Seventh Grade, by Gary Soto, is about a boy starting a new year in middle school and is trying to get the girl he has a crush on by pretending to be something he's not. Your peers will either laugh with you or at you, which is either a bad situation or a good one. He got embarrassed in front of the whole class but it worked out in the end when the girl asked him to help her study after school, but what I believe the author was trying to say was that you shouldn't try to be something you're not.
When you're a boy in school, you want a girlfriend but they might not always have those feelings for you. So you go out of your way to try to be something you're not. You dress different and act different attempting to please the girl you like. It may work or it might fail. Then you just go back to being yourself hoping she'll just realize how cool you actually are. Don't pretend to be something you are not. It will usually get you embarrassed. Your friends might stop talking to you and that could result in you being an outcast.
At school, picking the right friends matters. If you pick the wrong ones, you could end up doing wrong things and going to the wrong places. Again, don't be something you're not. Be yourself and friends will come to you and you'll know if they're the right people to hang out with. Being something you're not will almost always get you into trouble. When you hang out with the wrong people, and do wrong things, teachers will notice you and you never want to be on a teacher’s bad side.
Teachers watch you more than you think. They figure you out and they know when you're lying, trying to be funny, even when you're faking. As in trying to be something you're not. On the other hand, if you just be yourself, I'm betting that the teacher will end up liking you and you'll be on his or her's good side.
The lesson of the story is that no matter what, whether it comes to girls or friends, always be yourself. Pretending to be something you aren't will only end up giving you bad results. A girl won't like a faker and you won't have friends if you become something you're not. Always be yourself and don't change.
