The best of school, the worst of school
March 21, 2012I know, I KNOW, I missed yesterday. My work got out of control. Also a lemur attacked me. Just like that! On the streets of Park Slope! Who knew there were lemurs lurking in the trees? Or even just that one?
Lemurs, by the way, go for the face.
Today, as penance, I will cover sixth AND seventh grade. Which is just as well. Because Seventh Grade Me makes me sad, and I wouldn't want to leave her alone in a post all by herself.
First up: sixth grade.
Many teeth removed! Retainer in! Braces: coming up! Oh, mouth.
Sixth grade was my best year ever. My teacher was Mr. Reilly. I loved him. LOVED. He was kind, he was smart, he encouraged me to write and I wrote all the time. I have boxes of writing from that year. Weird-ass stories about death and drunk people (and sometimes people drinking themselves to death), and he never once asked me to rein it in.
Mr. Reilly made one mistake, which was to let me pursue independent study. (Sound familiar?) In an effort to encourage me in both art and writing, he had me embark on an ambitious project wherein I would create an animated short about a wacky character who, I don't know, did things. Fell a lot. I don't remember what the short was going to be about. Because I DIDN'T DO IT.
I don't really know how I would have done it, as I had no idea how to animate, but somehow I conned Mr. Reilly into thinking I had it all under control. He sent me to the library every day to continue my Secret Project. This might have only gone on for a few weeks but in my mind it was the whole year. After checking out some initial drawings and the basic storyline, he left me alone. Left alone, I opted to 1) read books, and 2) read more books.
When he discovered what happened, he didn't penalize me. I think he realized it was his mistake, and also I probably got more out of all the books I read than anything I could have created.
Mr. Reilly showed me that I was a writer. He will always have a special place in my heart.
And then I went to seventh grade, where my heart shriveled and died! (Only for a while.) (My heart came back to life.) (I have a zombie heart, is what I'm trying to tell you.)
Before I show you my class photo, which I guarantee you is one of the saddest sights you will ever see in your life, let me tell you a little bit about this year.
In sixth grade, I was among the oldest group of kids in a relatively small school. In seventh grade, I was at the bottom rung at a junior/senior high school that combined the school population from two different towns, so even my own grade was filled with strangers. The school I attended went from 7th grade to 12th. This covers a wide range of ages. My first day on the bus to the high school, I sat next to a guy who had a beard. He told me a story about shooting at a dog who had been rooting through his trash.
This was not a public bus, mind you. He was a fellow student. A bearded fellow student. Whose car had broken down so he was forced to take the bus. Where he claimed he owned a gun. If he was to be believed, which he probably was not, but I didn't know that, because I was fucking TWELVE.
My first day at the giant school of terror did not get any easier. Oh: my grandfather had suffered a massive heart attack the night before my first day of school. So my parents were preoccupied, and we were all sleep-deprived. And then I made a bearded friend.
We had lockers, at this school, and somehow I was overlooked when they were distributing those, so I carried around all my books on the first day. Period after period, I accrued more and more books, challenging my balancing skills well past their limits. This didn't sit well with the general school population. The next day I asked my mom for a bag, and she handed me a paper bag. I can only assume she didn't understand the request, because guess what happens when you carry a shit-ton of books in a paper bag? The bottom of my bag falling out in the hall did not make me look any cooler than the day before.
Nothing got easier in the following days and months, even after I was given a locker. I was frequently accosted by my peers who were trying to be "nice" and offer advice on how I could make my face less weird. Then there were other girls who suddenly, out of nowhere, wanted to beat me up. I don't know when they passed out the memo that seventh grade was the grade for Girl Fights, but everyone else seemed to know it. Or my face just filled with them with fury and the need to yank some hair.
(I never did get beaten up. I always talked my way out of it. The closest I got to brutality was a group of girls ganging up on me out in front of the school, grabbing my LeSportSac and mocking its contents. I had a stupid brand of light-blue eyeliner, which they smeared against the brick wall. Also: a Snoopy pencil case, which they regarded with derision, and then returned to me.)
Okay, so here's the face you get when you combine all of these things.
I look like I had just come off a three-day crying jag. I probably had.
Seriously, school photographer? Could you have tried a little bit, even a little, to help me out? Maybe encourage me to pull my shoulders back? Coax the merest hint of a smile? I look like I've just been pulled from airplane wreckage.
As hard as this picture is to look at, at least I have an accurate record of my emotional state that year. Is it any surprise this is the year my anxiety disorder showed itself? I just want to wrap this kid up in a blanket and get her out of there.
Share your true tales of awkwardness and beat-uppery. I'll be over here, drunk-dialing my therapist.
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Reader Comments (38)
6th grade: I had a teacher named Phyllis Eisenstein who REALLY tried with me, but 1. often gave up and 2. didn't know what the hell to do with me. So the only successful thing we accomplished is figuring out I ran out of steam writing and re-writing essays, and thus I was the only one in the class allowed to have my first draft also be my final draft. I was a solid writer so this worked out well.
7th grade: The year we went from having desks to having to live out of lockers and having a different teacher every single period. My english teacher, Rose A. Gal, HATED me. Hated isn't really even a strong enough word. I spent a lot of time in 7th grade blinking back tears. I'd had a HUGE crush on Jeff Stern and finally in 7th he was in my social studies class. He ran a pen down my back to see if I was wearing a bra (I was). I found out (again) that just because someone's hot it doesn't mean they're nice. He was a prick. This was the year everyone was going to bar & bat mitzvahs and showing up at school wearing the shirt saying "I had an OUT OF THE WORLD time at Alice's Bat Mizvah" which had a space theme. I didn't get invited to any, so didn't have any of those shirts. But on the plus side, I finally started babysitting, which meant watching Baywatch every Saturday night.
Dear Lawd, your grade seven year sounded JUST LIKE MINE. Right down to the LeSportSac but minus the Snoopy pencil case. I was a Calvin and Hobbes gal.
I used to make my big brother's girlfriend walk with me to and from the bus stop so that I wouldn't get jumped by a gang of feral teen girls and beaten with sticks. Because that's what they did. WHEN THEY WERENT WIELDING CHAINS.
And I swear, I lived in the suburbs not the inner city.
Dem bitches be mean. Junior high scarred me for life.
I think you look really pretty in that 7th grade photo. Not exactly HAPPY, but pretty.
My sixth grade teacher was amazing too. He told the only jokes I've ever actually remembered and let the class start a tradition of daily hugs (which the principal soon ended because, I imagine, We Can't Let the Students Touch Each Other). He played cool games with us that tricked us into learning interesting things.
When I came home from the first day of seventh grade, I told my mom that being a seventh grader was like being a piece of dirt.
I think that's the same face I had in eighth grade. Sixth grade was pretty good and I had a teacher named Mrs. Higgs who was very nice, even when she told us we all stunk and needed to use deodorant. All the girls developed except me; I remained flat and tiny. But I had friends and things were generally good. Seventh grade was a little bit terrifying at first but I had great teachers that year and it actually went pretty well, except for some bitch named Karen who liked to make fun of my clothes and hair. At the time she was little and cute and was the first girl at school to wear straight leg jeans. Thirty-four years later I take great comfort in the fact that Karen now looks like a round little troll and has never married.
I found your blog through Edenland blog, I think you are amazing and I adore your blog. I just want to reach out to you in that photo too.
At the time, I thought my sixth-grade teacher was the coolest guy ever. He let us take a month off from math and reading classes to learn Halloween poems that we presented at the elementary school across the field. And then in the spring we did the same with Greek gods and goddesses. He also encouraged writing and, in fact, I took his creative writing class at College For Kids for a couple of summers after that. However, looking back, I can see that Mr. Dean was really only nice to the smart kids (me) and the popular kids (not me). He was kind of awful to those who didn't fit those categories. Also, we probably knew a lot more than 11-year-olds should about his divorce.
Seventh grade was horrible. My twin sister and I were in a group of friends whose ringleader decided she didn't like us anymore, so we were OUT. And of course no one else would defy her, so we were groupless and sat by ourselves at lunch every day that year. Which, you know, is better than sitting ALONE but not much less embarrassing.
I have worked in middle schools for my whole career and people ask me how I can deal with those kids. My answer is that you can put up with a lot from people who are going through what is probably the worst time in their lives.
6th grade was the year I tried to be "cool" and hang out with the "cool" girls. It was also the year that I managed to become friends with the sluts of the sixth grade. I wish I was joking. And not the "gossip-gone-awry-sluts, girls who left parties with guys much older than them IN THE SIXTH GRADE, sluts. I was the one-legged girl who was typically their alibi. I never left a party early.
7th grade I was awkward and a strange mix between little girl and teenager. I was also in the band which just meant that I had finally found my true friends. The band geeks (which later morphed into the theater geeks). I was still awkward and read too many Lurlene McDaniel books (and slowly finding my way to the romance section of the public library). I also developed my two biggest crushes on real boys (as opposed to boys on TV) which were sadly very unrequited and lead to many years of only having crushes on TV boys.
Sixth grade was . . . OK for me. My teacher, Mr. Telford, was really into Egypt and computers, so we learned a lot about those. His favorites (there was one boy in particular) got to use the computer all the time. We later found out Mr. Telford was arrested for possessing child pornography, among other things. We did get to go to sixth grade camp, where we spent a lot of time hiking and singing camp songs and also learning table manners (?). We also watched on TV as they declared the end to the first Gulf war.
You and I had very similar seventh grade experiences. Junior/senior high (who ever thought THAT was a good idea?), combining two elementary schools. At that point I hadn't full integrated with the people from my elementary school since I had just moved there in fifth grade, so when we moved to seventh at the new school they all decided to dump me. And to pay someone, I believe, to harass me by squirting ketchup onto my jacket and threaten to beat me up (I stood up to her, and she never did). It was really awful. Luckily, I still had my best friend from home, and steered myself into actually making new friends. But it was brutal. I wouldn't wish junior high on anyone. Oh, and I had to pick a "rotation" class, and I picked band, and chose to play the trumpet because it only had three keys so how hard could it be. I hated it. Gah! All these horrible memories conjured up! Thanks, Alice!
Oh Alice, these posts are excellent, and heartbreaking. 7th grade was the pit of my young existence too. I had a horrible perm and acne and the awkwardness was almost unsustainable. And seventh graders are mean! Particularly the girls. I, too, suffered that year. Thank you for sharing the trauma.
I'm loving your school days stories. But don't be so hard on yourself--I think your pictures are adorable, Alice!
Sixth grade was the year I fell madly, deeply in love with Derek Pomeroy. Derek was in eighth grade and was, of course, impossibly cool. He was on the basketball team, football team, baseball team, and ran track. He won first place in everything he showed up for and had the affection of every schoolgirl, and some of the younger teachers.
He was blonde with milky blue eyes, and a perfect tan. He was the Edward Cullen of Miller Intermediate School, minus the immortality sentence and thinly veiled pedophilia. His skin did sparkle though, I swear it did. He wore muted Hawaiian shirts tucked into pleated khaki trousers with braided leather belts while the other boys wore band t-shirts and dark-washed jeans. Clearly, Derek was going places (Middle management, but still! Places!) Alas, I never became Mrs. Pomeroy, despite the elaborate and frighteningly detailed marital history I plotted on the back of my spiral notebooks.
Once, when passing in the hallway, he turned to me and said, “Hey. It’s Michelle, right?” Did I casually respond in a nonchalant, cool manner? No. No, I did not. But, I DID scream directly into his face, a mixture of horror and jubilation clearly rendering me speechless. So, there’s that. Amazingly enough, this meaningful exchange did not end with an invitation to the Spring Formal.
Anne Lamott had it right when she said this about the fears of pregnant women: "[W]orse than just about anything else is the agonizing issue of how on earth anyone can bring a child into this world knowing full well that he or she is eventually going to have to go through the seventh and eighth grades."
The only thing I remember from seventh grade is sitting at these different desks in English class in which I could see my thighs because the desk was one of those righty desks where the desk sort of sits off to the side. It was the year I learned that yes, it was true, my thighs really were the most hideous sight known to man and the year I set my mind to somehow ridding myself of them, which I accomplished senior year and oh, probably almost died as a result. I, too, had anxiety as a child but none of us realized it and I thought everyone spent all day hating themselves.
Fun times. God, I love being an adult.
7th grade was also awful for me -- I moved to a new, crazy southern town for junior high and my first day at my new -- HUGE, TERRIFYING -- school was PICTURE DAY. That's the only year I didn't order portraits. I cried in the hallway because I couldn't open my locker. Lockers and crying: that's 7th grade.
Oh, Alice. I just want to hug 7th grade you. My son is in 7th grade now, and I know from my memories how rough it could be. Oddly, my strongest memories of school came from 7th-9th grade and I guess it's just that "formative years" business. But I got bullied by a particular girl (verbal bullying) and am forever grateful to the teacher who made her stop.
6th grade was great. First male teacher (Mr. Suslan). He lost hair, I'm sure, trying to teach me math. And he used to read aloud to us--I loved that so much.
We had a 6th grade camping trip to a campground with cabins out in LI. Some of my best memories ever.
Sixth grade was Mrs. Jenkins. I adored her. She encouraged me to write, and write often. She found short story contests and coaxed me to enter. She read a play I'd written and had the class act it out. She found an ad for breast enhancement cream in a book I was reading and tried to tell me it was useless. Too late! $19.95 + $5.99 shipping and handling already sent. She even inquired as to how the ill smelling salve was working out. HELLO TITTY CREAM, I AM STILL A 32A AT 38 YEARS OLD. I'm sorry to shout. It kind of makes me angry still.
Seventh grade was even better. My teacher was tall and friendly. She had an amazing smile and the most beautiful, even brown skin. I cannot remember her last name, only her first; Johnetta (it amazed me at the time when I overheard her say her father's name was not John. I just assumed...) I remember continuing to write in seventh grade, but I don't recall my teacher encouraging it. In fact, I don't recall doing any work at all in seventh grade. This is the year a group of us decided to leave school grounds and investigate an underground ditch. When we returned, the principal met us a block away from the school. I remember the teacher waving at us asking if we'd enjoyed our adventure. Our parents were never called but we were made to clean the cafeteria and bathrooms and we had to take the preschoolers (the school went from PK to 8) out for walks after lunch for a month. Um, that was not punishment; we loved those kids. But we never went back to the sewer either. Seventh grade was also the year we got an influx of new students, though. And Corrita Murray became my nemesis. She hated everything about me: the way I looked, the way I talked, how I dressed, that I had sisters, two legs. We fought twice. She sent me a friend request on Facebook earlier this year. Twenty-six years. And still I cannot.
Oh, Alice. That seventh grade picture just...I almost didn't want to scroll down after everything you'd written. The pictures alone tell such different stories. What a year can do. If it's any consolation (this many years later), the seventh grade photo does remind me of a darker haired Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings. Damn, I loved Matt Dillon.
My seventh grade year was also the worst year in my school life. It was absolutely horrible for many of the reasons you mentioned. Eighth grade wasn't much better, but seventh was the worst. Kids also hated me and threatened to beat me up, more just to torment me than any intention to waste their time/risk getting in trouble by physically harming me. You couldn't pay me to go back to that year of my life.
I wrote an excruciatingly long blog post about that special time in our lives: http://redstapler23.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-first-period-story.html
7th grade death hell seems to be the theme, and I got nothin' to challenge it. Moi, chubby, 4-eyed, braces, acnified, straight A dork in a sweater vest, went to three new schools in two different states in the 7th grade - 7th grade death hell defined.
There's something about 7th grade that takes your perfectly smooth soul, crumples it up like an unwanted piece of scratch paper, and tosses it in the trash.
Personally, it took me years to smooth out all those wrinkles, thanks in no small part to modern pharmaceuticals. No amount of Blue Jade eyeliner (and I wore plenty) made me feel cool enough to really exist. (I don't remember 1982-3 fondly, can you tell?)
SUSAN! That is *exactly* what I was going to say. I read all of that and looked at the seventh grade picture, and wept, because one day, someone will treat my babies that way, and all I could think of was that Anne Lamott quote (in which she closes an anecdote about jr high with the quote, "it's springtime for Hitler," which I always loved. anyway.
(who the eff raises the girls who turn THAT mean, btw? Lemurs??)
Ugh, seventh grade was my worst year of school, too. A horrible teacher who I managed to have for the SECOND year in a row, combined with some unpleasant divorce/remarriage stuff at home, plus the "usual" 12-year-old unpopular chubby girl stuff.... Oh, not fond memories!
That is the saddest picture ever, bar none. I "awwww"ed out loud at it. In my office. Which is in the middle of a very open space without any walls. With 24 other people in it. Who all turned around to see why I'd made that piteous sound.
You are not mistaken. That was a bad year.
I'll always remember 7th grade as the year of hiding in bathrooms, skipping my Math class with the most horrible teacher ever. I'll also remember it as the year my hair decided to take on a life of its own--not straight, not curly enough to be 'cute', but frizzy as a poodle in July. The 'mean girls' took to throwing tiny bits of wadded up paper at my head to see if they would stick in the nest residing there. They were successful more than a few times--man, I'm cringing right now just thinking of it!
Sixth grade: I was no longer The New Girl. Instead, a fantastic Newer New Girl arrived at our school, and we became BFFs. I had some of the heartiest laughs of my life with her. I was voted classroom vice president that year. My teacher was a somewhat crotchety man named Mr. Lasher. I remember approaching him to ask a question while he was in conversation with someone else, and he turned to me, and sharply said, "Becca, do NOT stand there while I'm having a private conversation." I felt so ashamed of myself and my creeping ways. At the end of the year, he recommended me for nerd camp -- a program in which 6th graders take college courses at the University of California, Irvine and take practice SATs. Also, during all of this, I was wearing bodysuits that snapped at the crotch.
7th grade: I arrived at middle school and decided to become a flautist. I think I was 40th chair flute out of 42. I remember seeing two kids KISSING in middle school. I was appalled and embarrassed and would have much preferred being at home combing the hair on my treasure trolls. I recall bitchily suggesting that a friend wax her upper lip, not even having an INKLING that perhaps she already recognized her own overabundance of upper lip hair. Also, that was the year I first laid eyes on the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen in my life. I didn't speak to him until high school, but I stalked the shit out of him for 2 years. He was a large-eyed jewish boy who played sax.