The Joys of Middle School

The school year is in full swing and it feels as if summer break never happened. I find myself constantly thinking of all the things I could grade or plan, the parents I need to call, and the organization that should take place in my classroom, lesson plan book, car, house, life. It’s like a constant cloud that follows me around, hanging over my head threatening my time to relax.

I take a clogging and a tap dancing class each week just so I can turn my attention from impending school work and focus on something totally different. While I wonder why it feels like someone nailed my foot to the floor when learning a new step, I’m not thinking about how Joey has a 9% in my class because he won’t put forth the effort to lift a pencil. As I attempt to catch up with everyone when I’m three steps behind in a routine, I’m not worried that I have 103 grade notifications waiting for me to sit down and grade.

There are times I wonder why I chose to teach middle school English with all the essays and short answers that take half my lifetime to grade. Why didn’t I choose to teach math or P.E.? Math would be easy to grade, it’s the teaching of it that would be a struggle. P.E. would be amazing. because I could wear workout clothes to school everyday and drink coffee while telling kids to run or playing games with them.

I do love teaching English most days. I like to read stories and talk about the characters as if they are real and write poems and learn new vocabulary words with my students. Mostly, I just like my students. They keep me laughing daily. Sometimes I laugh to their faces and other times I have to hide my laughter until they are out of the room.

Here are just a few things that had me laughing these last few weeks.

1. I have a boy in one of my class that is the quintessential middle school boy. He’s long and lanky and his movements resemble a baby deer learning to walk. He’s goofy and likes to laugh. He dances when he thinks nobody is watching. The other day I looked up and he was seated at his desk, reading his book, but he had the draw string of his shorts wrapped around his neck. He seemed comfortable, so I didn’t disturb him, but I wondered if I should remind him that he was in public and not at his house.

We are living in a time when people are wearing masks, bathing in hand sanitizer, and worrying about checking out books from the library because ‘other people have touched the books.’ One day I saw Marcus get down from his seat at the tall desks and lean over to pick a bright yellow something off the floor. For a moment I thought, “How nice that’s he’s picking up his trash .” Most kids think the floor is a place to put trash because it saves the 8 1/2 steps they would have to exert to walk it to the trash can. Marcus and I made eye contact just as he was putting the chewed gum that he had dropped on the floor, back into his mouth. I audibly gagged and told him to get that out of his mouth and into the trash. He was upset that he had to throw it away, but I reminded him that I probably saved his life because one look at the floor should convince a person that it wasn’t a sanitary eating surface.

While grading an assignment, I saw that David wrote his answer, “They met on a street in New York City.” Then he included, “Wow it rhymes.” Only it didn’t rhyme. Not even a little bit.

We were playing a class game where students enter their names and it flashes up on my TV. They love to put emojis with their names and as long as it’s school appropriate, I don’t mind. A girl put her name, ‘Kasey’ with a green sick emoji. I said, “Do you feel sick today, Kasey?” She answered with her typical deadpan face, “No, that’s just how I feel about everything.” Awesome. As the weeks march on by, I’m discovering that there isn’t much–or anything– that excites Kasey.

As a child, my parents would sometimes get on to me for clomping through the house. Apparently, as a preteen I Hulk stomped from the kitchen to my room regularly. I guess over time I’ve perfected a quiet ninja like walk. Multiple times this year, in different classes, I’ve been walking around the classroom, getting my steps in and monitoring student work, helping when needed, when I have had a student turn their head and jump three feet in the air. Each time they declare that I snuck up on them and scared them and how did I walk so quietly and wasn’t I just across the room helping that other kid? I always tell them that their reaction makes them sound just a tad bit guilty and they typically smile sheepishly at me. I think I can use this to my advantage when managing classroom behavior.