Many a friend of mine has inquired about, applied to, been accepted into, or otherwise harbored a strong curiosity about Teaching for America following the dreaded G-Day. Having secured spots in Teach for America, these aspiring teachers are deployed to a particular school and ordered to teach a particular grade.
This is, of course, the part that interests me the most. Because, like many of you, I went to school. And I know what it was like. I remember what first grade was like, and I remember what fifth grade was like, and I believe, believe it or not, that they are different enough experiences to warrant substantial consideration when choosing what grade to teach.
So, without further ado, I would like to present a running guide of the many different grades in the elementary school world, in order to give you a fair and adequate warning before you descend upon the land of reading labs and PTA meetings, the land of jump rope and the let’s-throw-rocks-at-each-other-and-see-what-happens game. This is known in some circles, as The Land Before Middle School. In others, it’s called … Hell.
I remember first grade as a very confusing period of my life. So, I thought as I walked through the gates with my Crash Dummies lunchbox and my red galoshes, this is school. I asked the first adult I saw, of whom I was naturally terrified, “Is this where I’m going to get a learnin’?” I soon learned that yes, this is where I was going to learn. I learned a lot of games whose names I have since forgotten, but which mostly involved chasing and beating each other. I learned that phonics was the most boring and worst subject in the history of subjects. Ever. I learned that, if you did not join in and make fun of the fat kid who pooped his pants, the other kids would find something — and believe me, kids are especially good at this — to mock about you, as well.
The passage into second grade is usually a step up, as kids are buoyed by that one year of experience and the fact that they now have smaller kids to beat up. This is, of course, the first time in which you fall in love with your teacher. The teacher, however, usually should avoid reciprocating.
Third grade is when you fail to realize that you spend anywhere from three to six hours a day with the same teacher every day for one year. While the realization may not be outright, on some level, kids do start to get violent. I remember this period as a time of many fights, in which we tried to imitate Street Fighter moves and became greatly disappointed when we failed to produce a Hadouken.
Then comes, of course, the point in the fourth grade where things begin to get awkward between the boys and the girls. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the annual dances, where the guys will all stand on one side of the gymnasium, the girls will all stand on the other, and each group will slowly “sip punch” from their long-empty red cups while everyone stares at each other. The ice, in much need of being broken, is thick enough to make Ithaca proud. But thank God for ingenious chaperones. At one of our dances, the chaperones waited for a couple of hours, letting the awkwardness achieve stratospheric levels to the point where it reached near combustion. Late into the night, the chaperones brought out an enormous plate of cookies, at which point everyone in the gymnasium, thankful to have something else to focus on besides their cups and shoelaces, descended unto the cookies like Soviets unto warm bread. But, when we all reached the table, the chaperones stopped us and solemnly informed us that the only way we would get a cookie is if we approached the table with a date.
It worked. Suddenly, everyone had more game than Fes from That 70’s Show (have you seen who the guy has dated?). I approached this pretty girl with a ponytail and, without hesitation, asked her to be my date. To my stomach’s delight, she accepted! We got our cookies, munched on them happily, and never saw each other again.
That was a nice first date.
By fifth grade, the smart kids finally start realizing that maybe, just maybe, they might be a little too smart for their own good. So there was this friend of mine, right? And this friend of mine, well, he wore orthopedic shoes for a little while because his arches were crooked. So these orthopedic shoes, they were awful-looking shoes. They were big and black and clomped everywhere this friend of mine went. And some wit, well, decided to be especially original and started calling this friend of mine Frankenstein. The other kids, of course, thought this was the cat’s pajamas. So they all start calling my friend Frankenstein. And my friend, well, he finally realized that he was a bit too smart for his own good, but he had to learn this the hard way. Because you see, when kids started calling him Frankenstein, this friend of mine got mad not because the others were calling him Frankenstein, but because they were giving him the wrong nickname. “You see,” this friend of mine explained to them. “You’re calling me Frankenstein because of the shoes. But Frankenstein didn’t wear the shoes. Frankenstein was the doctor. You should be calling me The Frankenstein Monster.” When the kids stopped calling him Frankenstein and started calling him that weirdo Frankenstein, this friend of mine realized that he might be a little too smart for his own good.
The rest of fifth grade is comprised mostly of fart jokes and looking forward to a graduation where kids wear clip-on ties and everyone looks adorable in the mom’s eyes and ridiculous in the dad’s. And everyone knows that they should cherish it, because it’s the last time the kid will be a kid and not a smug, passive-aggressive, rebellious, sullen, middle-school-going bastard. Because, if there’s something that middle school is good at, it’s at turning kids into hellbeasts. Those of you who are teaching middle school and above, well, it is beyond my ability to save you. It may not even be up to God at this point.
You should be assuaged, however, by the hope that — if you are to survive this experience — in the future, perhaps those who will Teach for America will Teach about You.