
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995                   TAG: 9501090009
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MELISSA DEVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

YOUNG ENOUGH TO SAY ANYTHING. OLD ENOUGH TO SAY IT RIGHT"

Fifth grade. The boys and girls still sit at opposite ends of the cafeteria during lunch. The boys, most of them a head shorter than the girls, share their secret: They like the girls, but they would never tell them that.

The girls, on the other hand, say boys have ``cooties,'' a derogatory term given to those boys who are simply unbearable.

``They never do their work, and they're talking in class all the time,'' complains 10-year old Tonya Akers of Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School in rural Montgomery County.

``Yeah, and they burp all the time, too,'' says classmate Danielle Dow, 10. ``They're brats - look at them over there showing off,'' she adds, pointing to the table across the cafeteria, where the boys shove each other, pick on each other and giggle as they eat cheese pizza.

This is the life of a fifth-grader on any given day at any given elementary school. These children, ranging in age from 9 to 11, are our future. They will be our doctors, construction workers, nurses, teachers, secretaries and veterinarians. They will be our Nobel Prize winners and, sadly, our prison inmates.

Statistics say one in four fifth-graders will not graduate from the same high school in which he or she starts; a small percentage will never graduate at all. Of those who do graduate from high school, three in four will continue on to college. Over their lifetimes, these fifth-graders can expect to change jobs four or five times, marry at a later age than their parents did and have fewer than three children.

For now, though, they're just fifth-graders.

This year, the Roanoke Times & World-News is one of 20 newspapers around the country taking the pulse of 10-year-olds.

The fifth grade was chosen because the pupils are young enough to say anything and old enough to know how to say it. We've tried to hear the voices of the children - their fears, joys and general attitudes.

The Roanoke Times & World-News will share its information with other newspapers, and they will share their information with us, giving us a clear picture about the life of an average 10-year-old in America.

The story of our fifth-graders appears today in Horizon.

by CNB