Musings on Middle School Students

Middle school kids have a bad reputation.  Supposedly, they are ruled by their hormones, and in general, are a little crazy. 

Looking back at my own experience, that never made sense to me.  If I was ruled by my hormones, I sure didn’t know it.   This could have been because my mother explained sex by talking about eggs, at which point I was confused.  “Like a chicken?”  I asked.  The whole conversation was about fertilization, but I never quite got the connection to my body and a boy’s body until I heard the baseball metaphor.  You know the one:  first base is french, second base is feel…and I’ll stop there.  Listen to Meat Loaf if you need more information.   Boys definitely became more interesting, but looking back on it now, it wasn’t a physical thing, but more of an attention thing.  My first sloppy spin-the-bottle kiss at an eighth grade Halloween party did little to make this change. 

This week, as I observed teacher candidates teach in two different middle schools, I saw clear physical, attitudinal, and cognitive differences from 6^th-8^th grade, and even in the same classroom.   Some of the girls looked like they should be in high school, including the 8^th grader who sat down with a heavy sigh and said to her teacher, who was sitting next to me, “I’m ovulating.”  The boys sitting in her group didn’t blink an eye—not a blush or an eye roll.  Did they understand?  Had their fathers given them the same talk my mother gave to me, so they had no idea what that even meant? 

In contrast, I watched a 7^th grade girl in another class use a broken piece of plastic to search around in one nostril, observe what she found, and then stick it in her mouth. 

I worry about the girls.  Some of them are miles ahead in maturity, height and weight.  Being in middle school must feel like poor fitting jeans, when you move from “juniors” to “misses” and realize that your body has outgrown who you have been for so long.  Middle school, with its necessary structures and explicit rules meant to nurture and support children as they move from childhood to adolescence, must feel restrictive and a bad fit.

But boys can also be mature.  At an urban school, I saw that some of the boys had the name “Jose” etched into their haircuts.  I just assumed there were a lot of Joses in the class.  But when I discovered one of the boys’ names was Francisco, I realized that these kids were paying homage to their friend and classmate who had been killed by a gunman who had come to his front door looking for his brothers.  When Jose opened up the door, he was shot multiple times.  His friends paid tribute to him the only way they knew how.  It was beautiful, and it was heartbreaking.  Death is not unusual to these kids.

The most poignant moment came after class, when three of the boys came over to me and shook my hand.  I have observed teacher candidates for over six years now, and this has never happened.  I was touched by these students’ dignity and adult manners.  These were children, and they took the time to come over and talk to me, even as they were in the midst of being at school and grieving for their friend.  As my mother would say, bless their hearts.