Blog #20 - Completed Essay 4

Middle School Morph

          The movie “To Sir With Love” debuted in 1967.  If there was ever an inspiring story to lead you to become a teacher or not, this was it.  Sidney Poitier portrayed an out of work engineer, who took a teaching job, just until he gained employment in his area of study.  The setting was in an urban, low socio-economic area of London.  When he found it just about impossible to do his job, he reached out in the only way he could think of, by disposing of his textbooks and starting to teach his students from scratch, with lessons on daily life and values.  In the end, it was worth his while.  At the end of the school year, he had made major breakthroughs with the children, and the Engineering job he was waiting on came through, so he wrote his resignation letter to the school.  While he had both a challenging and successful year as a teacher, he believed he was ready to move on.  Right before he was going to leave his classroom and submit his resignation to the administration of the high school, a few students came wildly flying into his classroom to let him know that they were going to be in his “bloody” class next year.  He tore up the letter.  He realized this was where he belonged, and that while it was difficult, these children in this place needed someone like him.

          This neighborhood school and its students can be found pretty much anywhere in the world, where children live under some less than acceptable conditions.  In the urban areas of New Jersey, every year, the kids come plowing into the classroom, anxious to start their new school year of learning – but alas, that is just the dream of a teacher!  They come for many different reasons, least of which is their education.  They come for the social life, for time to hang out with their friends.  They come in hopes of potential personal relationships, to become a part of a couple or a family.  They come to get away from their home life, this for a variety of scary and emotional reasons. The teachers, who have chosen to be here with them, don’t quite realize the baggage the students carry with them right away, but you can be sure it’s there.  They begin to strategize on getting the kids into a viable routine, and the students fight them every step of the way, because routine is not something they are accustomed to.  The teachers later find out that their classes and follow-up on these kids may be the sole bit of consistency that a good number of them have in their lives.  The days, weeks and months drag on, but they never give up.  They continue to teach them from books and life’s experiences, in spite of themselves.  Real teachers have the genuine insight to see in their students, what they can’t yet see in themselves.

          “Let’s start with an ice breaker!”, the results of which are meant for the children to get acquainted, but are truly to give the teacher a pathway to their individual needs.  Teachers, then assess their academic needs, because they need to understand the learning styles of the kids, and instruct them accordingly.  You see, they are not just teachers in these neighborhoods.  They are parentis in absentia, social workers, psychologists, nutritionists, and on and on.  There is no end to the special needs of most urban students.  Teachers have to learn to communicate not only in their native languages, which are widely diverse, but must also become a quick study of “street” language and the “urban dictionary”.  They come from many countries, and are labeled as “bi-lingual”.  But their languages are attained in this order:  Native language, which they speak at home, English, as they learn it in the street, texting short hand, and finally the real English, or whatever of that is left anymore, what with e-mail and cell phones.  Of course, the miracle that these teachers are expected to perform, is to take them from here, to writing a five paragraph, logical and coherent, persuasive argument.  The students must use proper English, so that the state will continue to fund the school and supply teachers with the tools they need to open the following year.

          Teachers can’t do this job unless they love this job, along with the stress and frustration, but even more, they must love the children.  In addition to their diverse backgrounds, their hormones are raging, so the assignments they are given are obviously not very high on the priority list of these early teenagers.  Middle school students don’t believe that their teachers expect them to actually study, nor can they be convinced that teachers’ aspirations for their success, is truly for their own good.  But they are in middle school.

          At age eleven or twelve, children are promoted into the grades called middle school.  They have completed their elementary education, but are not yet ready for high school, so they cautiously move into this transitional middle, with the weariness of that of a middle child in a family.  As sixth graders, they meekly arrive onto the scene, where they become holders of this square piece of metal, called a locker.  While it is surely a status symbol, it is not something they can actually use, for there must certainly be a gremlin hiding inside which prevents the secret combination from opening the door.  Therefore, these children remain the tested weaklings of the middle school.  By the end of this year, however, if they have survived, and have been able to open the locker for at least one month, the power that begins to grow in their body and minds is overwhelming.  They are now fighting the takeover by the battling hormones, which leaves them with little left to focus with in their studies…..but their teachers still do not give up.  From September through December, they still feel like sixth graders, but once their winter holiday is completed, they return to the classroom with a focus and vigor, not to see what can be learned from their books, but what they can learn about how much they can get away with.  It is surely their turn to test their teachers beginning in January until the end of the school year.  They are now also very strong, as they will soon become the upper classmen in this kindergarten through eighth grade facility.  As a seventh grade teacher, January through June can be death-defying.  These facts teachers are divulging, are the results of both keen observation and highly developed teaching philosophy on the adolescent brain.

          Finally in September, the frightening seventh graders return as the leaders of the school.  They are powerful and their teachers continue to push on, for now they must prepare them for a more significant transition to high school. There, every choice they make will have more critical consequences, so no matter how much they fight against it, teachers must persist.  The eighth grade teachers know a secret about these new students this year, which the students themselves are not yet aware of; for they have seen many classes come and go.  It is for this hope and light at the end of the tunnel that they hang on.  They know the light is not an oncoming train, but an ebbing tide of hormones and power that is approaching.  For when an eighth grader returns from winter break, their teachers begin to see an awakening.  If you have ever seen the blooming process of peonies, a flower whose outside must be eaten off by insects before it can fully bloom, this is what a latter year eighth grader resembles.  This tough exterior of their personality begins to dissipate, as they realize their time here is growing short.  The comfort and safety net that was built for them is about to change, and they suddenly feel the need to hold on for dear life to what they have been pushing away for the last eighteen months.  They say words like “help” and “thank you”.  It is when the teachers of these middle students finally see this scion, which they know they have done the right things.  It is now, in this metamorphous, that they are certain it was all worthwhile.