6 Fictional Schools We Wouldn’t Attend
School days, school days, dear old golden rule days, with reading and writing and…imminent death? For most of us, the educational system wasn’t always a page-turner. You went to school, ate the cafeteria cookies, played eight rounds of MASH, and came home. Not so in the land of books, where a heapin’ helpin’ of educational institutions seem hellbent on nothing else but maiming or killing their students. You might remember Hogwarts as all floating candles and self-aggrandizing portraits, but behind every door in the castle there was the possibility of doom—and those fickle staircases could lead you there at any minute. Below is a noncomprehensive look at the schools I would never be able to overcome my flight instinct to attend.
Now, polish those apples or die.
Wayside School
I have fond memories of reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School, but looking back I think that not a small part of that fondness was schadenfreude. The teachers at Wayside had a strict No Child Left Behind policy: No Child Left Behind in human form, that is. Not only did this school district allow shoddy construction work, it also felt inclined to hire a teacher by the name of Mrs. Gorf, which I thought was the term for the sound you make just after putting a piping hot queso-laden chip in your mouth and realizing you’ve made a terrible mistake. Mrs. Gorf turns her students into apples, which she keeps on her desk as trophies or even snacks for all I know. But Mrs. Gorf is eventually turned into an apple, so everything is perfectly fine. Oh, except for that time they hired her son, Mr. Gorf, as a substitute, and he turns out to possess a third nostril capable of sucking up children’s voices. Oh, and that one time they hired another substitute with a third ear that could listen to thoughts. Oh, and…
Shiroiwa Junior High
You thought your teen years were rough? Try attending Mortal Kombat High over here in Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, in which a class of students lose the Showcase Showdown and are forced to fight their classmates to the death in a dystopic nightmare of military supremacy. The novel is better known as Why You Should Homeschool Your Children: Vol. 1.
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters
Do I really need to go into the potential pitfalls here, or how many times Charles Xavier’s mansion was destroyed? That’s not to mention the kind of mistakes that could happen at any time, if one of your mutant cohorts were to hear a bump in the night—oh, come on, Cyclops, I just wanted a glass of milk!
Ms. Frizzle’s Class
While Valerie Frizzle’s commitment to science education should be lauded from here till kingdom come, where was the prologue that contained a copy of the waiver her students’ parents should have signed? A thorough lesson about anatomy is wonderful. A thorough anatomy lesson prompted by one of your students swallowing The Magic School Bus? Oh, just perfect. Also, don’t forget to do your homework, because The Friz might just leave you stranded on the Earth’s mantle.
Crunchem Hall Primary School
Ms. Trunchbull. Game. Over.
When the headmistress is a “gigantic holy terror” who “frightened the life out of pupils and teachers alike,” it’s time to batten the hatches. She’d make Cool Hand Luke wet himself. Corporal punishment would be an improvement over Ms. Trunchbull’s Chokey, the 10-by-10-inch cupboard filled with nails and broken glass, because OSHA and child welfare aren’t things in the world of Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
All the Miss Honeys in the world wouldn’t get me through the doors of this hellhole.
Hogwarts
You knew it was coming. It was always going to end like this, here with Harry Potter and the Conveniently Placed Death Trap or Harry Potter and All the Times Voldemort Disrupted Final Exams, or better yet Hermione Granger and The Two Sods Who Continually Almost Get Her Killed, or Worse, Expelled. This school, filled with some of the brightest minds in wizardry, is built atop a chamber holding a giant snake. It is adjacent to a forest filled with vengeful centaurs and massive, soliloquy-delivering spiders. Don’t forget the lake with the mermaids who are less Ariel and more harpy shrews. At any point, a reckless Slytherin could do in a hapless Hufflepuff with one flick of an Avada Kedavra. That’s not even taking into account the lax hiring practices that have allowed not only completely incompetent plagiarists to waltz through the door, but also agents of The Enemy. Our HR professionals use background checks. Wizards apparently rely on the honor system.
What fictional school would you least want to attend?