Ignore 8th Graders At Your Own Peril!

As some of you may have noticed, some of my students have discovered this blog. That's fine - there's nothing here I'd want to hide from them or from anyone else. Two of them in particular have asked that I write about them, and the reason I haven't is there really hasn't been anything to write about. Until recently.

Cara has taken it upon herself to help me learn to stop ignoring, shall we say, vocal eighth graders. Very vocal eighth graders. One very vocal eighth grader. Namely, herself.

Speak of the devil (as many civilians would refer to any eighth grader), she wandered into my empty classroom earlier this afternoon (I was on prep period) to show me her dirt-covered hands from Gary's science class next door. The exchange went like this:

Cara (bounding into the room unannounced): "Hi, Mr. Rainey!!"

Me (looking up from writing this post): "Hi, Cara."

Cara: "Check it out!" (waves dirt-crusted hands in my direction, unknowingly flinging little dirt particles all over my shirt).

Me: "Um, Cara...why is there dirt all over your hands?"

Cara: "From science! We're making our foundations!"

Me: "Um, foundations?"

Cara: "Duh, Mr. Rainey! For our buildings!"

At which point she turns and bounds back out of the room.

Turns out Gary's doing a cool project with them in which they are making structures out of rather creative substances, and then those structures will be subjected to simulated tectonic activity, provided by the vibration of a fully cranked-up Black and Decker pad sander. The last structure standing will be deemed the winner. They're using toothpicks for 2x4's and miniature marshmallows for mortar. Should be interesting.

The other kid who begged to have a post written about her is Amber. See, every day we have silent reading in my first two morning classes (I have two different sets of students in the mornings). During 2nd period, Amber had gone out of the room to get a drink of water.

I had my back to the door, and can only guess what actually happened (and I'm not sure Amber could explain, either). All I know is, she yelled very loudly in my (reasonably) quiet classroom, "OWWWW!!! I HIT MY NOSE!!!"

Now, let me educate you all about the average middle schooler, especially the average middle school girl. To almost any girl between the ages of 12 and 14, the title "drama queen" most certainly applies. My classes this year, being about two-thirds female on the whole, are veritable royal dynasties, with individual fiefdoms fighting battles and creating and breaking alliances on a daily basis, the winners being those who can be the most dramatic to make their individual points.


Amber is generally not one given to the dramatics (see Cara, above), but she does fit the general drama queen demographic, so I assumed her shout was designed to A) disrupt the class, B) draw attention to herself, and C) get under my skin. (Again, these aren't normally in Amber's milieu, but dealing with 8th graders is somewhat akin to working with trained lions - that is, there can never be a *completely* trained lion, just as there can never be a completely predictable 8th grade girl).

Thinking this is simply Amber getting her drama on, I called out, "Amber! Quit disturbing the class!" and immediately got re-engrossed in the work at hand.

So this explains why I didn't notice Amber sitting behind me on a stool, holding her nose, staving off tears by sheer force of will - tears of pain, and possibly of sadness that I hadn't responded to her initial cry.

Once I noticed, and offered multiple apologies and the use of a cold pack from my classroom fridge, she got herself back together.

See, the cool thing about teaching middle schoolers is they're still kids, despite their bids (especially by 8th grade) to try to be (more) mature high schoolers. I've taught high school before, and I know that there certainly are pluses there, but I really like teaching where I am. I've considered trying to get a high school job (to do some "real teaching" as my brother once put it), but I don't really think so anymore.

I'm content to do *my* real teaching in the lion's cage.