Back to School in the ’80s: The Sights, Sounds, and Smells You Totally Forgot About

Picture it: your mom just gave you and your sister a homemade haircut with dull kitchen scissors and a Tupperware bowl for a guide, and somehow you were both expected to just walk into school as if nothing happened.

It's the first day of class. No smartphone, no social media — just you, your Trapper Keeper, and the lingering taste of Flintstones vitamins and milk on your breath.

The School Memories That Just... Stick

For those who lived through school in the '80s (some of us even enjoyed it), it's absolutely wild to think about what it's like to be a kid today, with information at your fingertips and distractions coming at you from every direction.

MORE '80s: Bigfoot, Killer Bees & More Things That Scared '80s Kids

Back then, the teacher locked your Wacky Pack cards in her desk. She didn't lock your phone in a pouch. But maybe it's exactly that lack of distraction that's responsible for so many of our sharpest core memories — the point on a compass, the static shock off a plastic chair, the somewhat minty, sawdusty smell of the janitor cleaning up after Jerry's latest "incident."

Ruler and Pencil Propeller Trick in the 1980s

See, that's the thing about these memories — they pop up when you least expect them. Show most '80s kids a plastic ruler with the three holes and within two seconds they'll reach for a pencil, stick it through the middle hole, and start spinning the whole thing like a helicopter propeller. Nobody taught you to do that. You just knew.

There are lots of memories like this, and we've got the photos to prove it — the highs, the lows, and everything in between from some of the best (and worst) years of your life.