I'm an older GenX and can state that my high school chem teacher was more about checking how we kept our lab notebooks (neat handwriting, correct spelling and notation, no doodles) than about doing any cool practicums. I got a C minus.

I did try making the tear gas recipe from Anarchists Cookbook in the crawlspace under a friend's house. Gas of some sort escaped from a stoppered flask midway through the process - I don't know if it was anything close to actual teargas, but the stench was memorable! We rolled out from under the house gagging and laughing, very happy his mom wasn't home.

We utterly failed in our subsequent attempt to make thermite. In retrospect, maybe that C minus was generous.