My classmates. They are life's true enigma to me. After all, if I am the "cream of the crop", as the teachers say, then why am I treated like shoe crud? Out of all my honors classes (I'm in 4, and it's my sophomore year), I noticed that I seem to be treated like a "handle with care package". I have some of the highest grades and best test scores in the classes, nay, the school, and yet I am still widely disregarded and ignored. Why am I and the few nerdy kids in my classes treated so?

Honors kids, as it turns out, are not what they were 50, even 20, years ago. Nowadays, honors kids are mostly football jocks and cheerleaders stuffed in so they can up their grades and keep the team afloat. I always hear raucous mass giggling and a steady stream of likes from the back of the class, even while I'm studying. I'm reading "Doctor Zhivago" and "The Elegant Universe"; they're carousing through the likes of "Twilight" and the latest favorite of the boys, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Gor.

Honors classes-the one sacred thing left in my school-are a big joke. Sheesh! The boys in my 5th period alone are obnoxious. I wear my tie and crisp white shirt to class, while they are content in mud-stained football jerseys and torn blue jeans. They flip over desks and write vulgar lines about their friends on the whiteboard-in Spanish! Is nothing left unturned?

Last year, I had the pleasure of being placed in an academics class, a sub-honors group that should have been the honors group! These kids were intelligent, focused, mature, and diverse in ideas and techniques. Why these respectable young people are in lower classes than the no-brainers is beyond me. In the end, it is my opinion that there is some sort of conspiracy going on...

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Comment by California on October 1, 2009 at 4:23pm: Oh, I already hate this, and I'm only in 8th grade!
"Accelerated Math" (as it's called now), is horrible, everyone is disregarding the teacher, and making comments whenever whey want to. At least my teacher is smart enough to notice it, and she move all the quiet people to one side of the room, and all the people who do that to the other.

Comment by Gary Bing on October 1, 2009 at 10:40am: I got all A's and was the editor of the school paper. I got numerous awards from it and was actively sought out by the Orange County Register (didn't even give them the time of day, much less even consider any kind of "offer" they were proposing ) When I went to college I remembered what my Dad had said "That ridiculous Honors English Class you were in, is going to get you the "
'bonehead English' course in college." He was dead right after going round and round with my High School English teacher he damn near started a riot with all the parents joining him on a parent conference day. Guess what? Upon enrolling in college I failed to meet the requirements for Freshman Composition, English 101. I later went to another school and was failed like everyone else, telling them that was patently impossible. It was. I got a letter in the mail saying that I qualified for Freshman Composition as they had reviewed my exam and found it was "graded (sic) on the wrong key." ( There are no "grades" on entrance exams.) I had already dropped out forfeiting all fees "Because we have no contract this semester providing for ANY refunds, no matter what reason." I told them about the error even showing them the letter, to no avail. I got a call returned from the then Governor Jerry Brown and we had more important matters to discuss than my "indiscretion." There was a ballot initiative called proposition 13 and even a more enhanced version of it ( prop. 9 late "70s) going down the pike which was going to virtually and effectively eliminate most funding currently (then) for schools. Well, my parents got their tax cut while my generation and those after have to deal with our budget mess severely hampering our schools. It has come to pass to bite us in the ass. The (blank) Gann initiative passed and the very day it was to go in effect I got a notice of a rent increase. My neighbors were livid, passing out a petition for me to sign because of the outrageous tax break the landlord was getting, and we are to foot a bill for "increasing expenses." I did not sign said petition because it was apparent it was written by a moron. I talked to Mr. "Blank ( I can effectively erase from my memory those names that have REALLY pissed me off) , and he said when I cornered him and a reporter friend, " I have no intention of raising the rent on MY properties." ( I later checked, he lied.) I Straight A's, Honors classes, awards, gold stars and little smiley faces didn't mean shit then or now.

Comment by Eric Fox on October 1, 2009 at 7:58am: That conspiracy has always been going on, it has simply entered the honor classes. Regardless how much a school pretends to focus on education for all, they like to win sports more. That is an American ideal. As such, they must force the jocks to keep passable grades so they can stay in the sport.

These days, American "Honors" classes are almost synonymous with "Special" classes. Except they need to be called Honors to keep the self esteem of the jocks and cheerleaders up. Trust me on this, you're much better off not going for the full honors until you are out. All it gets you is more work for less respect and credit. Once you are past the jocks, the credit goes where it is earned.

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