My Experience Of Speaking Up In Middle School

Before the first grade, we moved around a few times before ending up here in Sylvania. As a child, both my parents worked full time jobs and I was always at after school day cares or at my grandparents houses, never really got to spend a lot of time with friends or was able to socialize with many people. So growing up most of my time was spent with my brother and I thought nothing of it. As I grew up I began to realize that I had become stuck in some bad habits. My brother and I weren't asked to help around the house much but when we were we never listened. But to my surprise there were no consequences for our disobedience. At the time I thought I had it good. Around the time I got too middle school I began to realize the problem. I began

School was exactly how I had imagined it to be while I was in grade school. I had the privilege of having recess, early lunch hours, and most importantly, naptime! The day I started sixth grade, my whole world seem as if it flipped upside down. I was no longer at the top of the “food chain”, school was way more stressful, and I had, in fact, found new talents within myself.

Freshman year I had found a good group of friends that I felt comfortable around. I was building a lot of social confidence; I was determined to get that same confidence in the classroom. I had the mindset of putting my education before hanging out with friends. Speaking up in the classroom started to become more natural to me. I discovered I was good at mastering small details and became intrigued by specific topics like the creation of the United States Federal Reserve. Though I still am rarely the first to jump into a conversation in the classroom, I always look for opportunities to display the intellect I kept silent for so

In middle school, 5th to 8th grade, I endure multiple adjective to describe my experience in middle school. While in Middle School, I struggle with my appearance which has stayed as an adult. For I always look at myself and all the flaws in my features, as my family members and/or friends state my beauty features, I will brushed them off by stating the negative feature I visually observe. Until recently, I’ve overcome my inability of reading in public and/or to my peers. As my cousin passed away tragically, his mother (my Aunt) asked if I will read his poem to her and a group of 50 strangers. She knew my fear of public speaking, she also knew my dream of becoming a teacher and starting to a career as a substitute teacher. Therefore, she knew I needed to overcome the fear of speaking. I am extremely pleased with myself to speak clearly and to have the strength and encouragement of my family to overcome my greatest fear with a poem in dedication to my beloved cousin.

I have always been the person people go to for answers. Since seventh grade I have been in honors classes; I was the only seventh grader in an eighth grade math class. I had never been so nervous walking in to class in my life. My legs were trembling and my hands were shaking. I walked around the room hoping to find a seat not in the back so I do not show my teacher I do not care; but not in the front so my classmates think I am a kiss up. I sat in between two boys, and tried to not let them see how intimidated I actually am by them.

From my experience, surviving middle school takes a mixture of luck, naive fearlessness, and an aggressive number of colorful plastic binders. I started my first day of fifth grade a jumbled mess of nerves, anxious about making friends and doing well in class, and inexplicably dressed head-to-toe in red, white, and blue swag my mom got when the Summer Olympics were in Atlanta. I mean, my backpack matched my shoelaces, which matched my pants and my shirt. I might have even had a hat. A hat. A precisely matching hat. That I wore all day. Needless to say, I was not a particularly cool child. I studied hard, had a core group of equally nerdy friends, and constantly worried about whether I was doing the right thing or, perhaps more accurately, becoming the right thing. Was I not studying hard enough to get into college? Or maybe studying too hard, missing out on my youth? Would I grow into my teeth one day? Would my skin eventually stop looking like greasy peanut brittle?

In Middle School, where we were still growing up as adults, we did not like following the rules. I was in 9th grade. That day the bell rang for our next class and me and my friends did not want to go to our next class right away. We waited outside the room for our next class and chilled and talked. Me and my friends were in class all day and we wanted to let go of some energy. We kept talking and if our teacher came, we would go into the class right away. Our school did not like students to hang out in the hallway because they made too much noise. We did not care, we still chilled outside the class. We talked about new shoes and what we were going to do after school. It was so much fun because I had not seen my friends since 8th grade and it was the

I walked into the loud building so scared and nervous. I couldn't believe today was the day. The day i'm finally in middle school. That day was the day that I could officially call myself a Vista Verde Middle School student. When I walked into the building the bell had rung for us to proceed to class. On my I spotted one of my very good friends, Esmeralda. After I said hi to her I walked to my first period class which is room 403 and my teacher is Ms. Blasnek.

Growing up in a city like Reading is not easy on any child, especially when you are the minority. This city is composed of 87,893 people, and of these people only twenty nine percent of them are Caucasian. Over half of the people living in our city are Hispanic, making up fifty nine percent of the population. Being part of the twenty nine percent can make a child feel different or left out while they are growing up. Children strive to make friends and to fit in with other kids their age. In my case it was not always the easiest because of a cultural barrier, or even a language barrier. Starting school is a scary for everyone, everyone fears the unknown. But when you enter school into a classroom full of people unlike yourself, is when the nerves really set in.

I rarely spoke at a volume that startled people or echoed across the room without my legs shaking. However, the moment came in my middle school 8th grade art class where my inner voice finally spoke out loud at a volume that made people listen to me. It was the day my friend and I were targeted for speaking Spanish in the classroom. A student had commented that we were “wetbacks” and that we should speak English while the class laughed in the background. What surprised me more was my art teacher’s passivity and direction for us to stop speaking Spanish. While I heard these comments before, I could not let it go when the teacher, a figure who I respected as part of the academic institution, had made it okay for others to treat my friend and I in such a manner. I declared to the class that I will not stop speaking Spanish and I turned around to ask the teacher a simple “Why?” I wanted to why she said to stop and why she did not direct her comments at the other students instead. I stepped outside of the classroom and the teacher apologized. While this experience led me to advocate for myself, I still was not at the level where I could advocate for others. It was not until I entered college that I met an English professor that become my mentor and helped me find and refine my

It was a normal school day at Brookhurst Jr. High in 7th Period were my friends and I were talking and waiting for the bell to ring so we could all go home and the school day would be over. Before I left I needed to go to the bike racks to get my skateboard so I could ride it home.

Change scared me. Coming to HMS for the first time as a 7th grader terrified me. As the summer came to an end, I worried about getting around the school, meeting new people, and the change in my sleeping habits and schedule. Thoughts rushed through my head about going to the Middle School for the first time. The first day of seventh grade came quick and I was ready to start a new year. My dad drove me to the front of the school and I exited the car saying good bye. I was unsure where any of my classrooms were and I only recognized a few people in my homeroom. The Middle School was far larger then I remember from the tour that ARIS provided. I wasn’t use to no recess, and the formation of the lunch lines. Going into seventh grade, I was clueless

During my teenage years, I was extremely indecisive in the career I wanted to pursue and if I could even successfully complete middle school and high school. I was constantly surrounded by students who were not enthusiastic about academic performance and I did the minimum effort to get through the academic week. Education was my least priority.

I lived in Sterling, Illinois, in a decent sized house outside city limits. I never actually attended middle school, as I was home-schooled for sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. During home-school, I got to spend all of my day dealing with my siblings (which is worse than it sounds). If it wasn't my siblings, it was my dad, who I don't really talk to as is. Nothing is the matter between us, I just don't talk much. Most of my time not in school or dealing with my family was spent in video games or exploring a nearby forest. There wasn't much between those two, as I only had two friends I talked to. I worried for the longest time that I would go my middle school AND high school years with only those two friends. I wasn't one that could be described

Middle school was a very big transition for me. I went from a class of 20 people to a class of 35 people and one classroom to six classrooms! At first I was very anxious because I had been in class with the same people continuously for most of my school life, and now I would barely see those people. Over the past two years of my middle school experience, I have lost friends, made better friends, learned more, matured, and became more independent. Middle school has taught me how to be independent. I had learned that I could not rely on my teacher to remind me that I need to turn in my work, that I needed to figure out my problems myself, and that I needed to ask for help if I need it. I am very grateful that middle school has taught me all