• chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Yeah, we called them “Portables.” They were there long before I came, and will be there long after I am dead. Long live our plywood fortresses.

    • onion@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      For me it was containers like these:

      csm_DSC_0241_babf69b668-633186999

      Long live our tin fortresses

      • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        At least you had windows. My kids are in a pretty new school building, but most of the classrooms are located in the middle of the building without windows and natural light. Seems like another one of those “only in America” things.

        • onion@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Yeah the “middle” was the school yard surrounded by narrow buildings

        • Zekas@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I’m sad to report it’s very much not limited to America. My local university had these things pop up to some considerable height because one of the buildings was condemned due to mold. Condemned about three years ago and is still standing. There’s also a number of schools using these things because they burned down or got condemned or whatever, I’m not entirely sure. At least one of those has been going two years longer than it was supposed to.

          • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Oh, I’m not talking about these “temporary” container-like structures. I’m talking about newly built permanent school buildings that have no windows in the classrooms. I’ve never seen that outside the US.

            • lad@programming.dev
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              9 months ago

              I would guess that it depends on health regulations. For instance, in some (most?) countries it’s illegal to have a hotel room without a window and I presume, the same is applied to school rooms.

              Makes me wonder if there are school rooms without windows in China, where you are allowed to build hotels without windows 🤔

        • Sjmarf@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          9 months ago

          My school had several holes in the middle of the building to avoid this. Most of them just have gravel at the bottom

        • nao@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Not only at the top, there’s also cables at the bottom between sections and what looks like a cable duct mounted in front of it with a bunch of cables coming out at the top

          • onion@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            The cable duct looks like ac lines, and the yellow cables at the bottom are probably grounding

        • onion@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Grounding, to make sure the containers stay at the same electric potential

  • bob_lemon@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

    I remember showing up for tenth grade, looking at the list of assigned classrooms in the first day of the school year. Instead of the usual the digit number, it said “C1”. My classmates showed up, and we’re just as confused as I was.

    The C turned out to be short for “container”, which we found in a corner of the school grounds.

    That said, being able to quickly go outside in every break was pretty neat. And the school actually did get a second building only a few years later.

  • Crow@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Walking through the snow in the Canadian winter from your warm school hallway to the portable for that one class was always torture.

    • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I went to school in Aurora in the 90s but didn’t have to suffer any of these containers. Moved to Virginia and had a bunch of classes in them

  • systemguy_64@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Welcome to government funding.

    School District: we need a new school

    Enrollment: 4200

    Government: Awesome, here’s $4.2 million, go build the 4200 student school.

    SD: Uhh, won’t that take a few years? Should we add some buffer space to the plan?

    Government: ehh, naah

    Spongebob 3 years later: Welcome to Springfield High School!

    Enrollment: 6900

    Springfield: see, gooberment, we needed more classrooms!

    Gooberment: heh, would you look at that. Lol. Well, use your budget to build some portables.

    SD: Us? Why don’t you pay!?!?

    Gooberment: Oh, haha, yeah, that’s an operating expense. We only fund capital projects! Don’t worry, give us a plan to expand and we can fund you in 10 years

    10 years later: Ok gooberment, our numbers say we need 15 classrooms. But for the expansion, we should do 25 for future proofing

    Gooberment: Oh, but you only need 15 now? Yeah here’s money for 15

    2 years later: Here’s 15 classrooms!

    SD: We need 25…

    Gooberment: Oh, yeah, get some portables and talk to us in a few years!

    Rinse and repeat

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Happened to me except the plan was the school to expand the number of grades in the school year after year to prevent pulling kids out of their current schools

      And they built it to be at capacity day 1

  • Korne127@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    For anyone interested: This meme has been posted by bots to a Reddit community I was active in back then very often.
    A bot would mirror these Reddit posts in a Discord server and because this exact meme has been posted there so often, it became an insider at some point, with various people always posting this meme again (because that was itself funny).

    That’s why I can’t take this meme seriously at all.

    • ramble81@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Why the hell are you taking a meme seriously in the first place. You see it, laugh if it resonates and move on.

      • Korne127@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        laugh if it resonates

        That’s what I mean with taking it seriously. You see it and its contents genuinely as the joke it displays.

        In our group, it just became a meta-level-joke because we’ve seen it so often by spam bots and the joke was to re-post it as the newest most original joke one has ever thought of (but without it mattering what’s actually on the image); and that was funny.

      • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        But reposts trigger me beyond belief! I feel bad downloading them even though we’re on a completely different platform. I can’t control my emotions though so I just had to justify my feelings to everyone otherwise I’d feel bad.

        • Korne127@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Geez, what are you talking about? I just wanted to share a fun story I remembered when seeing this image.

          • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It just felt a bit sad and jaded like someone needed to get off internet for a bit but is still addicted lol.

            It does give off serious REPOST vibes but… Longer lol.

  • Ignisnex@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    In our town, one of the schools was just built 5 years ago. They built it without classrooms. Not a single one. They had a gym, common areas, admin offices, IT infrastructure (office with a server room became the councillors office and the IT guy needs to ask permission to use it lol), bathrooms and library. They designed it so it could be made entirely with portables. From the onset.

      • Ignisnex@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Right? To be fair, they used some of the nicest portables I’ve ever seen. Two portables to a class, windows, a semi permanent foundation, plumbing, HVAC hookup, networking, the works. I had to install WAPs in the drop tile, and it was not the worst thing I’ve had to do there.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      9 months ago

      My charter school operated similarly to this. In a sense it’s kinda smart on dwindling budgets. If the portables are decent enough it allows the school to rearrange or expand without massive construction/demolition costs.

      In the end most classrooms don’t need a whole lot, right?

      Speculation, of course. Just for once I hope there’s not some evil cynical reason behind the way things are done lol .

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        9 months ago

        Sometimes when I consider how literally everything is temporary, it does help me set my priorities and let go of some things.

        • UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Yeah a kind of positive nihilism. I’ve used that too. I’ve since learned that this kind of “big picture-ing” (just keep zooming perspective out until problem goes away) is a coping mechanism sometimes referred to as “intellectualising.”

          That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it is a way cope by putting some emotional distance between you and a problem, which can sometimes–what am doing… this is the shit posting community right? My apologies lol

          • Zink@programming.dev
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            9 months ago

            I have actually used the term “positive nihilism” before, lol.

            It is very freeing to consider that meaning, value, happiness, and what you “should” do with your life - the right answers come only from within. Finding those answers is easier said than done, and you have to un-learn the expectations you think live has for you. (Insert Yoda quote)

            Super easy personal example: I’m an engineer with a bunch of degrees. Covid caused some job changes and pain, but right now I am just over a year into the best job I’ve ever had. But even though work is great, I realized that my career does not matter for shit when it comes to my happiness. Having an infinite growth mindset in one’s career might make your money numbers go up faster, but for MY brain the overall experience of life would be diminished.

            • UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              I totally agree right down to your example (I’m a software dev). The pandemic was very good to us. I never thought I would have this kind of financial stability. It’s kind of led me to an anti-hustle mindset.

              Now I’m taking jobs that let me work less, even though I know I could earn a lot more if I really put my back into it. It’s just not worth it, though.

              I’ve only got N years to smell the roses, may as make em good ones.

              • Zink@programming.dev
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                9 months ago

                Funny enough, that current best job of mine is as a software engineer, replacing the amalgam of electronics, software, automation, quality, etc that came before. Intentional choice of course.

                Fortunately there are many entertaining and enriching things you can do with adequate time and just a little extra money. Leaving yourself with more money but little time is going to make it tough to improve on what you already had.

                Plus even if working less, the working hours are a significant part of your life. Is it really worth 1/3 of your life being more stressful/boring/unfulfilling just so that you get to drive a Mercedes to that shitty place?

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Neighborhoods go through booms and busts of school age kids. These are actually a great solution to get through the boom, then you move them to the next booming neighborhood. Though the schools should be designed so they butt up against the main building and you can go down a hallway into them.

    One school I went to has like a third the school with them, but they were down a hallway connected to the school. I didn’t even realize they were portables until years later.

  • slingstone@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Does anybody remember the way the floors had a springiness to them and how they squeaked and creaked as you walked across them?

    How about the mental kind of threshold-looking strip in the middle of the floor from wall to wall where I believe they had connected two halves together, if I recall?

    • wolfshadowheart@slrpnk.net
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      9 months ago

      I remember that. Along with the distinct smell they all had, the scent of whatever the portable materials were used.

      And because of the compact size, all the sound has this sort of reverb to it. It’s not really an echo, just an elevated hum of busy noise, with only the higher pitched ticking current going through the fluorescents.

      And how that size also affected the lighting. Somehow even with the florescents it all was oddly sepia toned, no doubt because the only colors on the inside were white, grey, tan, and beige…

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 months ago

    Didn’t yall call them “portables”? At one of my first public schools, they had a big long installation called a “portapac”.

    Might be a Canadian thing judging from some of the comments.

  • AwkwardTurtle@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Ah yes, the “portables” that never moved. They’re still at my old school, decades after I’ve left they’re still in the same damn spots.

    • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I just checked my old elementary school online. Nearly 40 years later, the same temporary buildings I had class in are still there.

      • psivchaz@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        “Nearly forty years ago? This person must be old,” I thought. Then I did the math on how long I’ve been out of school. Oof. Sorry for judging your age, fellow millennial.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    9 months ago

    My high school was given a $1.5 million check by some alumni who had some success after school and wanted to give back when I was a sophomore. It was supposed to be used for a new multipurpose room and chem lab.

    They never did that and instead put it all into the football program. The school now, 21 years after graduation, looks the same as it did when I went except it has a huge ass security fence around campus, a couple more “temp” buildings and the gym is hella nice.