The Top 10 School Grades

There are 12 grades of school depending on where you live. Some are better than others. These are the best ones!

#10 Sixth Grade

I liked sixth grade. Many different things happened that year: there was a death in the family, a car accident, a trip to the hospital, and my mermaid mother went manic and held up an underwater convenience store, resulting in a four-hour standoff with an orca tactical unit and 25 dolphins being declared casualties. But hey, sixth grade was pretty fun. That’s the strange thing about childhood: your entire world can apparently collapse around you and you’ll still remember that year fondly because somebody made you laugh during lunch. Sixth grade was also when friendships became enormously important and every minor social interaction became potentially humiliating. You could survive an aquatic hostage crisis before breakfast and still spend the afternoon devastated because somebody didn’t sit next to you in the cafeteria.

Plus, my sixth-grade science teacher was amazing! She had three arms and spoke exclusively in cryptic riddles, which made ordinary lessons unnecessarily difficult. Ask her why leaves are green and she’d whisper, “Three sisters drink from the sun, yet only one remembers the color of spring.” Great. Thanks. Is that going to be on the test? Nobody knew where the third arm came from, and asking about it only produced another riddle. Still, she made science memorable, and that’s what matters. Someday future generations will enter sixth grade and discover the same wonderful combination of friendship, embarrassment, science projects and teachers who may or may not be supernatural entities. Hopefully they’ll avoid the underwater convenience-store incident. Otherwise, sixth grade is pretty fun.

#9 Seventh Grade

Seventh grade was awesome, or at least better than sixth grade. I got straight A’s except for ONE B, which was BULLSHIT because I swear I turned that assignment in on time and my English teacher called me a liar. Decades could pass, civilizations could rise and fall, and I will still maintain that Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was owes me an A. Otherwise, I liked my teachers and the school was beautiful. Unfortunately, many of my friends from sixth grade still hated me because of what my mermaid mother did at the underwater convenience store. Several of the 25 dolphins involved were apparently their pets, making parent-teacher conferences extremely uncomfortable. Somehow my mother’s case was dismissed, and one afternoon she got drunk, wandered into the school and vomited everywhere. I was bullied quite a bit after that. But none of this bothered me as much as that fucking B in English.

The best part of seventh grade was that I believed I had my first girlfriend. Looking back, I may have fundamentally misunderstood the situation. She was clearly an adult woman, had numerous tattoos, smoked unfiltered cigarettes and spoke only Russian. Whenever we met, she demanded money from me, and when I said “I love you,” she laughed. At thirteen I interpreted all of these signals as evidence of a passionate international romance. In retrospect, I’m not entirely certain she knew we were dating. Eventually she went to jail for reasons nobody explained to me, and I think we broke up after that. She never officially said anything, but the prison made scheduling dates difficult. Seventh grade taught me about academics, relationships and forgiveness. Except for my English teacher. I turned that assignment in on time.

#8 Ninth Grade

Ninth grade was my favorite. I don’t know why. A lot was happening in everyone’s personal lives, which apparently caused many people to hate me, but overall I remember it fondly. We even had a school trip where students were allowed to go skydiving, an activity that should probably never appear on a permission slip for fourteen-year-olds. Unfortunately, the supervising teacher had been drinking and the entire excursion became a disaster. Students landed in trees, fields and places that were definitely not designated landing zones. Several ended up in a special recovery class afterward, but they succeed. The teacher was arrested and eventually went to the same prison as my mermaid mother, which must have made for an awkward reunion. “What are you in for?” “Skydiving incident.” “Twenty-five dolphins.” “Jesus Christ.”

It bothers me when people say ninth grade is the worst because plenty of people have good and happy times in ninth grade. Apart from the skydiving catastrophe, mine was pretty good. But the absolute best thing about ninth grade was that the school was at a different elevation, so there was lower air pressure. Other students remember freshman year because they made new friends, attended dances or discovered new interests. I remember barometric conditions. Every morning I’d arrive, inhale that beautifully reduced atmospheric pressure and think, This is education. Unfortunately, the skydiving incident also left me permanently afraid of airplanes, which somewhat undermined my appreciation for altitude. Still: good teachers, new experiences, lower air pressure. 9th grade was pretty good. I don’t know why.

#7 Third Grade

Third grade was probably the best. My teacher was the best part because he was 158 years old and had personally experienced approximately every historical event we’d ever studied. Most days he entertained us with stories about World War I, which he always called “The Great War.” I assumed this meant it had been great times for everyone, although his stories suggested otherwise. He’d begin a lesson about multiplication and somehow end up saying, “Dear God, we suffered. There was never enough water. I watched three friends die of thirst in that POW camp. The others never came home.” Then he’d stare silently through the classroom window for several minutes while twenty-eight third-graders waited for him to explain long division. Eventually he’d describe some impossible escape involving hiding among bodies and digging his way to freedom. But guess what? He lived to teach us third grade. Inspirational.

Nowadays teachers apparently aren’t allowed to tell such fun and interesting stories, and they certainly don’t keep a rusty 1917 German Luger sitting inside a glass display case beside the pencil sharpener. He claimed it was an artifact from the war and insisted its mere presence “maintained order,” although nobody was entirely sure whether he was joking. Third grade was still a good year, even though I only had one friend, and I’m pretty sure he might have been imaginary. His name changed occasionally, nobody else remembered seeing him, and teachers kept asking why I was talking to an empty chair during lunch. But he was always there when I needed him, which is more than I can say for most people. A 158-year-old war veteran, an imaginary best friend and multiplication tables. Third grade was good.

#6 First Grade

First grade was the worst grade ever! Our teacher was unbelievably stingy. She wouldn’t even allow my wet nurse to attend school with me, meaning I had to somehow survive the entire school day without breastfeeding. I considered this a serious violation of my rights. Even worse, our teacher constantly shouted “CHILDREN ARE WORKERS!” At least that’s how I remember it. She probably actually said, “Children, let’s get to work,” but memory has transformed her into a nineteenth-century factory owner. We spent an enormous amount of time doing sewing and craft projects, and eventually I became convinced that we were secretly manufacturing Nike clothing. Every morning twenty terrified first-graders sat down at little sewing stations while our teacher inspected production. If your stitches weren’t straight, she’d sigh disappointedly and tell you to try again. The sweatshop had standards.

Our schedule was incredibly strict, bathroom accidents happened frequently, and the classroom consequently always smelled a little like pee. It was the worst year of my life. Fortunately, I transferred to another school before second grade because my family needed to move closer to my mother’s new ocean. Mermaid housing is apparently extremely dependent on ocean zoning. Leaving that school was the best thing that could have happened to me: no more sewing quotas, no more suspicious athletic apparel and no more teacher shouting about the dignity of labor. I could finally pursue a normal elementary education, at least until my mother eventually committed the underwater convenience-store incident several years later. But that’s the future. At the time, all I knew was that first grade was terrible. Naturally, it ranks #6.

#5 Twelfth Grade

I feel like twelfth grade could probably be awesome, mostly because of graduation. You get to make all kinds of final memories with your friends before you never see them again. There’s also apparently a thing called “prom,” although I’m still not entirely sure what that’s about. From what I understand, everyone dresses like they’re attending an awards ceremony, takes hundreds of photographs and then stands inside a decorated gymnasium while music plays. Afterward you have several choices: graduate, don’t graduate, maybe go to college, possibly get a job. I wouldn’t know. I never went to twelfth grade. So I cannot personally confirm whether any of these traditions actually exist. Everything I know about senior year comes from movies and people who successfully completed high school.

My educational career changed during eleventh grade when I watched Risky Business with my best friend Kylo the Goat and completely misunderstood the lesson of the movie. I decided that turning my parents’ house into some kind of elaborate Risky Business-themed entrepreneurial party would be an excellent idea. I made a big mistake. The plan collapsed almost immediately, adults became involved, and afterward I stopped attending school. So no, I did not do the twelfth grade. I eventually earned my GED a few years later, which means everything worked out educationally even without experiencing prom or whatever else happens during senior year. Still, from what I’ve heard, twelfth grade is a joke. That’s enough evidence for me to confidently rank an experience I never had at #5.

#4 Eighth Grade

Eighth grade terrified me, but it was also the year I got to start over. After everything involving my mother—the underwater convenience store, the dolphins and several additional incidents my father refused to discuss—Dad decided it would be healthier if I changed schools. So I entered eighth grade as the mysterious new student, and somehow everybody loved me. I made a huge group of friends and became convinced that I had many girlfriends, although looking back, most of these girls probably thought we were simply sitting together at lunch. I didn’t understand relationships very well. If a girl borrowed my pencil, I assumed things were getting serious. If she returned it sharpened, we were practically engaged. Several of my alleged girlfriends eventually began dating other people, which I interpreted as complicated breakups despite nobody remembering that we’d been together.

Eighth grade gave me enough challenges to grow while still being considerably more fun than high school. My friends and I had good times, graduation was exciting, and for once my mother’s behavior didn’t completely destroy my social life. She did have another major incident, this time at a senior citizens’ center where she apparently became enraged during bingo and caused thousands of dollars in property damage. Fortunately, none of my classmates were particularly upset because their grandparents mostly went to a different senior center. That’s how middle-school loyalty works. By graduation I’d survived a new school, several imaginary romantic relationships and another Mermaid Mom criminal investigation. It was the best time of my life. Graduation was pretty fun.

#3 Fourth Grade

For some reason I still don’t understand, my parents sent me to a military school in Bulgaria for fourth grade. They said it was “so I could have fun.” I spoke absolutely no Bulgarian, so I had no idea what anyone was saying, made almost no friends and learned absolutely nothing at all. Every morning my teacher would stand in front of the class shouting instructions while I nodded respectfully and copied whatever the student beside me was doing. I couldn’t tell whether my teacher was good or bad. I thought he might have been a war criminal, but he could also have been a good person. I don’t know. Maybe he was simply an unusually intense elementary-school teacher. Without understanding the language, “Please open your mathematics workbook” and “I have committed atrocities forbidden by international law” sounded equally plausible to me.

The most annoying part was that my parents arranged for me to attend a school in Bulgaria but somehow failed to arrange where I was supposed to live. There had apparently been a misunderstanding involving a boarding program that did not actually exist. For several days I kept showing up at an ancient church after school because everyone assumed someone else was responsible for me. Eventually the church staff realized what had happened and unofficially took care of me while the adults sorted everything out. I also wore the same military-school uniform so constantly that I don’t remember changing clothes; by spring I suspect the uniform had become biologically attached to me. Still, I came through. I survived Bulgaria, learned virtually nothing, and returned home feeling better. Naturally, this makes fourth grade #3.

#2 Fifth Grade

The fifth grade was the best because I had perfect grades, great friends and amazing teachers. I was finally back in a country where I knew the language so I was able to talk to people and listen to teachers. Also I had a home again and food every day. One of the most awesome, cool and amazing things about 5th grade is that you are now old enough to legally drink alcohol. The law is that if your GPA falls to D or lower you are never allowed to drink alcohol anymore for the rest of your life. You will have an unfortunate life as you live and die sober. But if you do good you will have the opportunity to drink all you want for like an hour every day. At my school we called it “happy hour” and it replaced lunch. There was no more food for that lunch time, just a wide variety of craft beets. Nobody drinks boring domestic beers, and everyone has a chocolate bar. When I signed up for the “happy hour”, it was September. Three months later it was December. The beers just kept getting better and better. Then they gave us shots of vodka all the time in “happy hour.” I picked it up and loved it, but some of the other children didn’t like it as much. Fifth grade was so much fun.

#1 Kindergarten

In kindergarten, you will use sleep and play with toys. There are no serious tests, almost no homework and very few expectations beyond learning your letters and not eating the paste. It’s basically the perfect educational system. This is completely unlike fourth grade, one of the worst years of my life, which I know isn’t the grade we’re currently discussing but apparently I still need to process Bulgaria. I was confused. I was hungry. I was the weird, stinky kid who couldn’t speak Bulgarian. I was attacked by wolves one night while sleeping next to the church. Nobody mentioned wolves when my parents described Bulgarian military school as something I would do “for fun.” I still don’t know why my parents did that to me. Anyway: kindergarten!

Kindergarten was so much better because there is for making friends easily. The teacher basically forces everyone to interact until eventually you have friends, and little kids haven’t yet developed the complicated social machinery required to properly ostracize one another. They’ll play blocks with almost anybody. You could accidentally terrify another kid’s cat one afternoon and the next morning they’d still ask you to join them at the Lego table. That’s beautiful. Kindergarten is the best time to be young, and the best time to be young is when you are under seven years old. You get naps. You get toys. You get snacks. Nobody sends you to Bulgaria. There are generally no wolves. I will continue to love kindergarten until death.