Teaching in a middle school is tough. All teaching is tough, but the work of a middle school teacher is extremely labor intensive because there is a certain unpredictability with the clientele. This is probably one of the more widely exhausted stereotypes one puts on middle school students, but it is true. Middle level students experience a number of emotional changes during the three years they are in middle school. Consequently, a middle school can often feel like an emotional land mine field. The work is excruciating but doubly rewarding.
Regardless of one’s content area, a middle school teacher is present for all sorts of turns in a student’s life. You are there for highs and the lows, but mostly the lows. I can remember working late one night when the basketball coaches posted the final cut list for their teams. My room was located down the hall from the gym and my desk was like a front row seat for the aftermath that followed those decisions.
A rush of five or six young men raced out to the front parking lot of the school to tell their moms and dads they had secured a spot on the team. A slower flow of boys followed. Some had their heads down in disappointment; others had a confident stroll to their ride home.
I attended middle school at Davis Middle School in Dublin, OH. The large middle school boasted a well known athletic program. Due to my build and lack of natural athletic talent, it became very clear to me extremely early in my stint at Davis Middle that I was likely not going to be a school athlete. In the summer between my seventh and eighth grade year I tried out for the golf team. I thought if there was one team I could make as a walk-on it would be the golf team. I finished dead last in the tryouts. I not only understood adolescent disappointment; I lived it.
Twenty minutes after the parade of initial emotions following the basketball cuts had been announced I heard a quiet knock at my classroom door. It was Mark. I never had Mark in class, but I knew him well. He was a likable kid that everyone spoke highly of.
“Can use your phone to call my dad?” He asked.
“Sure, I said.” Directing him to the classroom phone at the front of the room. “Dial 9 first to get an outside line.”
“Right.” He said.
Mark was careful to mute his speech when his dad picked up on the other end of the telephone. I can remember he covered the receiver with his hand as he whispered in to the phone. I felt as though I should leave the room. As I stood up to walk out Mark hung up the phone.
“You OK?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think.” Mark said. Then he paused. He made eye contact with me for a moment as if to say, No, I’m not OK. But I am not going to tell you why.
Mark looked away. Then he broke down in tears.
I offered him a seat and asked if he wanted to talk.
I don’t remember exactly what Mark said. It was kind of heard to follow–as you can probably imagine. But while we waited for his dad to pick him up from basketball tryouts he shared with me the deep frustration and sadness he felt in that moment. He didn’t hold any grudges, but he was mad at himself. He was convinced that if he could have run just a little faster, jumped just an inch higher, or made just one more free-throw he would have made a spot on the team.
If it was indeed that close for him, if he was essentially one basket away from making the team, then this was a very different variety of disappointment than I had experienced ten years earlier when I was cut from the golf team.
From this conversation I got the impression that Mark would take some time to get passed this funk he was in. To be so close and walk away with nothing in return would be heart-breaking. A couple of days later while on lunch duty I found Mark in the crowded cafeteria.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Great!” he said. “I found out last night that I made a club basketball team. We travel to Kansas City next month to play a tournament with teams from around the country. It’s going to be awesome!”
With a chuckle I resigned to myself, “Huh… Middle school.”