Grading Grades

I want to spend a little time going through the phases of our scholastic grading system.

First, there’s daycare. This is for humans that haven’t learned how to walk yet, learning to walk, or are walking. Daycare. I suppose there’s no such thing as nightcare. That is the parent’s job. Unless of course the parent or parents is a nighttime DJ. But that wouldn’t be deemed matriculation into a nightcare program. That would be babysitting when the services come to the parent’s home. Also, it is called babysitting even if the young person is no longer a baby. A kid could technically be babysat till they’re 12 years old. You’d at least think they could start calling it kidsitting and then later pre-teensitting.

Nonetheless, if we are primarily looking at the successive stages of schooling at a business outside of your house, daycares should have graduations. While daycare is still not a school, it is the first of many levels. Each tiny human will get a white mortarboard and gown (white insinuates innocence since they aren’t guilty humans yet). They can walk to a space in the middle of a room and receive their daycare diploma. Yet, if the kid cannot make it on their own to the space in the middle of the room, then they’re not ready to graduate daycare. There’s no shame in a toddler falling down while walking. All he or she needs to do is pick themselves up and make it to the daycare owner to shake their hand. On top of that, they will have to know their full name (first, middle, last, and any type of “junior” addendum) when it’s announced. If the kid doesn’t get up and seems confused when his or her name is called, then they’re obviously not ready to enter pre-school.

Pre-school. It’s a school but it’s still before school hence the prefix “pre.” But there are some basic lessons to learn in this school that is not a school. I suppose that they may have some type of graduation after you finish this level successfully. This is now when you are eligible to attend grade school. However, there is a buffer between pre-grade school and actual grade school. It’s called kindergarten. Basic lessons elaborate a fair bit since kindergarten is a step above pre-school. Yet, you only enter an official grade the following year. It’s called 1^st grade. I don’t understand why kindergarten cannot be the official “first” grade. Apparently, small humans are not qualified to be in a grade till two years after pre-school. Yet, kindergarten does exist inside of a grade school institution. And most of the time, they do hold kindergarten graduations. It’s like kindergarten is a 5 year-old middle school between pre-school and grade school. But I still don’t understand why this “grade” has a different name all together.

The official grades are 1^st through 8^th grades. At the same time, this span of your life can be divided into two separate categories – lower school and middle school. Lower school is usually 1^st to 4^th grades. Middle school is 5^th to 8^th grades. Is this necessary? Can little people just go to fucking school? Why does it have to be lower and middle? In that case, do lower schools have graduations? If they must demarcate it from middle school, then graduation is warranted. If you are in the 5^th grade, you have so far lived through daycare, pre-school, kindergarten, lower school, and presently in middle school. You have been through a lot by age 9. And once you hit 12 or 13, you will need to go through another graduation. That’s the 8^th grade graduation ceremony. You must graduate 8^th grade to go to high school. Not higher school. Just high school. You would think after lower and middle, you’d be in the higher echelon. At any rate, high school does have grades. 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th. However, the consensus generally doesn’t call these grades numerically. It’s freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior.

So you’re in a new school and are an official fresh man. What about a fresh woman? Is there something against calling 13 or 14 year-old females that? Either way, this is a misleading nomenclature. A new teenager is hardly a man or a woman. Because then in a couple of years, they’ll be labelled a junior. This is backwards. Junior would be a much more appropriate label for a person in their first year of high school. If anything, a freshman or freshwoman should be in the 12^th and final grade. Not senior. You go from being a junior to senior after a 3 month summer break. Now all a sudden you’re fast-forwarding to the retirement age. I get it. You’re a senior of the high school itself. Still, you’re not senior shit at age 17 or 18. Nonetheless, you go through your fifth graduation when you finish high school.

And then, if you go to college, you sort of get the same high school grade levels. But you rarely ever use them to designate your collegiate journey. You may say, “I’m a freshman in college.” But for the most part, you’re gonna start referring to your path in years. “I’m in my second year of college. In my third year, in my fourth year, etc.” While college is supposedly set up as a four-year curriculum, people can take as long as they want before finishing their degree requirements. It makes more sense to tell people what year you’re in. You can even say how many credits you have left before graduation. Regardless, grades and substitute names for grades are superfluous at this point in your life. You just want to get to your 7^th scholastic graduation. You’ll have diplomas all over your house.

But shit, that doesn’t have to be the end. You can still get a graduate degree and a doctorate (PHD). And if 9 diplomas aren’t enough for you, then just go back to school for another undergraduate program and you can even it out with 10 different diplomas. You’ll have more diplomas than rooms in your house. Yet, all your framed degrees will be certified proof that you have endured and survived the first three and a half decades of your life in the school system’s gradings. Congratulations! You deserve them!