MIDDLE SCHOOL

When kids leave childhood and move to adulthood

BY Goolbai Gunasekara

It is often assumed that the most highly qualified teachers should be assigned to the upper school. I must disagree. Children entering middle school are around 11 years old.

In Britain, the better private schools (they call them ‘public schools’) such as Harrow, Eton and Cheltenham take in students at this age. Middle school level is regarded as the age when childhood is left behind and the journey to adulthood begins. Teachers need to be special indeed.

This transition is fraught with pitfalls – psychological and otherwise. These middle school pupils are a most interesting bunch. They can be fun to teach despite being impossibly contrary in their behaviour.

I must mention here that my views are based on experiences with international school students.

To a great extent, they are testing their wings. Their homework is often heavier than when they were juniors; but they’re no longer personally supervised as carefully as they were in the lower school. They need to be taught independence and many of them require special care.

The burdens and difficulties of a middle school teacher are much greater than later on when teachers don’t have to worry too much about childhood’s transitional periods. The time of middle schooling is fraught with problems.

At international schools, there is considerable freedom in terms of gender association. Strangely enough, girls dislike boys in the lower school, claiming they are messy, untidy, noisy and loud.

But in Form 1, things begin to change. They begin to actually like each other. One amusing incident was when a Form 2 girl’s literature text was vandalised accidentally by the boy seated next to her. Here is what occurred in my office…

About six boys and 10 girls arrived at my door one day and told Piyaseeli (my office room ‘guard’) that they needed to complain instantly. She ushered them in reluctantly. I like seeing children so I smiled impartially and said: “Well, what’s the problem?”

A babel of voices broke out.

“One at a time, please! You go first, Roshanara.”

“Miss, Prashan tore up Lulu’s literature text book… simply tore it up!” Lulu was making much use of her hanky.

Scarlet with mortification, Prashan replied: “Miss, it really was an accident. My chair’s leg was on the book, which had fallen, and it tore as I tried to pull it out.”

“Only an idiot boy would do such a silly thing when he is seated on the chair,” said Roshanara, being the spokesperson for the girls.

“Miss, I didn’t know it was under the chair’s leg. I’d never tear Lulu’s book. I would never do anything to…”

“Ooh, Prashan!” chorused the boys.

Twisting her hanky, Lulu went pink. There were surprisingly very few tears visible. I got the picture. Prashan apologised yet again and Lulu nodded slightly in acceptance.

As I watched them leave the office, jostling each other as children do, there was a cute corollary. Prashan held the door open until Lulu left the room and was rewarded by a slight smile from her. I hardly needed school gossip to tell me there was a budding ‘friendship.’

This is one advantage of coeducation. Friendships remain innocent and variable. Prashan and Lulu had new ‘friends’ within the term.

But not all problems are this simple…

Girls and boys suddenly become introverted at home. Many log on to computers and remain closeted in their rooms. Formerly loving children suddenly want time alone. Earlier comradeship between parents and children takes a turn for the worse.

One tearful mother told me her daughter had put up a sign on the bedroom door that said ‘Don’t enter.’ She could not imagine what had happened to their formerly close and happy chats when the two of them had cuddled happily together.

Here is a list of parental complaints when their offspring reach those terrible teens.

‘They criticise everything we do.’

‘They’re on the phone as soon as they get home.’

‘They refuse to eat home food.’

‘They only like pizza.’

‘They’re rude.’

‘They want to be alone.’

‘They won’t wear the clothes we buy for them.’

The list is endless…

Meanwhile, what is the child feeling?

Adolescence is no picnic for anyone. Children don’t understand the hormonal changes that are taking place. Parents begin to seem hostile to them. Home rules become burdensome. It is difficult for them to know how to deal with the opposite sex.

It’s a hard time for everybody and needs sensible parenting. Families are operating in unchartered territory and neither parents nor children have guidelines.

Of course, general advice is available but each situation varies. No family has the same problem except to say, frustratedly: ‘I don’t know what to do!’

Principals often act as advisors to parents who are at their wit’s end. After a few years, there are patterns that can be recognised and dealt with.