I don’t know about the rest of the world, but at Hunting Ridge Elementary School, 6th Grade is a huge deal. Sixth graders get a special picnic, they get to play a softball game against the teachers, they get to be student council president, and some of them even get lockers. If the rest of the prepubescent student body weren’t already literally looking up to the 6th graders, the teachers and the administration made sure they had reason to do so metaphorically.
It’s great to be top dog. Specifically, it’s great to be top dog when you were 12 and you thought it actually meant something. Even more specifically, it was great to be top dog when you were the youngest child of four (or even eight, depending on how you count children).
I think I spent my whole childhood waiting in anticipation of 6th grade. In kindergarten, we got 6th grade buddies who would read to us once a week and play with us on the playground. I don’t remember much about kindergarten, but I remember my 6th grade buddies. I actually had two, because there were more sixth graders than kindergartners. When we were sitting on the swings together once, they told me they loved how soft my earlobes were. I thought they had to be the coolest people—they were so wise, knowing things like what earlobes were and that they should be soft. From that moment on, I couldn’t wait to be 12 years old and noticing some little girl’s earlobes for the first time.
Is this getting weird? Well, I guess that’s to be expected from the mind of a five-year-old.
As you probably could have guessed, 6th grade was actually pretty lackluster by the time I got there. The picnic was way too hot and my slice of watermelon dripped all over me. I got stuck in the outfield for the softball game and I just sat there picking grass the whole time. There was no way I would ever voluntarily be on student council, and my classroom was the one 6th grade class that did not get lockers. But I also didn’t feel like I was at the top of anything. I felt just the same as always, and even worse now because I thought I should feel different. 12-year-old impostor syndrome.
When time came for us to fill out our 6th-grade student surveys for the yearbook—questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?” that they would then put under our yearbook pictures so that the world could know that, yes, nine out of 10 children prefer pizza—I remember deliberating over mine. Of course I had known for years what the questions would be and how my answers would be received. Due to my careful research, I knew that most kids would put “President of the United States” or “Professional Sports Player” as their dream job, and that most kids would say “God and my parents” as their personal hero. I also knew that, now that I was in 6th grade, there was no way I was going to go with the crowd on this one. I needed to stand out, and for some reason, I decided that the best way to stand out was to be as honest as I could.
So I said my favorite food was macaroni and cheese; it was a close tie with pizza, so it was only a little lie. I said “Teacher” for what I wanted to be when I grew up, which ended up being not far off. And for my hero I put the name of a 5th grader. Her name was Jessica. She was in my girl-scout troop, my split-grade classroom, and lived down the street from me. Our moms were good friends, and she and I would play Harry Potter together at recess. She was always Harry, and I would take turns being Ron or Hermione, based on my mood for the day.
I seem to remember that, when the yearbooks came out and everyone saw that I put Jessica’s name down, I fielded a lot of teasing and laughter. Nearly everyone else had put their parents, a deity they worshiped, or a sports player on a Chicago team. Why on Earth had I put down a 5th grader’s name? I remember turning up my nose at everyone’s weird looks, and I remember things were a little weird between me and Jessica for a while, but not too long. She was a pretty cool kid. I mean, that’s why I had said she was my hero.
I have often wondered if Jessica remembers that she was my 6th-grade yearbook hero. I have also often retrospectively psychoanalyzed that decision of mine since 6th grade. I was obsessed with being the oldest in the school, and I had such dreams of being looked up to and respected. Why did I name a younger student as my personal hero? What did I see about her that was heroic?
To be clear, Jessica was—and is, actually—an awesome kid and person. She went on to be a good friend of mine through high school; we took German together and walked to school together, stayed in the same Girl Scout troop through sophomore year, and made some pretty awesome memories on a chaotic road trip to Washington, D.C. Now she’s living in New York, I think working in publishing, is basically fluent in German, and posts enviable pictures of her enviable adventures on Facebook. So maybe she was just innately heroic.
But I sort of think that, in all her cool, confident, 11-year-old life prowess, she embodied to me the 6th grader I had always wanted to be, and I think, as I prepared to graduate while feeling so totally un-6th-grader-ly, I felt that I had to acknowledge that. She wasn’t God. She wasn’t my parents. And she was not Michael Jordan. But she was someone I wished I could have been like, at least a little. I think those kinds of people—those who are relatable and whose admirable qualities seem practically attainable—have always been my heroes. Not the people who come in and save the day for me. Not the people I respect because I know I could never do what they do.
For better or worse, I see as heroic the people who are a lot like me…only seemingly more put-together.
Mary Margaret is a 2013 English, history, and secondary education grad who went rogue and became a Social Worker in Pennsylvania’s Child Welfare system. Specifically, she works as a caseworker in the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network finding families for children and educating the masses about foster care, adoption, and permanency planning. She made it over the grad-school hurdle with gold stars and warm fuzzies and is on to the next big adventure: the unknown of adulthood. Her major writing dream right now is to finish her science fiction novel that explores the concurrent futures of child welfare and artificial intelligence.
I like this.