Surely any kid who went to only one high school is going to have, at the time, thought it was perfectly normal because that's all they knew? I think our school had 4 floors in both buildings
It had two buildings. Is that difficult to understand or what? Historically they were separate schools built close together. (Probably a boys and girls school but I don't remember)
Each had a main part that was a single corridor on 4 floors with classrooms off it. There were extra bits that weren't part of the main corridor, too, which weren't as tall, and the main part also wasn't all classrooms; in one building the bottom floor was, I think, just toilets and changing rooms, then admin offices, and only then were there classrooms, but I can't remember for sure. In the other building there were 3 complete floors of classrooms and I think one half floor, with the rest of the bottommost floor occupied by a gym.
"Normal" is a funny word - it's means something that's completely relative to you and your experiences. So for me, I'd ask:
People that went to high school with only 1 floor, did you think that was a bit odd?
People live different lives, normal means different things to different people. Let this be a good lesson to learn: Where you went to school, what your family cooks for dinner, if you drive/walk/take the train to work/school, if you speak one language - none of what you know as "normal" is normal to someone else. More importantly, someone else who experienced different things are not "odd" and those things are also not "odd" - they are just as normal to them as yours are to you. People aren't different, odd, or weird - they're just people. They just had different experiences. Obviously I'm alluding to things, but generally even the most base thoughts like this I like to reinforce that idea.
A better way to ask that may have been upvoted would have been "People who attended high school with 3+ stories, what was that like compared to a 1-story high school?" and give an example of how you only experienced a 1 story.
For me, so many crowded stairwells between classes. You learned what floors had the best bathrooms.
My middle school was bigger than my grade school. The first high school I attended was smallish but it had a lower student population, so that wasn't odd. The second high school I attended was much bigger, but it had a larger student population, so that wasn't odd either.
My immediate thought was to a book series Sideways Stories from Wayside School, about a school that was built sideways so instead of being like 16 rooms side by side, it was a skyscraper.
No, most schools I knew through friends or after school clubs where 3+ floors. I guess single floor schools would have seemed odd to me because everything is so far apart.