Back to School in 1986 vs. Today: When School Supplies Were Half the Fun
Back-to-school season still happens every August. The stores still put up their displays. Parents still spend more money than they planned to, and kids still have very definite opinions about what they will and will not wear on the first day of school.
But back to school today looks very different from the way I remember it as a 10-year-old in 1986.
Today, a big chunk of the back-to-school budget can disappear into sneakers, clothes, backpacks and whatever else kids suddenly insist everyone at school is wearing. And once they actually get to school, much of their work may be done on a Chromebook, iPad or another device provided or required by the school.
There are still pencils, notebooks and folders on school supply lists, of course. But they don't seem to have quite the starring role they once did.
Because in 1986?
The school supplies were part of the excitement.
Picking out a pencil case wasn't just picking out something to hold pencils. It was deciding whether you were a Smurfs kid, a Care Bears kid, a Strawberry Shortcake kid or a Rainbow Brite kid.
Your lunch box said something about you.
Your Trapper Keeper definitely said something about you.
And somehow even covering a stack of school-issued textbooks with brown paper grocery bags became part of the back-to-school ritual.
So, in honor of those of us who remember when "logging into class" wasn't a thing, let's go back to the beginning of the 1986–87 school year.
First Things First: The Back-to-School Outfit
Before we even get to the school supplies, we need to discuss the first-day-of-school outfit.
Because this was important.
Looking through a 1986 Sears catalog is basically a time capsule of everything that was happening in children's and tween fashion at the time.
There were dresses with big collars and bows. Floral prints. Pleated pants. Matching tops and bottoms. Denim. Bright pink and black. Aqua. Lavender. Stars. Oversized sweatshirts. Stirrup pants.
So many stirrup pants.
And unlike today's first-day-of-school pictures, where sneakers, leggings, hoodies and athletic wear often dominate, there was still something about that first day that called for an outfit.
For plenty of girls, that meant a cute dress, skirt or coordinated set—even if the rest of the school year would eventually devolve into jeans and whatever sweatshirt happened to be clean.
You had new clothes. New shoes. Your hair was done.
And for approximately six hours, everything you owned was still spotless.
Then Came the Really Important Part: School Supplies
This is where 1986 really wins.
School supplies weren't just functional. They were merchandise.
Your favorite cartoon characters could be on practically everything.
Pencils. Erasers. Pencil cases. Folders. Lunch boxes. Backpacks.
And if you could convince your mother that you absolutely needed the matching pieces, even better.
A pencil wasn't simply a pencil when it had Smurfs running down the side of it.
An eraser didn't need to erase particularly well if it was cute enough.
And let's be truthful: some of those character erasers were far too important to actually use. You'd destroy the picture.
Today, a student may type an entire assignment without touching a pencil. In 1986, your pencil collection had a social life of its own.
There were sharpened pencils, unsharpened pencils, pencils you lent to people, pencils you absolutely did not lend to people and at least one really good pencil that mysteriously disappeared before lunch.
The One-Subject Notebook Had Its Own Personality
Then there were the notebooks.
Nothing fancy.
Just a basic one-subject notebook.
Except even those somehow felt more fun.
Bright covers, bold graphics and colors that now immediately scream 1980s. Pink, turquoise, purple, yellow and aqua were everywhere.
And pastel notebook paper?
If you know, you know.
There was something ridiculously satisfying about opening a brand-new notebook and seeing completely untouched paper inside. No crossed-out math problems. No teacher comments. No doodles filling the margins.
Just possibilities.
By November, of course, half the pages were bent, your name had been written on the cover 14 different ways, there were phone numbers and doodles in the back, and some mysterious substance had permanently attached itself to the bottom corner.
But in August? That notebook was pristine!
And Then There Was the Trapper Keeper
The Trapper Keeper deserves its own section because it was not merely a school supply.
It was an event.
There were folders inside. There were pockets. There was Velcro. There were bold graphics.
It made an unmistakable ripping sound every time you opened it.
And choosing the design was a serious decision because you were going to carry that thing around for months.
Did you want something cute?
Something sporty?
Something with horses?
Something covered in neon geometric shapes that looked like the opening credits of an '80s sitcom?
The Trapper Keeper was basically the 1986 version of customizing your laptop case, phone case and lock screen all at once.
Except considerably louder. RRRRRIP.
Everyone in class now knows you need your math homework.
Before Backpacks Became Mini Suitcases
Our backpacks were a little different.
Character backpacks were everywhere, particularly with younger kids, and the design mattered almost as much as the backpack itself.
Garfield was an excellent choice.
So were the Smurfs, Care Bears, Rainbow Brite and whatever other character you were currently obsessed with.
The funny part is that we actually needed the backpack space.
There was no digital textbook waiting online.
No Google Classroom holding your assignments.
No Chromebook containing half your school life.
Which brings us to perhaps the biggest difference between school then and school now.
We Actually Carried the Textbooks Home
Remember this?
At the beginning of the school year, you were handed actual textbooks.
Big ones.
Heavy ones.
Reading. Math. Science. Social Studies. Spelling.
And because those books had to survive years of students, we were expected to protect them.
Enter one of the greatest examples of 1980s recycling before anybody was calling it an upcycling project:
the brown paper grocery bag book cover.
You cut the bag open, folded it around the book, tucked the covers into the sides and somehow turned a grocery bag into a perfectly functional textbook cover.
No Amazon order.
No special supplies.
No tutorial required.
Just a paper bag and some folding.
Then came the best part.
You decorated it.
Your name. Your subject. Hearts. Stars. Your favorite band's name. Your friend's name. Your crush's name written somewhere that absolutely no one was supposed to notice.
By the end of the year, that brown paper cover looked like it had been through a small war.
But the textbook underneath it?
Perfectly fine.
Today, many students can access textbooks, assignments, worksheets and classroom materials electronically. It's convenient, lighter and probably much easier on their backs.
But nobody has ever spent an entire study hall doodling on the cover of a PDF.
That's a loss.
Your Lunch Box Was Basically a Billboard for Your Personality
The lunch box might have been the most exciting purchase of all.
By the mid-1980s, molded plastic lunch boxes were becoming a familiar sight alongside the older metal styles, and character designs were everywhere.
And this Rainbow Brite situation?
Peak 1986.
Bright blue plastic. Yellow handle. Huge rainbow. Matching thermos.
There was absolutely no subtlety involved.
You didn't carry your lunch discreetly in an insulated gray bag.
You marched into the cafeteria carrying a plastic declaration of exactly what television shows and cartoon characters mattered to you.
And then you opened it.
Sandwich in a plastic bag.
Chips.
Maybe a piece of fruit.
A snack cake if you were lucky.
And your drink in the matching thermos that inevitably smelled faintly like whatever had been in it the day before.
There were no reusable stainless steel bento containers coordinated into an aesthetically pleasing lunch system.
It was a sandwich, a bag of Doritos and Rainbow Brite.
We survived.
Back to School Today Is a Different Kind of Expensive
This isn't to say that today's kids don't get excited about going back to school.
They do.
The excitement has just shifted.
The expensive sneakers matter. The right jeans matter. The backpack matters. The water bottle somehow really matters.
And technology has fundamentally changed what students need to bring with them.
A Chromebook or tablet can replace stacks of worksheets, reference books, textbooks and notebooks. Assignments can be distributed, completed, submitted, graded and returned without a single piece of paper changing hands.
From a practical standpoint, it's pretty amazing.
But practicality isn't exactly what makes childhood memories.
Nobody is going to be 50 years old someday and say:
"Remember how exciting it was when we got our school-issued Chromebook charger?"
At least I don't think they will.
Maybe What We Miss Isn't Really the School Supplies
When I look at these old school supplies now, I don't think the nostalgia is really about pencils or notebooks.
It's about how much personality was packed into ordinary things.
We didn't have devices that could be customized with wallpapers, apps and digital stickers.
Instead, our personalities were all over the things we carried.
The Garfield backpack.
The Smurfs pencil case.
The neon Trapper Keeper.
And then you decorated your brown paper textbook cover until there wasn't much brown paper left.
Back-to-school shopping was a chance to reinvent yourself just a tiny bit before walking into a new classroom.
New teacher.
New desk.
New clothes.
Fresh notebook.
Perfectly sharpened pencils.
And absolutely no idea what the next school year was going to bring.
If you experienced back to school time in the 80's...
I want to know what you remember.
What character was on your lunch box?
Did you have a Trapper Keeper?
Did your family make textbook covers out of grocery bags?
And most importantly—what was your first-day-of-school outfit?
Because if your answer involves stirrup pants, an oversized sweatshirt and a side ponytail, we probably would have been friends.
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