Personal Narrative: Middle School In America

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

When I got introduced to middle school approaching the first day of school, I possessed a lot of various feelings.I was afraid, had butterflies in my stomach, and assumed that middle school was going to be a challenging four years of my life.Basically, I was extremely nervous and excited for the opening day of middle school.

I was never the type of kid to standout in school especially not in the hallway. I was never too tall, never too short, not too scrawny, but the one thing I like to do is make people laugh. Yet even though that was very fun and all I still leave my legacy behind, which as weird, as this sounds, I was the one kid teachers never took seriously, but for the most part I never got that bad of a grade, in middle school(except when it came to 7th grade language arts class).

Starting middle school was a mixture of anxiety and excitement. There was a brand new campus to explore, but we were also nervously anticipating the academic program that was about to begin. Most of my grade had been together since the age of four and by this time there were clear social divides. There were the girls who were seen as popular, and then there was everybody else. You could say that I was part of the popular crowd, though at the time I didn’t notice myself standing apart from the others. As a group of friends we got on well, we’d hang out, go to the cinema, have sleepovers, all the usual things friends do. Then things gradually started to change.

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?

Choices. Regardless if the choice is good or bad, everybody makes them. There are times where the choices people make can alter their lives forever; this was one of those times. It was April 26, 2013, a normal friday for me attending West Middle School in my sixth grade year. At the time, I was the definition of an attention freak; I always wanted the spotlight on me. For a reason still not known to this day, I wanted people to feel bad for me. I thought that by gaining sympathy, I would be able to make friends and be the talk of the school. What I didn’t realize is that not all attention is good; some can be devastating. Unfortunately for me, I was not thinking about the effects of the choice that I was about to make. I couldn’t have possibly

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 remember when it was time to go from being a 12 year old 6th grader, to a 12 year old middle schooler with a lot more responsibilities than I was used to having. I had to make sure all my homework was done on time (It took me awhile to get the idea of no late homework hammered into my head), asked for help when I needed it the teacher wasn’t going to help as much as the elementary teachers would do unless I asked, with asking for help was a lot harder than I thought it would be everyone was confused too, after awhile the teacher finally got tired of running around the room jumping from student to student, marched up to the front of the class and wrote on the board of how to do a certain assignment.

In the school year of 2015-2016, I am a high school student now. I should be excited for this upcoming school. However, I felt nervous about this school year. I lay in my bed until my mom called me many times. After eating my wonderful breakfast, my mom and younger sister asked to get ready for school. I didn’t want to change my pajama. My dad called me from the downstair, “Iris, hurry up. It is time to school now.” I was unhappy to get out of my room. Even though I have been in the Memorial High School many times before this school year, I was afraid of being in my first day of school.

So the first thing I want to talk about is how middle school changed my life. When I was first coming into middle school, I was really scared and nervous about a lot of things like not being able to open your locker, bad people, swearing, and a lot of other stuff. Once I first came into middle school, things were, well a lot different than expected. I had no problem opening my locker, the “scary” people weren’t that scary, and swearing was just blocked out of my mind. I really wasn’t that nervous the next day and I just went on going to classes and learning like I usually did. Now about a few months into the school year, I kept on meeting people and making more friends. Little did I know that I would meet my best friend. Like BEST FRIEND.

There's ups and there's downs, twists and turns lessons to be learned. A lost young boy trying to get through day by in a world that seemed a little bit too unfair. In middle school i didn't understand, i had no care in the world i thought I was invincible, no worries, no problem. I took my reality and turned into a dream to deal with the nightmares that haunted me at night. I just needed a second chance, i needed an awakening. Looking back on it now i wish i never taken the chances i had and opportunities granted.

For the most part, I have rarely experienced deindividuation, as I have never really done anything out of my character; however, there is one specific moment I can recall from middle school. If you had good grades at the time when your advisory teacher checked every monday, you were given a free pass to spend the rest of the weeks advisory periods playing games. I don’t think there was time when I didn’t have good grades, so I got to mess around every week during this time period. One day, my friends and I discovered one of the rooms wasn’t being watched by a teacher, so, of course, we started going to that room everyday. It didn’t take long for us to completely lose our normal morals around each other, due to the group anonymity and that we

When I was growing up, I never expected to be made fun of. I didn’t know that being overweight was going to be a problem. I lacked the courage to defend myself from bullies who often teased me. They laughed and even made jokes about me because I was out of shape and quiet. Being different was a tough experience for me in middle school and in elementary school since I didn’t know how to defend myself and even less, ask for help. Kids wouldn’t come up to me and ask me to play with them.Instead, I spent most of the time alone.

It was the eve of middle school, I think; I sure wasn't really keeping track. The promised day had arrived, my grades were as sound as a tuned trumpet; and I was just done with a C- in music. However, I kept my behavior to the minimum of a 5th grader; something that was much more welcomed than the awkward and apathetic existence of middle schoolers. I’ve been keeping myself on the down low for a good month when my math teacher announced to us that we would be having a boat trip for the most well behaved student, and take a guess who was first of her list! It was Samuel. However, sure enough I was able to weasel and bribe my way in with compliments and good behavior into the list as seventh place! Even better news was that I could bring a parent

Throughout this school year, I’ve been working as an assistant debate coach at my middle school. Although I’ve had quite some experience debating, I’ve never truly taught debate, nor have I ever work with children. During most meetings, I would be a volunteer who assisted Coach Bryan with whatever he needs.