Ms. Paige Sweet, a very talented Middle School English teacher, wrote about why she teaches those hormonal adolescents. Paige and I were in junior high together, and someday we are going to publish great works together about our teaching. Watch out!

The official publication is here. It is also pasted below!

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“Do you teach middle school because you failed out of college and can’t teach high school?” a perky seventh grade math student asked a friend of mine who teaches middle school math.

“No, I teach middle school because I like middle school students.” Silence. Shock and awe among the masses.

Similarly, when I’m winding through an epically long grocery store line, sitting on an exam table, or reporting at a class reunion, I dread the inevitable question: “So, what do you do?”

People are stunned, really, to find there is a culture of teachers who not only choose to teach in middle schools but actually prefer it. And my response to their question usually elicits one of two types of responses:
1. A lineage of suppressed middle school memories pour out, usually including popular classmates ruining lives, sitting alone at lunch every day ruining lives, dreaded teachers ruining lives, or parents’ staunch rules...you guessed it…ruining lives.
2. Or, there’s the weird benediction: “Bless you. You do the work of the saints.”

My own middle school path was treacherous, to say the least, and involved the common adolescent phenomena of existing on a sine curve: “The best day ever!” or “The worst day ever!” I had my share of bathroom cries, door slams, and obnoxiously high-pitched shrieks. I survived, and reflecting, I thrived.

In fact, it was in middle school where—between getting braces and getting grounded—I fell in love with books and started finding my voice as a writer. My English classes opened my eyes to a huge world beyond the small town of Dunlap, Illinois. My middle school English teachers got me: hook, line, and sinker.

From middle school on, I knew I wanted to be an English teacher, but I envisioned myself enthroned with a Ph.D. (and maybe a scepter), mesmerizing high school seniors or college students with Renaissance poetry, gliding my pen across dozens of term papers contrasting Realism with Naturalism in American literature, counseling students carefully about “real” problems like where to go to college or how to get published. And to my disgust, I was placed in a seventh grade classroom as part of my Illinois teaching certificate requirements.

Under the guidance of a master teacher (with several advanced degrees himself but no throne to be seen), I witnessed the daily magic of working with middle schoolers. The classroom discussions were rich and inspiring; the students were astute and hilarious. They were candid, honest, insightful, and they certainly weren’t afraid to ask questions, take risks, and call me out if they sensed I was in the least bit unprepared. It was a challenge of stamina every day, intellectually and physically, and it was the greatest challenge I had ever experienced. Hook, line, sinker.

Now in my fourth year of teaching middle school English, there is nothing I’m not willing to try, including that Renaissance poetry I so love. There’s nothing more important that showing students the difference between a Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet and having them see those differences and eventually compose their own quite good sonnets. But I also get to dabble in the ridiculous, which middle schoolers always love, like having students recite Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island theme song. (It works...ever tried it? It’s hysterical.) I see students’ eyes illuminate when they “get” what happened the night of November 21st in To Kill a Mockingbird and those same eyes fall when they realize Atticus is going to lose and an innocent man is going to jail. I see the horror in their eyes when they finally realize what, exactly, is happening inThe Birds (not a bedtime read).

We read together. We write together. I get to know these students in a way that, at this age, even their parents often don’t. Nothing is too hard for them to imagine; there is no dream they can’t accomplish. There is no way they are going to survive the week if so-and-so keeps talking about them behind their back. It’s the best day ever. It’s the worst day ever. It’s sandwiches stuck in braces. It’s a privilege and an honor to work with them. It’s my job. I’m so lucky. Hook. Line. Sinker.

By Paige Sweet