Comments on: Middle School: Some Things Never Change

By: Melia

Melia — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:23:39 +0000

Lynnie, I can’t picture you forcing a girl to eat a hot dog! Yes, I’d recommend spending a day in 7th grade to see just how much cooler and more confident you are now, and realize that if you met any of the snobby girls you could hold your own.

Katie, I had a similar experience of rampant cattiness and gossipping. I haven’t observed much of that so far, though again, it may just be under my radar now that I’m an adult. I’m really curious about whether now that kids grow up so quickly, and that many of the Latino kids care for a lot of family members from a young age, there has been any shift toward a more caring culture in middle schools. I did see a lot of teasing going on in the middle schools I worked at in Redwood City, but not as much at Altimira.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, during really rough patches, your future self could tell your current self that you really will be OK?

By: Ide

Ide — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:58:03 +0000

Oh, middle school. Such a special time.

I went to a fairly sheltered middle school program (because my school was kindergarten through eighth grade, the sixth, seventh and eighth grades had about 150 people total). Even though it was contained, it was total hell. We had the usual cattiness, plus the added disadvantage of having known each other since we were 5. Everyone knew everything about everyone. I missed an unreasonable number of days in middle school (we’re talkin’ more than 20 days per school year) because I was so anxious that I made myself sick.

I’ve always struggled with where I would send my kids for those grades. I cannot imagine what it must be like to go to a huge public middle school. Cramming 2,000 underdeveloped, insecure young adults into an enormous building with minimal supervision? Ummm, yeah…thanks, but no thanks.

I have to say that the experience of being at the bottom of the heap in terms of physical development (I didn’t hit puberty until 14, after I entered high school) and popularity made me a better person in some respects. I just wish I would’ve had a crystal ball so that I wouldn’t have shed so many tears over it then.

By: lynnie

lynnie — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:46:28 +0000

I.
HATED.
MIDDLE SCHOOL.

6th grade was cool (I was allowed to be a big fish 6th grader and stay in elementary school). I do remember ganging up on a poor girl and making her eat a hot dog when she didn’t want to. Oh popularity, how foolish you make us.

7th grade was REALLY bad but 8th grade was not as bad. I remember you and Gillie visited the summer of 8th grade (going into ninth).

I think I should do a reschool experience too just to feel loved in 7th grade and erase the bad memories.

By: djschwin

djschwin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:19:47 +0000

Wow, I totally need to re-read ‘The Hatchet.’

By: Margaret

Margaret — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:40:58 +0000

Wow, wonderful post. It gave me that “book” feeling again. A few specifics:
“like cattle in a patch of shade” may well turn into a textbook example for simile, since it so exactly describes knots of pre-teens on the blacktop! (’plaza’ to you)
It’s nice to see niches still allowed their own space, but now I’m a bit afraid of future descriptions, because as you noted, this sort of mute acceptance often disappears for a while in the pecking-order scramble.
In my own experience, 1st-8th grades were on the same ‘campus,’ so while there was none of the little-fish-big-pond transitions (just wait for 9th grade), the change to rotating teachers and lockers was still a big deal. At least now if you hated a teacher, you had only had him or her for a period or two, not the whole day. I definitely liked the variety!