Middle School: The Meltdown

I love Tim. Every time I see him, he has more facial hair—in new places! This is only one of the charms of teaching middle school.

My students are in that funny in-between phase, and (luckily for me) on the cuter end of it. So while one girl comes up to me for hugs or (as I suspect one of her teachers weaned her onto) high-fives, others show me pictures of hot guys in magazines.[1] And there are of course notes passed in class: “Jimmy and Emma—husband and wife!” “I’m in eighth grade and like you a lot—do you want to go out? Check yes/no.” I’ve intercepted a few in class (which I guess doesn’t speak too well for my teaching and ability to engage the students). One in particular gave me heart pangs. Having caught one that I couldn’t make out myself—actually, that would be all of them—I brought it to my co-teacher after class. She giggled and explained that it was a note from a girl to a boy in the grade ahead of her, asking if he wanted to be her boyfriend. He had checked “no.” It’s OK, Jessica reassured me, they pass these notes all the time, and the girl would likely send out another offer to a new boy the next day. Still…thinking of all those Beverly Cleary books and the excitement among my own middle school classmates over boyfriends and girlfriends, I figured it had to sting a little. But I digress. I have caught boys—boys!—blow-drying their hair between classes. (They like to spike it up a bit. Think Japanese manga.) My students complemented Jessica and me on our “sexy” dresses for the costume competition at Wu Jie. (See earlier post.) They always ask if I have a boyfriend. The boys in the grades that I don’t teach wing by me in the hallways and at my desk, shouting “hello!” and “good morning!” I get the feeling that they’ve been dared by the other boys inevitably surrounding them. When I answer, they all break up into laughter, bowling over each other and slapping the back of my greeter. What a lot of commotion. I alternately raise my eyebrows sardonically and sheepishly grin at the girls I’ve been chatting with, and look around to see if we’ve disturbed anybody. The other teachers take no notice.

Since the highest grade I teach (of my two) is eighth, attitude is mainly puerile, with kids shouting out of turn and walloping each other behind the teacher’s back. They also fall asleep a bunch in class and get rather pissy about being asked to spruce up. The girlfriend-boyfriend thing is also directed more at other people (idols, teachers) or cutesy almost-pretend dating amongst each other. To suggest them to be actually dating each other is a near-sure way of making the whole class laugh. One or two weeks ago, I was writing an example on the board where I needed to list two names. Joking around, I wrote the name of one of the boys in the class (who happens to be very good at English, so he kind of has it coming to be singled-out like this) and asked which girl’s name I should write next to his. “Emma!” shouted a bunch of students. Emma is also very good at English. “OK,” I said, and scribbled it. “No, no, no,” moaned the boy (Michael), and waved his arms in frantic Xs. “OK, who?” I asked. He wanted out. Desperately, he put forth the first option that seemed neutral to him. “My mother,” he called. “Oh my god, I never knew!” I cried. He covered his face and everyone laughed. I wrote down Madonna. I hope this doesn’t seem cruel to you. We were all joking around, and it was very clear that this was all in jest. The rest of the class went very well, and I think it was at least partially due to the good-humored bantering that we began with.

My next class did not go so well. There had been no teasing at its opening. Connection? A whole row of boys did not pay attention, chatting amongst themselves and claiming to not understand what I was saying. “But I know that can’t be,” I bitterly complained to one of my roommates when I got home. “All of my other classes understood, even the seventh graders.” “No,” she agreed, “they were just being little shits.”


[1] Last week, Jocelyn came over to me with a magazine full of pictures of idols (pop stars). She pointed to one man/boy she found very handsome. “Girl,” I said dismissively. Unfortunately, many Asian men come off as appearing somewhat feminine to Western eyes. “Nan,” she corrected. (“boy”) “Girl,” I retorted, not taking it. “Nan,” she emphatically repeated. “Girl.” “Nan.” “Girl.” “Hanguo.” (Korean) “OK,” I laughed, he’s excused. [“Nan” actually means “male” and “Hanguo” is “Korea,” while “Hanguoren” would be “Korean,” but the words above are what she meant colloquially.]