classmates

I REMEMBER one particularly troubling occasion at I.S. 61, Leonardo da Vinci Intermediate School in Queens. I was in sixth grade, class 6C, an SP (special progress) class. One day, midway through the school year, the assistant principal walked into my homeroom class and told me that I was being transferred into 6N. ... When you are 10 years old and in the third-ranked class in the sixth grade, to be told suddenly in front of your classmates that you are being transferred into the 14th-ranked class is embarrassing. In the few seconds it took for my mind to absorb this bad news and the shock of it, the opinion of my classmates of me changed from “peer” (meaning somewhat smart) to “dumb.”