The Pun Also Rises

"Bak 2 Skool Tips"

   Well, August is over and parents are making plans to have lives in the middle of the day again, which can only mean one thing: It's time for the school year to start up again. Children often have a hard time with school, not necessarily for academic reasons, but just due to the whole atmosphere, which consists largely of nitrogen. In order to help them out, I'd like to provide some tips for every grade, so no matter where in your education you or your children are, this information may help you.

Kindergarten: Bring a small packet of sugar to school with you. When it's time for art, dump the sugar into the paste before eating it. This will make it taste much better, and display your refinement.

1st grade: Teachers in first grade often reward improvement. What this means is that you should be sure to do badly for the first two weeks. Then slowly start doing better, and everyone will praise you. Watch the cookies and gold stars just keep rolling in.

2nd grade: Ignore everything they tell you in history class. Just trust me on this. When you grow up, people who talk about history will always start their sentences with "Contrary to what you may have learned in second grade history class..." You'll save yourself a lot of time if you don't bother learning it in the first place.

3rd grade: They should have magnets in your science class by now. Magnets are really cool. Convince your teacher to keep teaching about magnets. Acquire as many magnets as you possibly can. Experiment with them; dump them in your silverware drawer, stick them to anything metal, and attach them to people wearing metal whenever possible.

4th grade: Multiplying by 10 adds a zero, by 5 is half of that, and by 9 means the digits always add up to nine. If you don't know the answer, write "x", and tell your teacher that x is a variable that stands for the answer to that particular question.

5th grade: This is a good year to be out sick instead of in school. There are hundeds of hundreds of diseases in the world, and many of them will make good excuses not to show up. Just be careful not to give excuses like "ovarian cancer" if you're a boy.

6th grade: Congratulations, you're at the top of the lower school! You probably think you've accomplished something, but think again. Next year you may well be at the bottom of the heap in a new place. Get used to it; that's life.

7th grade: Somewhere out there, there's a kid who enjoyed Junior High. The rest of you will find that kids are at their meanest and stupidest, aided by the onset of puberty. Just try to survive 7th grade; you can't really hope for much more than that.

8th grade: Somewhere out there, there's a kid who is enjoying Junior High. Find him, insult him, bully him, humiliate him, and torture him until he's miserable. If you didn't enjoy 7th grade, there's no reason anyone else should either.

9th grade: Welcome to High School. Just about now, colleges start caring about your grades. This means that just about now, you should start caring about your grades too.

10th grade: Dissection in biology class is a chance to see which of the girls know how to have fun and which of them will say "Oh, gross!" at everything.

11th grade: Time to take the SATs. Bring a loud crunchy food like pretzels or chips, which will both calm your nerves and rattle your competition.

12th grade: If you've already gotten into college, this year is essentially a bonus round. Think of it as an extended summer vacation where many of your friends happen to gather in a classroom to hang out.

Teachers: Good luck. If your students take my advice, you're going to need it.

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    Seth Brown is a local humor writer who has just blown any chance he had at getting substitute teaching work. His website is www.RisingPun.com.

All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown. If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint it, please contact me first.