Are You Tough Enough for Middle School?

[MTI]

A therapist goes to middle school and tries to sit still and focus. She can’t. Neither can the kids. - The Washington Post

I’m mentally exhausted and the day has just begun. I was planning on observing the whole day. I just can’t do it. I decide to leave right after lunch.

Reading the description of the class instantly put me back to my own middle school days, the slouch, the leg twitch, the clock watching . . . it seems to have gotten worse over the decades.

[TheDon]

It's terrible. Try being the teacher. All of the stupid stuff I have to comply with and do to appease the govt,my administration, and parents


I took down my clock because that's all the kids do is stare at it. And now all they do is ask what time it is.

[TylerH860]

I don't remember middle school being like that, and I only graduated high school 10 years ago. Music, gym, technology, Home EC, Home room, and tons of odd ball projects, hand on presentations. Those are the things I remember, certainly not much from sitting around. Would be a shame if crammed lesson plans and teaching to a test eliminated this.

Silent lunches is insane. So is gym once every 6 days.

[t walgamuth]

I loved shop class in jr hi. I excelled, especially at drafting.

[JB3]

for the last 5 years of middle to high school career I was put in a private school because of my dismal performance in public schools. I distinctly remember the second half of the day being filled with fearful anticipation for the average 2-3 hours of sports practice after school.

Last class of the day was pretty useless, most of the kids werent looking forward to running what the coach called a "dollar bill", or hill sprints, especially us chubby ones. the "dollar bill" was a standard square field run where you ran the field 4 times, jogged 3 sides each time, and sprinted the 4th. He called it a dollar bill because I think he handed out a dollar to the fastest kid if I recall. Being in the back of the pack, this honor was never mine.

I do remember though the dramatic change in the nature of the school day vs public school where gym was similar to as described in the article. Once or twice a week of activity and a break after lunch to play on a concrete parking lot for 45 minutes. I recall kids had to specifically request things like a basket ball or soccer ball, and the sedentary kids would just hang around.

I don't remember the public school class schedule though, is that the same every day?

I remember the private school had a rotating schedule to keep things fresh with the classes always advancing one period earlier until they became last class and so on, but im pretty sure thats fairly typical

[Hatterasguy]

School wasn't that bad, it was just boring.