When I first thought about teaching, middle school was the dreaded age of students for me. I always thought of that age as being really stressful because of the many many changes occurring within each student going from being a kid to being a teenager. I did not expect that 7th-8th graders would be my favorite grades to teach by the end of this year. Maybe it’s just the particular class I have, or maybe I assumed too much of how I am incapable of relating to these kids. I love them for many reasons, but mostly because they are still kids trying to be funny and dealing with the whole fitting in thing. They still want to do kid stuff like play tag, jump rope, pretend they are in gunfire(boys are weird), do special hand claps, etc. However, they are to the point where they want to fit in more with what the older “teens” are doing so they usually hold back their childlike behavior. This combination makes them really awkward, which I like.
For Young Life, a couple of weeks ago, we played Capture the Flag at the school. Tons of kids 7th-12th grade showed up, but almost ALL 7th graders were there. Their presence was known, mostly because they literally had no clue what they were doing, but you’d see them just running around screaming or hiding behind walls (usually on their own side).
A few days ago, I had one of those days that at the end of it all, I couldn’t put to words all that happened. I just looked at people dejectedly if they asked me how my day was. Most of the craziness of my day happened with my middle school class—but I can’t blame them for everything. First thing in the morning, I walk into my classroom, after being away for a long weekend and trusting a sub to tend to the kiddos, to find a tornado had hit and my desk had thrown up all over the floor. I stood in shock at the mess because I had to teach in less than 40 minutes and was not expecting to spend half of that time playing clean up. I realized later that my window latch was broken and there was a hazardous storm that weekend while I was away.
Moving on… Surprisingly, the morning went really smoothly after that. Ohhh but then 5th period came and in marched my beloved middle schoolers. One student gave a PowerPoint presentation over the artist Van Gogh, which involved a class activity afterward in which he had placed a large piece of paper behind the Projector screen. You know, for the sake of making a dramatic transition. Well, I went up to help him put the screen up, but it wasn’t quite that simple. As soon as I pulled down for it to go up, a gun fired! Not really, but that is the sound that it made and the reason my students all screamed and some even paced the room because their hearts actually jumped from their chests. Yup, the screen completely broke and would no longer go up and out of the way. So then, I had a student help me hold up the screen so the presenter could move his class activity to another wall away from the screen trap. During this class project, students came up two at a time to paint short brush strokes to mimic Van Gogh’s style. This, being kind of chaotic already, became even more so when one student “accidentally” fell backwards off of his stool. More uncontrollable laughter. The aftermath was over after a few minutes and we seemed to have moved on from the silly crazy screams and laughter until the kicker came. I was at my desk grading papers when I hear someone say, “What are you doing!?” along with a lot of onomatopoeia that I can’t even try to recreate. I look up to see the same student who fell out of his chair, holding up a HUGE falling wooden bookcase that, until that moment, held all of my students’ artwork. He couldn’t push it back to the wall because he was a short 7th grade kid, so he just stood under its wrath letting everything pile out on the floor to get stepped on by 10 other kids who ran to rescue him. By the time I got to his aid, another student had positioned himself to take the hero role and we were able to push the shelf safely back to its home. I’m thankful to report that only a few pieces of art were stepped on enough to actually permanently harm the integrity of the art. “How did that student get stuck under a bookshelf?” Yea, I was getting to that. The top shelf of that bookcase was reserved for their class to store their artwork, but since he was too short to see onto it, he stood on top of a stool to peak, but still wasn’t able to see. He pulled himself up by grabbing onto the top shelf and so you have him loosing his balance and bringing the shelf with him.
After the bell rang, students just ran out and left my class a mess. I think they were in such a hurry to rid themselves of the dysfunctional quality of my room, they jet as if there was literally a fire in there. The debris was unbearable and I had never felt so defeated by clumsiness before. The next class period, I stepped on two pencils, and a pencil sharpener twice—breaking it the 2nd time. I needed a hug bad.
Luckily, the next day 4 students were absent which made for an easy breezy class with very minimal drama. I love those kids, even when their awkwardness causes a headache in the art room
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