No advanced group for Jesus

St. Regis operated by a system. Students used pencils until they entered fourth grade. In fourth grade they were allowed to use pen, but only blue eraser mates. I thought they smelled like blueberries and didn’t like the limitation of brand.

Fourth grade is also the year that official detentions can be issued to students. To this day I don’t know what is worse...to be kicked out of the reading circle when you are five and be forced to sit alone while the rest of the class gets a story or to be given a pink slip that lets you meet at a set point in the week to hold a convention for a half an hour after school with all the school’s bad asses. I’ll take the latter.

Fourth grade marked the beginning of adulthood at St. Regis. In addition to homerooms, the grade changed classes for science, math and English. The homeroom would disperse into three groups called x, y, and z for science, math, and English. The administration claimed that the z group kids were accelerated for English and math and the x and y groups were the same. Nobody bought that bullshit.

It is sad that we were all placed before the age of ten. X, y, z stood for stupid, spupider, and stupidest. I got to be in the Y group. My friends were in Z group. I sucked at math, but not at English. The grouping system never really worked in my opinion. Most people who excel at English are not that great in math. Z group kids got all the extras and the X group kids really were a whole lot more retarded than the Y group.

X group was designed for the fetal alcohol syndrome kids. They really should have got the extra perks. The smart kids get the perks and the stupid kids....well they just become cops one day. All the x kids I run into are police officers. This could be a generalization.

X and Y group got the shaft in all areas, except for gym class, the only class that really counts. Due to the high volume of dorks in the Z group, the few cool kids (my friends of course) that were in Z suffered endless days of gym periods that lacked the competitive drive X and Y possessed. When you are regular at math and English, you better hope that you are not picked last for kickball.

I wish gym class was a class that continued with you as an adult. Gym class rules. I want it everyday.

Leaving homeroom to swing with your letter class went down until lunch time. Another transition of fourth grade-the reality of no snack time. I struggled with that because I really like to eat. My mom would laugh at me because I would smuggle granola bars in my bookbag. This caused detentions to arise periodically as a nun would find me pressed against the hallway wall between classes with my head shoved in my bookbag. I wouldn’t survive living in a third world country. I can’t go two hours without eating something.

After lunch, you go back to your homeroom for history and religion. This was a stellar opportunity for the z kids to show off in history. Religion was different though and I always got A’s in religion. Luckily, there is no advanced group for Jesus.