Jeff Foxworthy hosts “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

Children are often told that adults know best, but time takes its toll on our minds. Fox is determined to prove that, sometimes, kids really do know better, especially if we've been out of elementary school for a while.

Growing up in North America means day-in and day-out you are packing your backpack and trudging off to school, where you learn the skills and knowledge needed to be a productive member of society. Though schooling does last a long time, by the time you get out of college and enter the workforce, there's a good chance you've forgotten a lot of what you learned in elementary school.

That's where Fox's revived game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" steps in. Other well-known game shows such as "Jeopardy!" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" attempt to find out how much knowledge the contestants have picked up over the course of their lives. "5th Grader," on the other hand, showcases just how much information the competitors have forgotten since they were in grade school. Six years after the prime-time version was canceled and four years after the syndicated version went off air, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" is back with an all-new season, premiering Tuesday, May 26, on Fox.

"5th Grader" stormed onto television back in 2007, less than two months after network execs heard the pitch for what was initially called "Do You Remember Grade School?" Executive producer Mark Burnett, known for his prolific involvement in reality television, put together a six-question quiz that he gave to each network president as part of his show pitch. Then-Fox Entertainment president Peter Liguori explained the premise while promoting the series back in 2007, and he even showed off a bit, claiming he was the only exec to ace the quiz.

"These are going to be questions you might ask your kids, where they will rattle off an answer like that, but given how distant we are from a fifth grade education, actually wind up being a bit tougher," he said. "When Mark Burnett wound up pitching this show to each network president, in fact, only one network president left the six questions with money, which I think is a real glaring indictment against the intelligence of the people who sit in front of you here, but it also shows the fun of the show."

The original series ran for three seasons in prime time before Fox pulled the plug in 2009, but it returned days later as a half-hour syndicated daytime series. Season 4 sees "5th Grader" return to prime time, where contestants will again get to test their knowledge of grade school topics.

The questions asked should be easy -- each one is selected from an actual textbook used by students in grades 1 though 5. Two questions are drawn from each grade level, with an additional $1 million bonus question at the end. In the original format, the $1 million question was from the fifth grade, but in the revival it will be taken from Grade 6.

Angela, Tres, Dee, Reagan, Mason and Lauren in “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

Aside from the contestants, "5th Grader" features comedian Jeff Foxworthy, who returns as host, and a "class" of actual fifth graders who are present to assist the competitor. The students take turns sitting near the contestant on stage and answering a maximum of two consecutive questions. The student's answers can then be used if the adult chooses to use their lifelines to either peek at or copy their younger counterpart's response.

The premise might seem simple enough, but only a couple of contestants have ever won the $1 million prize. Foxworthy, who hosted both the original and syndicated versions of "5th Grader," recently sat down with "Creative Loafing Atlanta" to discuss his comedy and television projects. When he was asked if he thinks he would get very far in the game show, Foxworthy laughed.

"Well in the old version, we got to where we would have celebrities come on and play for charity, and the kids were always going, 'Jeff, you should play for charity!' I'm like, 'Nah. It's just better if everybody thinks I'm an idiot than to prove them right,'" Foxworthy said. "Because I had gotten to the point -- I had the answers on that bottom card, and I would start a game and go, 'All right, let me see how far I would get,' and no. By the second or third grade, I was peeking at the answers."

Each season of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" has a new set of classmates, and this season there's an additional student taking role call, making it six fifth graders, up from the original five and syndicated three. All of the classmates are 10 years old and hail from different parts of the U.S. Three of the students -- Angela, Lauren and Mason -- live in California, Dee is from Georgia, Tres lives in Texas, and Reagan hails from Mississippi.

Instead of trying to show off how much knowledge they've acquired, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" contestants will be clawing through their memory banks desperately trying to remember information they haven't used in years. Don't miss this hilarious game show when it returns from a long hiatus with the fourth season premiere airing Tuesday, May 26, on Fox.