Five Things I Learned In Elementary School

Play time is over! This is a continuation of the first post I wrote about the Five Things I Learned Before Elementary School. Elementary school is an important part of growing up because not all, but a lot, of people become actualized during this time. What I mean by this is that they are what they will be at this time in terms of their attitude and personalities.

I know some people will not agree with these Five Things I Learned In Elementary School, specifically 1st grade through the 5th because by the time I was 10 years old the 6th grade became junior high. It was weird. So here goes. Prepare to be reminded of how terrible school was! School is a zoo that you need to experience to be ready for the shitty adult world we all live in.

All Kids Are Not Created Equal

I learned this fast! On your first day, depending on what city you lived in, you'll see all types of kids you'd never seen before. There are kids that are way smaller than they should be, taller than they should be, fatter, skinnier, meaner, smarter, shyer, or dumber. These are not the kids you played with on your street or cousins, or siblings. These are a brand new batch of kids I have never seen before and I was not prepared for that level of anarchy.

Around this time you begin to figure out what kind of friends you are going to make. You can be smart and hang with the dumb kids to feel smarter or hang with the smart kids to feel equal. Rarely will you hang with the kids smarter than you. I was a smart kid but since my home life was for lack of a better phrase, fucking insane, my friends tended to be a mash of everything. I had smart, dumb, bad, good, and insane friends. We knew we weren't equal but all had the ability to float between groups and brought whatever we had to the group. Which was usually anarchy. Outcasts of each group that formed their own group.

Fights Are Different

I had some battles with brothers, cousins, and kids that lived on my Grandmama's street. Those were fun. But fighting kids at school? That's not fun and you could get your ass suspended. I was able to avoid fights for the most part in all those years but there was always some kid that wanted to test the smart, quiet, “gay”, or tiny kid that I was depending on what year it was or what I was wearing.

Fighting at school proved a few things that you need going into adulthood: you could stand up for yourself and how you handled conflict. I saw kids drop down crying when confronted and I saw kids you never expected to even know how to ball their fist take out a kid and ruin his reputation. It also teaches people not to fuck with you. Many parents don't even know that their kids have had fights in school. Unless you believe they really did fall down while playing. Lies! Kids don't play anymore!

Some Kids Are Born Bad

Just like some kids are born gay (we all know that one friend with the gay kid that they don't want to admit is gay) some are born just shitty, bad kids. No amount of hugs and kisses are gonna make this kid good. From kindergarten to the start of the 4th grade I went to school with a lot of kids I'd known from my Grandmama's street but there were also a ton of other kids I'd never seen before or were bused in that were fucking heathens. There was one in particular that hated me and my two friends from 1st to 3rd grade named Sherman.

Sherman was one of those kids too big for his age. He looked like he was in junior high with his thick ass arms and potato head. He had bullied my friends Tony and Damien and one day decided it was my turn not realizing I was already having my ass kicked by my brothers and parents. Another kid was not a challenge which is why I still say I never lost a fight outside of my house. I had to embarrass him in front of everyone one day and he left us all alone. (just checked up on him and found mostly arrests and he was held back about two years) I'm not sure what yo do with these type of kids as kids because everyone likes to wait until criminals ripen before taking action.

Teachers Hate Me

Back in the 80's teachers weren't trying to fuck students all the time like the do now (and if they did Ms Stewart would've gotten it). From my very first day of school I was labeled an enemy of education by Miss Geiser because she hated my brothers so I must be just like them. She discovered that I could read and write years above my education level but I didn't want to keep taking advance placement tests and be her pet project so we stayed on bad terms. I was 5 years old! Let me play! Ms. Davis hated all boys. Miss Leonard was the devil. Miss Webb hated my guts. I was skipped in the 4th grade to the 5th after two weeks only to have the new teacher keep my in the 5th again because it “wasn't fair” to the students I left behind. I had a teachers aid fired for pinching students. Mr. Lee was cool though.

Its a weird sensation being hated by an adult you don't know. I get why I'm being yelled at while at home because I did something stupid or stepped into a minefield while looking at the sky. But when I'm imprisoned from 7:15am till 2:45pm and not sure of what I did wrong it made almost every day suck. I still wouldn't trade it in for anything.

Liking Is A Thing

I was never a boy that went through that “Ew! Girls!” phase. That didn't start until I was about 36. I stepped into school already having had crushes on girls that I grew up around. But these were brand new girls from all over the city and I was falling in love left and right. My first celebrity crush was Maia Brewton from Adventures In Babysitting and I got to meet her because her dad was a cool teacher at my school. But as for actual girls I saw daily it was Ruendy and Marianna. Oh, my god. You don't even know. I would shut down when this girls got near me. Particularly Ruendy because she was touchy.

Around this time you discover of you have a way with the ladies. I didn't. I wouldn't say I was shy so much as I didn't want to say the wrong thing so I'd shut up and appear shy. Till this day I am bad at compliments. I want to tell someone they look nice but am afraid of sounding like I want to bone them. I realized years ago that shy kid translates into gay adult.

Click here for previous Five Things I Learned.