I wish you get out of trouble soon, middle school.
Say goodbye to mean girls and clueless boys.
Say goodbye to casual racism for kids of all colors.
Goodbye (I hope) never any homework.
On Tuesday, my 14-year-old niece (who moved in with me 5.5 years ago) will graduate from eighth grade. I raised a daughter who is now 31 and married, and I never imagined raising a child through middle school again—especially as a single parent.
In 2019, life as I knew it came to an abrupt end when my niece, who was 8 years old at the time, moved in with me. What our lives will look like when the pandemic hits next year all Know it comes to an abrupt end.
During lockdown, my niece and I worked lovingly at opposite ends of the dining room table in my post-divorce one-bedroom apartment. Thanks to her daily 90-minute Zoom classes, I was able to repeat my fourth grade. did you know there is A type of jellyfish Is this immortality?
By fifth grade graduation in 2021, the kids were back in the classroom and I was in tears about her transition to middle school.
Now I can’t wait for her to move on.
It wasn’t because of the teachers or support staff at her school, who were wonderful, humorous and patient. (Ms. McNairy, Mr. Bloom, and Ms. Benson, talking to you.) This is purely about the taxing nature of living with middle school students.
When I was my niece’s age, the Los Angeles school system had not yet adopted the concept of middle school. We also have junior high school, from seventh to ninth grade, and then high school, from tenth to twelfth grade.
That changed in the mid-1980s, when the district began to embrace the idea, first floated in the early 1960s, that teenagers were not well served by the middle/high school setting. Some people believe that junior high schools are just mini versions of high schools and cannot meet unique needs. Neither a toddler nor a fully mature teenager.
Whatever the motivation for replacing junior high schools with middle schools, it does make sense to imprison everyone going through adolescence behind the same high fence.
“I really don’t understand how you can stand being around these kids all day,” I recently told a counselor at my niece’s school. “You really must be crazy.”
“Oh,” she replied with a smile, “we are.”
Middle school students need space to address social issues that may have been addressed by the time they enter high school. This is why there is a maddening lack of homework.
“The lack of academic pressure makes kids more carefree,” said Nancy Gerschke, a science teacher at Mark Twain Middle School in Venice. “The negative thing about middle school is that, in general, everyone is a mess. If you’re not affected by their mood swings, though, you’re going to get some real gems.
Relationships between middle school students can be terrible. It takes them a lifetime to learn that teasing is bad and bullying is worse, but they can’t control their worst impulses. My nieces came home with stories about being called “hacks,” about black kids being told to “go back to work,” about American-born Latino kids being called “illegals.”
Coupled with the instant messaging capabilities provided by mobile phones, which make them more impulsive, you have a rather toxic combination.
“In sixth grade, they were babies,” Gerschke said. “Seventh grade is the worst. They don’t know who they are. By the end of eighth grade, they start to find their own people and dominate the school.
(It’s true. As my niece lamented the other day, “I can’t believe I’m back at the bottom of the food chain.”)
Oh my gosh, they are such unreliable narrators.
When my niece told me that a classmate in sixth grade had said very unpleasant things to her, I was furious. This sounds like serious harassment to me. Please note that I did not call the counselor with a gun, but I did imply that my niece was the victim.
The counselor told me very calmly that the girl said mean things to my niece because my niece took one of the girl’s books and hid it.
“Did you do it?” I asked her.
“Oh, yes, I did,” she replied. “I guess I forgot.”
I applaud the way her middle school handles this type of argument. My niece spends a lot of time attending adult-supervised conflict resolution sessions (thank you Mr. Chaka) to resolve issues with her frenemies. “Later, Auntie, we all hugged,” she would say. Peace reigned in the middle school—at least until the next battle.
