Last Updated on May 23, 2025 by Matt Staff
Step back in time and explore what made up the overall aesthetic of those 1960s and 1970s schools. These photos are intended to capture the time period when slide rules too priority over calculators, teachers wielded their wooden pointer sticks, and a sole globe was able to quickly turn every geography lesson into a fun adventure. Journey now through 20 vintage images that show just how the ’60s and ’70s education looked, sounded, and ultimately felt for a generation that was poised on the brink of such vast change.
1. Studying was just as hard back in 1969
2. The year is 1969 and it’s somewhere in Massachusetts, where a legend teaches his class with mastery
3. A French school in Morocco during the late ’60s
4. Taking a test in high school during the ’70s, with the bubblegum too
5. A high school business classroom in the seventies
6. Some high school students having fun for the camera back in the ’70s
7. Four high school girls back in the 1970s
8. Now that’s a serious typing class back in the ’60s
9. Some lads far too frightened to talk to the girls at their school dance
10. English lesson in a Soviet school in the 1970s
11. A high school classroom in Boston in 1975
12. Strawberry Point class photo back in 1975
13. A classroom in Coconut Grove out in Miami in 1972
14. A school classroom back in 1975
15. A second grade class in Vestal, NY in 1965
16. Some young ladies in a typing class at Vincentian Institute High School in Albany, NY, 1970
17. A Romanian classroom in the ’60s
18. The vintage energy is strong in this class photo from the ’70s
19. The year is 1975, and some 6th grade students learn to floss during a public health program at their school in North Carolina
20. A classroom filled to the brim out in Manchester, UK during the seventies
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As these vintage snapshots reveal, schools in the 1960s and 1970s were filled with chalkboards, film projectors, and a spirit of change that reflected a rapidly shifting world. If you’re fascinated by how the past shaped everyday life, don’t miss 20 Vintage Photos of Camping Life (1920s-1970s) or 35 Vintage Photos from the Early 1970s.