thinking "This is nice; I am never going to allow myself to go through that again".

It seems nobody else feels like this, is that really true?

They sometimes say that the only thing to fear is fear itself, but my view is that fear itself is a truly horrible and fearsome thing that really is to be feared and loathed, and that makes standing up to mere people relatively easy.

I don't know, it sort of seems nobody else gets it the way I do, am I mistaken?

[M@XWeru]

Like many others have said, I've never seen lockers big enough for that. Never had any lockers at all before I started high school, and those were too thin to stuff anyone into without severely injuring them in the process.

[sktarq]

For years I thought Locker Stuffing, and shoving the bullied head into a toilet etc were just the stuff of TV shows and remembered 1950's hazing that had gone out of fashion....I knew of none of it at the schools I attended (private) or the ones most of my friends attended (public) but I found out it was alive and well when I got to uni. Several of my classmates had been stuffed in a locker. As for why? no clue. Never saw the humour.



As for WHY lockers were so big? well the full 5-6 foot lockers seemed to be a norm until the late 80's but then there seemed to be a pretty solid switch to half size or even 1/3 size lockers so I'd say looking at norms before that era is key.
I think in part because work lockers for many adults who have to wear protective gear or uniforms are useful at that size (especially for hanging dress shirts and the like) and so there was already a semi standard "locker" that high schools just bought anyway.
Plus since you still see such large lockers linked to athletic teams there may be some normalizing about the idea that all the athletes had to have their winter coat, winter boots, their gym bag, their books, etc all in it.
Also it does seem that fewer students had backpacks/bookbags on during the day back in that era. you hit the locker for every class or two and only took home the books you needed...so changes in homework patterns may also have a part here.

[Lettuce]

The lockers in my school, when we had them, were too small to shove a person in (and most of the time we used desks for storage rather than lockers) so people got shoved into cupboards instead. Or under desks. Or just beaten up and pushed around.

Bottom line is: if students want to bully each other, they'll find a way to do it. There's a limit to how much it's worthwhile to reduce the utility of things with a legitimate function in order to mitigate against that, especially since overall it will be entirely ineffective anyway.

On the policing side of things, as someone on the receiving end of the bullying, I found any attempt at zero-tolerance to be worse than useless. As the victim in such a scenario, it's rare that you have conducted yourself in a completely squeaky-clean manner. It's all very well being told to "ignore it" but when you're being physically manhandled and prevented from leaving the situation, that just isn't possible. But as soon as you raise a hand in your own defence, you're complicit, it's treated as an altercation in which both sides are to blame, and under a zero-tolerance policy you find yourself being punished for being bullied.

What's more, if you're a regular bullying victim, you tend to end up in front of the authorities more than any individual bully, which gets you a reputation as a troublemaker.

Any kind of anti-bullying action by authorities has to be applied with a degree of discretion and relatively close individual monitoring of situations, as well as underpinned by an atmosphere of trust between students (victims in particular) and the authorities in question, trust which is difficult to build up and easy to destroy. In practice, the effort required is far too onerous and intensive, for very little reward (anti-bullying action almost always being reactive), so most institutions not only won't but can't actually deal with it effectively.

100% agreed with all of the above. From one "troublemaker" to another, you have my condolences. "Ignore it" is impossible advice to follow once your aggressor escalates past a certain point. Not to mention, "ignoring it" isn't a healthy strategy for dealing with threats when you're older, either. And adult justice systems take things like motive and who's the instigator into account; why don't schools? All this does is make victims hesitant to trust authority.

As for me, my lockers were half-size, as described above-- and in my personal locker I put one of those extendable shelves, just in case, to make it hard to fit me inside (and to organize my stuff). I was aware that bullying people into lockers was a Thing without having much of a logistical understanding of it, so I was kind of anxious about it anyway. Luckily for me, scrawny though I was, most of my physical bullying happened in elementary school when we stored our daily scholarly belongings in our desks, and our coats/bags/lunches in "cubbies": a ring of alcoves in each classroom kind of like lockers, but with no doors.

Mostly I'm jealous of all of you people getting to carry your backpacks around school. We definitely weren't allowed to do that, and had to carry a small pile of textbooks in our hands when we changed classes. There wasn't ever enough time to exchange things between classes either to lighten your load; the only exception was at lunchtime. Which cut into your lunch.

...In hindsight, though, maybe this was itself a measure to prevent physical harassment? Harder to hit someone when you've got your hands full.

[Rogar Demonblud]

More likely they were afraid you'd use your backpack to carry a couple pounds of illegal drugs, half a case of beer and a Satanic Infant Sacrifice kit. Or in other words, there wasn't a good reason.

[Rockphed]

More likely they were afraid you'd use your backpack to carry a couple pounds of illegal drugs, half a case of beer and a Satanic Infant Sacrifice kit. Or in other words, there wasn't a good reason.

Weapons were, I think, the justification for not allowing backpacks. That was only in middle school for me; in high school I carried my backpack everywhere. I think we were sometimes told not to wear coats in class.

[dps]

Also it does seem that fewer students had backpacks/bookbags on during the day back in that era. you hit the locker for every class or two and only took home the books you needed...so changes in homework patterns may also have a part here.

Back when I was in primary and secondary school, I don't remember anyone using a backpack at school--backpacks were for camping or hiking trips, not school. People in college (where we didn't really have lockers except in athletic facilities) did use backpacks, though I generally preferred a briefcase.

I don't recall anyone actually being stuffed in a locker in primary or secondary school, and we were generally a pretty mean bunch of kids. It wasn't even a common trope on TV or in movies at the time--I suspect the extent to which it might exist IRL since then is people just copying something they saw in a work of fiction.

[Willie the Duck]

Back when I was in primary and secondary school, I don't remember anyone using a backpack at school--backpacks were for camping or hiking trips, not school. People in college (where we didn't really have lockers except in athletic facilities) did use backpacks, though I generally preferred a briefcase.

My folks (who would have gone to school in the 40's/50's talked about carrying one's books to and from school, and some kinds even having some kind of strap to bind them all together (I seem to recall some Peanuts cartoons or similar with that kind of thing as well). Certainly for getting books to and from school, a backpack of briefcase make all the sense in the world. Whether one needs one in school is another matter.

I don't recall anyone actually being stuffed in a locker in primary or secondary school, and we were generally a pretty mean bunch of kids. It wasn't even a common trope on TV or in movies at the time--I suspect the extent to which it might exist IRL since then is people just copying something they saw in a work of fiction.

That's kind of where I landed as well. It seems like one of those things that seems reasonable in cartoon logic or something, but in reality isn't nearly as practical as the kind of abuse that actually did happen frequently enough.

[halfeye]

For taking things to school, there used to be things called satchels.

[sktarq]

I don't recall anyone actually being stuffed in a locker in primary or secondary school, and we were generally a pretty mean bunch of kids. It wasn't even a common trope on TV or in movies at the time--I suspect the extent to which it might exist IRL since then is people just copying something they saw in a work of fiction.

This is what i thought too....nobody I knew in public or private schools had had this happen or knew of it happening this I figured it was TV trope....except when I moved to East Coast of the USA for an engineering school I found out a couple of my classmates had suffered this, and "swirlies", and a lot of classic bullying that I thought was just ridiculous until then...which does make me wonder if the kids got it from the media or if the media just reflected a specific regional thing (most of victims seemd to be from between RI to Maryland and this would have been the late 90's). And while I suspect it was still rare overall it does seem to be a reflection of a real thing. It was part of a wider culture shock that I never got used to.


I did have the trashcan (50 gal) of water leaning against your door (so it would spill in when you open it) and tying your door closed which are a different sort of classic (joys of boarding schools) but they were so incompetent that it was never an issue and I don't tend to see those in media.

[Liquor Box]

You might hear stories about people getting stuffed in their locker and if you search the internet you find both people with personal experience with it and programs for teachers to deal with it.
This rises the question: "What do students need lockers the size of a student for?"

Would you rather be stuffed in a large locker or a small locker? That logic is sort of like not cleaning the toilets, and making the punishment of having your head flushed down it even worse.

Any kind of anti-bullying action by authorities has to be applied with a degree of discretion and relatively close individual monitoring of situations, as well as underpinned by an atmosphere of trust between students (victims in particular) and the authorities in question, trust which is difficult to build up and easy to destroy. In practice, the effort required is far too onerous and intensive, for very little reward (anti-bullying action almost always being reactive), so most institutions not only won't but can't actually deal with it effectively.

To be fair to schools it must be very hard. Almost any case of bullying will be one person's word against another's (or if it's team bullying, many person's word against the victim). Although it might seem obvious from your perspective that you were the victim, that may not be the teacher's perspective.

[Aedilred]

Would you rather be stuffed in a large locker or a small locker? That logic is sort of like not cleaning the toilets, and making the punishment of having your head flushed down it even worse.



To be fair to schools it must be very hard. Almost any case of bullying will be one person's word against another's (or if it's team bullying, many person's word against the victim). Although it might seem obvious from your perspective that you were the victim, that may not be the teacher's perspective.

Oh, I do understand that it must be hard for the staff too, hence my last sentence in the above. I have, post-school, discussed it with my mum too, who was a teacher, so I do have some insight into their perspective. I don't really blame the staff, the majority of the time: they (mostly) don't get paid extra to deal with this crap, and their jobs are hard enough as it is.

I do take issue with zero-tolerance policies for that reason, however. It's so hard to know the truth of what's happened that any kind of blanket enforcement, if rigorously enforced, will hit both the innocent and the guilty, and will probably upset the kids more likely to be rule-abiding more than those who don't care, which is the precise opposite of the effect you want to have. It looks to me like an approach that isn't designed to actually address the problem, but rather to give the appearance that they're taking it seriously - for the benefit of teachers, governors, the authorities etc.

[dps]

It looks to me like an approach that isn't designed to actually address the problem, but rather to give the appearance that they're taking it seriously

You have just articulated the "logic" behind 90% of school policies.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Well, them and the PTA board.

The only school I know of that achieved much with a bullying policy simply had the kids 'volunteering' to clean up litter. Many of the kids targeted didn't have an issue with community service, but the bullies hated spending a Saturday that way.

[Lord Arkon]

At my grade school, there were no lockers; all the kids hung their coats in a coat room. And once, I was foolish enough to leave money in my coat pocket during class. I never made that mistake again.

My old high school ('92-'96) had tall lockers with a shelf for the books, and a pair of hooks right under it. The hooks were about the right height to hang a long coat without letting it touch the bottom. Now, during our winter, it wasn't uncommon to get a couple of feet of snow, and for the temperature to dip below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

The lockers were narrow, so you'd have a hard time stuffing anyone in there, unless you broke them first. But the worst that was ever done to my locker were some death threats painted on. I was questioned about it, but by then I'd learned quite well that no one in authority cared what happened to me, but under NO circumstances was I EVER to speak ill about a real person. So I played dumb, because there was no point in doing anything else. But it helped me build character.

[druid91]

It's telling that schools don't use cameras specifically because then they would have to deal with crimes committed in them. And assault is still a crime regardless of where it happens.

As someone who works for public schools. There are cameras. There's also police officers in schools.

But yeah, the 'Locker big enough to shove someone into' is mostly an old-style locker thing. And most places use newer designs that are too small/awkward to make it work.

[snowblizz]

As someone who works for public schools. There are cameras. There's also police officers in schools.

That's not a school. That's a correctional facility.

[Peelee]

That's not a school. That's a correctional facility.

If cameras and police officers are all that's needed for a correctional facility, I've got news about just a ton of places.

[Keltest]

If cameras and police officers are all that's needed for a correctional facility, I've got news about just a ton of places.

Yeah. Heck, the police sometimes come in to the store i work at for lunch. Does that make it a correctional facility during lunchtime?