At some point during second grade, somewhere between RJ and Alan, my best friend was Steven. (I had a lot of best friends that year. …
Second Grade: How to Paint with Toothpicks
Third Grade: How to be Poor (on Scholastic Book Day)
In third grade, we all got a copy of The Scholastic Book Catalog. This was a very big deal. Let me try to explain why. …
Fourth Grade: How to Sink your Small Business
In my younger years, I was a cartoonist. Every night, after dinner, I would sharpen a few pencils and grab a stack of long, 8×14 …
Dismissal: How to Survive an Accident
To understand this story, you need to understand the layout of my elementary school. Which is pretty easy to understand: the school was a single, …
Fifth Grade: How Not to Decorate a Sugar Cookie
Fifth grade was the last year of elementary school. Which meant fifth grade was my last chance to win The Annual Sugar Cookie Decorating Contest. …
Sixth Grade: How to Crush your First Middle-School Halloween Costume
In sixth grade, I started middle school. All the adults in my life told me not to worry about it. They said: “You’ll enjoy the …
Seventh Grade: How to Destroy Your Promising Career in Politics
As soon as I learned that my middle school had a student government, I knew that I would run for office. I had been told …
Eighth Grade: How to Interrogate your Whiteness (when you’re young and white and no one’s asking you to, even though they should)
Mr. B was one of my all-time great teachers. He taught seventh grade U.S. history. His class was a parade of fun, fascinating projects. That …
Cellar Door?
Context Some have suggested that “cellar door” is the most beautiful phrase in the English language: Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door …
Freshman: How to Break THE RULES
The Rules began in prayer. I wasn’t a very religious kid, at least not in the traditional sense. Mom and I were a certain kind …