Are you Cooler than a Fifth Grader?

Today, as I was allowing one of my fifth grade classes to take a restroom break, I saw a very strange and frightful sight. One of my students was walking in a way that I can only describe as "like a zombie." Both of his arms were crossed in front of him, his hands were crossed, his fingers were crossed. He was trying to walk with his legs crossed, and he was crossing his eyes. While crossing all of his body parts, he was trying to walk from the boys' sink back to my classroom.

"Stop it Blake! You are being gross!" I automatically assumed that this had something to do with Halloween. My kids are still on a sugar high from last Saturday. They are still bouncing off of the walls excitedly telling me all about the houses they rolled. The boys are still telling me about their bloody, gruesome costumes and the girls are still telling me about the boys who showed up as trick or treaters at their houses.

"He has to walk like that, Mrs. Jones! Otherwise he'll get the cheesey touch!" Several of my students tried to explain this to me, but having little time to discuss things other than linking verbs, context clues, and prepositional phrases, I again told Blake he looked gross, and made the kids get to their seats.

At lunch, I suddenly became curious about The Cheesey Touch, Oreo, Silly Bands, and all of the other things that fifth graders must do to survive a day at our school. So, I asked a few of the girls who I was sitting with today. (I am proud to say that sitting by me is very cool, and my girls fight over who gets to sit by me.... the boys.... not so much.)

So, here is what I found out today:

1. The Cheesey Touch - More dreaded and contagious than the Swine Flu, "The Cheesey Touch" can be spread just by touching somebody. The only way to prevent this is to cross one of your body parts. You can cross fingers, hands, arms, legs, feet, toes, or even your eyes. (Apparantly, Blake was very afraid of catching The Cheesey Touch and decided to cross all of his body parts at the same time.) My students explained it to me like this: "Mrs. Jones, people your age know this as the cooties."

2. Oreo - This is the most popular game to play at lunch after you are finished eating your lunch. You get a partner, and play "Paper,Rock, Scissors". Only, you say "Or-Re-O". The loser has to ask somebody to go out with them. They usually ask, "Hey! Will you go out with me?" Which is followed by a quick response of "No." The game then continues. I'm not really sure why this is so fun... Maybe just the thrill of asking out/getting asked out by the opposite gender?

3. Silly Bands- Lord, if I could go back in time and be the inventor of these stupid bracelets. Bracelets that take the shape of animals are all the rave in the fifth grade. They are a little more creative than the jelly bracelets of the eighties. It started out with one little girl having two or three of these tiny colorful bands. Now, the entire grade is obsessed with them. The stores have all sold out, and parents are frantically trying to find them on the internet. The more silly bands you have, the cooler you are. Three days ago, I walked in to find not only the girls, but all of my boys with these bands up to their elbows. I just don't get it. I guess if one person says they are cool, they all have to have them.


So what else is in style? Northface Jackets remain the most popular clothing item. In fact, most of us have replaced the term "jacket" with "Northface" because everybody, and I do mean everybody has a Northface jacket at my school. (Including me.) I guess a parent not paying over a hundred dollars for their child to wear a Northface would be just as tragic as my mom not wanting to pay sixty dollars for Guess jeans back in 1989.

Uggs also remain very popular, as well as converse shoes, eighties inspired jewelry (ha!) and peace signs.

However, as I was discussing the ins and outs of fashion for ten year olds, and the subject of peace signs came up, one of my students came up to me and said, "You know those peace-loving hippies only wear peace signs during times of war. Without war, we would have no peace."

Pretty deep for a ten year old.

I guess some things have changed in the twenty years since I was a fifth grader. Twenty years ago, peace signs were just something to spend your allowance on at Claires.