Do you remember Middle School? I sure don't. Grades 2 thru 8 were spent at St. Francis de Sales. Each year you got a little bit bigger and another year older but nothing much else changed. Stayed in the same classroom, listened to the same teacher; Mr. Zachem for 7th grade, Sister Mary Kenneth for 8th.
My Official Substitute Teacher Manual gives this helpful information under the title: C. Understanding Middle School students. "This is another group that desires structure, but at times will outwardly seem to reject the boundaries. These kids are a bundle of hormones at work. Unfortunately, these hormones are not all working in the same direction at the same time."
In public school those hormones may cause students to question authority, make fun of other students and misbehave in the classroom. Didn't quite work that way at St. Francis. Everybody knew everybody else since before 1st communion and it was dangerous to disrespect your teacher.
One case in point. In 8th grade my classmate Dave Fink, who was 6'2 at that point, got mad at 5'2" tall Sister Mary Kenneth and yelled his refusal to obey some request. This made the good Sister mad. She picked up a 1 foot ruler up from her desk and with black and white robes flowing began chasing the terrified Mr. Fink around the room. This went on until Sister got too tired to continue.
Graduation from 8th grade was still not a promotion for us to High School. At that time we had available E.E. Fell Junior High School, which enrolled grades 7, 8 and 9. And that was a cultural shock. 350 kids to a grade instead of 40. Physically 9th graders look at lot older than 7th graders. At E.E. Fell Gayle E. was a petite girl who was very well developed. One day she had a "wardrobe malfunction" and she was half the woman she used to be.
I subbed at a Middle School for the first time this week. The kids were great. A little loud at times but great. During a math class I saw a pile of pencils that the teacher had left on the desk for kids to borrow in case they forgot theirs. I put the pencils in two groups and informed the 6th graders that one side was right handed pencils and the other was left handed, and please try not to confuse the two.
Immediately 10 hands go up, all asking the same earnest question. "Mr. LaBarge, what's the difference between the two?" I asked one if he was right handed or left handed. "Right handed." "Well there you go. You can take a pencil from the right hand side." When the questions persisted I offered; "It's just the same as left and right handed screwdrivers and left and right handed hammers. Really, not any difference." That seemed to satisfy them.
They only problem I encountered was during a class period called "Advisory", which was like what we used to call "Study Hall". The instructions were to let the 7th graders read or work on their homework and that they could go to the library if needed to get a book. Each student at this school have little notebooks they carry with them that have to be initialed by the teacher if the kid wants to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom, library or office.
About a dozen lined up with their notebooks for the library but some also asked to go to the bathroom. When the dust settled I realized that I had let about 6 girls go to the bathroom at the same time. Normally I only let 1 at a time leave for the bathroom. Not surprisingly, after 5 minutes none of the young ladies had returned. I enlisted an eager girl to bring them the message that they had 60 seconds from now to get back. All made it back within 30. And I made it through the day unscathed.
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