In general, Mark starts off absolutely hating Hardy Elementary School in Andrew Clements' A Week in the Woods. Since he has been educated in expensive top private schools all his life, he already knows far more than the rest of the kids in his class at the new elementary school; therefore, the work is easy, and he has to fight off boredom. After the year is over, he will be attending Runyon Academy, "one of the most exclusive prep schools in America"; therefore, he has already written off his days at Hardy Elementary as unimportant and has become withdrawn (p. 27). He notes that the one thing he liked about the school is "that there were so many kids in every class" (p. 25).

After having been attending the school for ten days, one day, while sitting his math class, he watches his teacher put fraction problems on the board that he learned "ages ago" and tries to fight off boredom. While fighting off boredom, he tries to keep himself from falling asleep and thinks about how much he likes the class size in comparison to his other schools. At his other schools, his classes had "no more than twelve, sometimes as few as five" students (p. 25). Fewer students meant "no escape, no chance to slack off. Never" (p. 25). But, at Hardy Elementary School, he was in classrooms with 24 other students, which meant to him "zero pressure"--he could feel free to slack off all he wanted and write the entire school year off as unimportant.