Thought on having gone to public Catholic elementary and high school.

I’ve just been reflecting on my time having gone to catholic elementary and high school. Not in a bad way, just comparing my experiences to what I imagine what it would’ve been like going to a ‘normal’ public school.

In Ontario Canada both “Catholic” and “Secular” schools are publicly funded and open for any schmuck to enroll. The lore behind it being this way is because in the 1800’s all public schools were Protestant and there was a sizeable Catholic population (due to French Canadians and a recent influx of Catholic immigrants) and they obviously disliked this. The government’s solution to this was to implement two publicly subsidized schooling systems. One for Catholics and one for Protestant’s. Overtime Protestant schools became secular but Catholic schools stayed Catholic. And it stays this way until today because Catholics dislike having the privilege of half of the public schools in the province being Catholic taken way from them. And also, even among non-Catholics, Catholic schools are seen as slightly more safe. Which I think is just placebo because I know first hand that students do not take scripture to heart.

Anyways Ontario schooling system lore out of the way, I grew up going to a public Catholic elementary school and public Catholic high school. There were three elementary schools in my town, one public secular elementary school, one public Catholic elementary school, and one private secular elementary/high school that looked like fuckin Hogwarts because it was a former Catholic nunnery. Anyways I went to the Catholic public one because my family were recent Catholic immigrants but a ton of non-Catholics went there too, just in my class alone were Atheists, Muslims and Orthodox Christians. Mostly because of proximity and the newness of the school. Anyone who didn’t mind their kids going to Mass in the Gymnasium 2-4 times a year and having to say a prayer during morning announcements enrolled their kids at our school. Even I, for pretty much all of my time there was an Atheist, I just didn’t tell my parents (only my mom would really care tbh). I guess I watched too many videos about existentialist philosophy as a kid I and it just seemed more logical. Tbh I think the only demographic that were absent from the school were staunch Protestants. As far as the schooling went it was pretty much just a public school with a cross on the front of the building. Yeah we had to wear uniforms but they were cheap and not all Catholic schools had uniforms. We had “religion“ class, which most of the time doubled as Sex-Ed and “have morals” class. It was pretty liberal, we had social studies and talked a lot about the civil rights movement, native history and rights and minority struggles and what not. No young earth creationist shit in science class. There weren’t any nuns patrolling the hallways with a ruler in their hands ready to smack sinners or anything like that. A thing I do remember was them calling homosexual love “infatuation“ and nothing more. Which I think was the only example of conservative values. If anything I think I was more interested in Catholic traditions and rituals as culture and art. Wax statues of the virgin Mary, hymns, rituals and religious art I appreciated as fascinating and intricate relics whenever I got to see them. Other than that it was the classic middle school experience. Disabled kids screaming in the halls, a kid with a rough home life always making it a problem for staff and students, our class making 3 separate teachers cry, spreading rumours, students getting hurt and talking about slenderman in the woods and what not. High school was pretty much the same story, I think more people actually attended the public Catholic high school than the public secular one. Due to it being close to the main street of a University town, there were a shit ton of restaurants that students could go to on break. Like elementary school, you had to attend mass like 2-4 times a year, alot of people just skipped it. And you also had to wear uniforms. A shit ton of bad apples went there too. Kids that would punch you in the liver and kick head in the halls (exaggerating slightly), bathroom vapers, one time I saw a gaggle of freshmen (14 yr olds), smoking cigs at the back the grocery store next to the high school. Mind you this was in the early 2020s, what kid even smokes instead of vapes anymore. Let alone nicotine instead of weed. Mfs do not give af about the bible bro. The average high school cliques existed, except for the goths, those don’t really exist anymore, they were largely replaced by the queer people. But yeah that’s the end of my reflecting.