The Master Guide to Surviving 8th Grade

Ah, 8th grade. The year of unfair stress and chaotically proportional schedules. 

Hi, My name’s Alex, and this is my guide to surviving the 8th grade school year. (8th grade is super easy though, you don’t even need this.)

1. Don’t stress the SHSAT! They are meaningless tests that have no merit at all. It’s not like you’re taking a test to decide your whole future when you're 13! That would be insane! You should study, though. What’s that? You don’t know how? Well that makes no sense. In fact, you had exactly 2 months of 6th grade to get used to it and learn how to do it! Balancing cell theory and mathematical equations should be a piece of cake for under-developed 13 year old minds who have a short attention span due to covid learning. Stop complaining!

2. Homework should be a breeze, so don’t even worry about that! It’s not like teachers are giving 8th graders projects to do with minimal to no instructions! It’s not like teachers are giving students huge projects that they must independently time manage after 2 years of remote learning! That would be so stupid, especially since some of them are ditigal projects and some students have no or faulty tech at home! That would be so unfair! Afterall, 447 is a very inclusive school with kind students and project-based learning instead of tests because some students don’t excel at those. It would be so stupid to 

judge students on the same project when some have different learning needs! Right?

3. The new grading system isn’t confusing at all! 8th graders are students who are quick to adapt and overcome change! We don’t respond negatively to that. Besides, it’s so easy to understand that a 2 out of 4 isn’t a 50, it’s an 85, since 8th graders weren’t raised on the out of 100 system! And 4’s are just so easy to get! Teachers DON’T have a secret select number of 4’s they give out per assignment. That would be crazy, afterall, some people might exceed more on one assignment than the other and it would be inconvenient to give them the grade they don’t deserve. Don’t you agree?

I sincerely hope you realize all of that was sarcastic. Unless you’re a 6th grader, then that’s understandable. My point of this article is not to bash 447, but to prove that the DOE system is extremely flawed. I have never been more stressed in my life with highschools and school work. It’s so stupid to expect an immature 13 year old to decide a high-school based on their preferences, and dare I say identity, when we have no clue what those are! I have no idea what I will like in even 1 year, much less for the rest of my highschool experience. I used to love drawing with a passion. Now I much prefer writing as a hobby. Things change very fast, even more for an undeveloped mind. I don’t even know my gender, much less what I want to major in in the last 2 years of high school. I didn’t even know ONE high-school I wanted to go to till a couple weeks ago, much less 12. And, forgive me, but MS.447 isn’t really helping. I know, scandalous. The schoolwork is just piling on the stress, and the new grading system isn’t helping. It’s a bit annoying, and I’m still trying to get used to going to school 5 days a week. Project based learning, yeah right! 

Tests are still a forefront in my school curriculum even for students who have learning needs that simply make it unfair for them to take tests. While we do have a project thrown in each unit, there should at least be an alternative for taking a test that decides at least a third of our grade. I think this year’s curriculum was in mind for 8th graders who had perfectly normal middle school experience, which my class absolutely did not. Please, give us burnt out 8th graders a break, or at least try to ease us into the year. I spend an unreasonable amount of my time in internet cafes, working to get an esteemed 4. This article is a cry for help. I dearly hope a teacher sees this and decides, “I’m going to teach them how to organize their binder in a way that lets them find information easily” or “Maybe I should create a study guide to help them out, I don’t think anyone’s taught them how to even study.” People expect a certain level of competence in children that we just never learned because of Covid. Have a good day everyone, and take pity on your struggling friends, students, or children. They think they know everything, because people tell them they should, but they don’t. Guidance is the best Christmas gift!