Graduating kindergarten was as exciting as it was terrifying, considering that we’d be leaving our isolated classroom and going to “big kid school”. Sure, there’s has been some hair pulling and name-calling, but nothing out of the ordinary for four and five year olds. At this age, we’re pretty happy socializing and childish arguments are forgotten by the next day. Of course, all of this changes as soon as we’re dropped into an environment with less supervision a.k.a public school.
Grade one is easy as your ABC and 123’s and recess is the real deal at school. You gather your friends and go off and play tag and cops and robbers (or dollies if you’re a girly girl). It’s all swell and not to different from Kindergarten, except that there’s other kids now. Lots of other kids. They don’t want you where they are but you don’t care because you adore the “big kids” and can’t wait to be one. Of course, they behave a lot differently than you do. They don’t all share, or play or even talk to everyone they know. Some do, but seeing kids act so strangely scares you and all of your six year old classmates to pieces.
Eventually, you realize that there’s no way to stay friends with everyone you ever knew from Kindergarten. It’s a sad, but a necessary part of childhood and growing up. Not much later, you realize that not everyone likes you, and some kids may even go out of their way to show they don’t like you. Without an entire class behind you, there’s a guarantee that one of these mean kids will get you somehow. Whether it’s a push, a thrown rock or a cruel nickname it sticks and teaches you. Your first real bullying even doesn’t even have to be a huge event, but it forces you to prepare for more.
Sticks and stone may break your bones, but words will never hurt you. You’ve heard it again and again, from parents, guardians, teacher, the principal and even some of the nicer “big kids”. By fourth grade, you also know that it’s a lie. It’s hard to remember how everyone used to be friends even if it was only four years ago. That’s a very long time. You’ve probably seen nearly every kind of bullying there is. Glasses are more of a liability than anything else, same with anything that separates you from “normal”. If you don’t fit in, you bend over backwards just to get kicked in the face. The teachers can only do so much, and what they can’t see won’t hurt them. It still hurts you though.
They’ve had just as much, if not more than you have. Fatso, Four-Eyes, Freak. Everyone has a label and there are cliques, ones that wale on the weaker groups and individuals. No one’s safe, and there’s new insults flying around. Those “bad words” that the kid with older brothers or sisters taught everyone catch and stick like glue because face it, no one’s made of rubber. It doesn’t matter that those words are forbidden and their meanings are pretty much vague at best. They get tossed around like the Nerds’ inhaler. Grade six and you’re still waiting to climb the golden rungs to “big kid” status and be untouchable like those eighth graders. The teachers are fed up and suggest that everyone learns to be mature and talk to them or the principal. It’s unthinkable and forbidden, and so the bullying continues.
Grade seven with one year to go before elementary stardom. Everyone has changed so much but you still know every face and name in the class even if some of them don’t pretend you exist. If the hormones haven’t already started stirring the pot more, they’re starting now. It’s easier to get angry and to get hurt. For some, it’s even harder to stay under the radar of those difference-seeking lunatics who crave a reason to take you down. If you’re not X, that evil little variable you learned can stand for anything in math class, you’re basically screwed. We’re all screwed.
You’ve survived eight years of torture. Torturing yourself to jam the peg into that ever changing hole. Now it’s Grade eight! You’re a “big kid”! A hero among mere mortal children, who are so babyish and tiny. Deep down, you realize those babies are way happier than you are. That they look up to you and adore you. It bothers you that they look at all of you, even the bullies, the same way. You can’t help but wonder if the last batch of “big kids” were the only ones that were all good. Even you can’t see past that golden glow yet.
Reality sinks in that you only have a year to be king of the hill, and after that you’re a “minor-niner”. None of you are worthy of the worship the grade ones bestow on you because no one is perfect. You’ve grown up enough to realize that. Bullying still continues and becomes worse as we all become scared of the future, and pretending we don’t care makes us anxious. Grade eight graduation rolls around. Everyone pretends that they’re all one big, happy class like they use to be in kindergarten. Even you do, because these are the people you’ve grown up with so far. You’ll never see half of them again and you want them to see that you’re better than them and still whole, even if you really aren’t.
When high school starts, you’ll know better than to blindly admire those “big kids”.
