The human mind is capable of absurd amounts of nostalgia, particularly for aspects of our childhoods. However, one part of childhood that almost universally misses out on this nostalgia is middle school. A short period of time, two or three years depending on where you went to school, in between elementary and high school, middle school comes at a time when there is a shift in our identities. Legally, we are all still minors and, really, we are all still children, but this idea is clouded under the transition from child to young adult, a transition that happens both societally and internally. Middle school is really the first jump for students in terms of both, as the kindergarten to elementary school jump is tinged with too much youthful nostalgia to be truly remembered at this point. The first days of middle school, and the proceeding two or three years, however, will be well remembered but with distaste rather than nostalgic fondness.
Perhaps the greatest ways middle school is advertised to the graduating elementary school class is that they will be given more independence and their teachers will expect more from them. This is both a daunting and exciting idea for most students, as it suggests more work, but also that they will be treated with a level of maturity that has been missing from their elementary school days, something they are surely starting to get tired of. It always seems that as we graduate from one level of education to the next, we are happy to leave the old one behind, with the possible exception of high school to college where the jump may seem too great to some students. Otherwise, we often feel we've grown enough to feel we deserve a higher level of treatment in terms of education and independence. So, then, why does this period of growth and independence create such feelings of disgust in seemingly everyone we talk to about the dreaded middle school years?
Partially, that comes from the school itself, which doesn’t entirely know how to treat the transitioning teens. The balance between independence and control is hard to meet when your population itself doesn’t quite know where it wants to be in terms of that balance, or, worse, wants more independence than it may be able to handle or that the school may be ready to give. This is quite a turn off to students as they enter middle school and realize it isn’t the land of independence that their previous teachers had made it out to be. A level of resentment grows from this, as they simply want to be controlled less.
There is no point in arguing whether middle school students are actually worthy of such independence. It's dependent on the student, and to group all students together is not only a flawed idea, but would only further perpetuate adult misunderstandings of children. What can be said is that the level at which the school controls them during these years feels like an inhibitor to their personal growth. This is the age where an identity crisis of some sort tends to loom. Students find themselves thrown into a new world, one that may be more like their previous institutions than they realize, but also a new world within themselves. They are forced to stretch themselves, to grow into this new space. tThe force comes societally but also biologically.
This is truly a time of growth for students as they begin to figure out where they stand as their identity shifts from child to adult, falling somewhere in between into what we call a teenager. Identity is something that is constantly shifting, but it happens to be in middle school when our first real identity crisis occurs. As we are thrown into a new schooling situation, we are also throwing ourselves out there on a personal level, trying to figure out who we want to be.
Such crises don’t end when middle school ends, but by then we have had some time to figure ourselves out. And when we move into high school, we are in an environment that actually allows for more independence. Both of those aspects allow us to feel more comfortable in finding ourselves. Middle school just happens to be the first big hurdle, and it is not fondly remembered because of that very reason. It is a time of hurdles, of obstacles, and growth is tough and usually involves surmounting and learning a lot via experience. By and large, our identities are most mixed up at this time, too. Our level of discomfort is always high as we try on numerous identities, attempting to find ourselves in a much higher concentration than at nearly any other point in our lives. Compounding this, society doesn't know how to treat people of this age. It wants them to be adults, to mature, and yet it knows that they aren't mature, that they still lack so much experience. Our identity is mixed up within us and by those around us.
