What I Hate About My Middle Schoolers

When they told me that I would have to teach middle school, I thought

Oh, no. Oh, God, please, no. Not them. Not those kids, those big ones I see in the hallways. They’re bigger than I am. They don’t listen. They won’t like me. Please, please, no. Anything but middle school.

But I had no choice. They needed an English teacher. And I needed a job.

And so we were brought to one another, you all and me. 
I had already you were going to hate me. 
You had already decided you hated English class.

So, what was there left to do?
What could we do, if we were both unhappy from the beginning?

We spent several grueling months, me fighting you to listen in class, and to do your grammar homework, and to turn in your writing assignments.

And finally, after nearly a quarter of the year had gone by and we all hated every minute of it, I realized what I needed to do. And I felt so stupid for not realizing it sooner, because as soon as I did it, everything that had gone so horribly wrong turned right.

I decided that I was going to love you. So I did.

I love you to pieces, even when you’re gossiping instead of listening to me.
I love you to pieces, even when you don’t turn in your homework.
I love you to pieces, even when you’re driving me absolutely crazy.

I made the best decision of my life so far when I decided to love you –

And people may tell me that you can’t “decide” to love someone, you just do –

But I’m telling you now, that I did decide. I could have hated that year.
But instead, I loved you.

Now, don’t get me wrong: there are still A LOT of things I hate about you.

I hate that you have to go to school for 8 hours every day and then go home and do 4 hours of homework just to keep up.

(If you’ll recall, I started giving you time in class to do all of your English homework, and I made time for us to study for tests together, and we would read out loud in class so you could all meet your AR goals – and this would be why.)

I hate that you have to grow up in a world with such a focus on being tall, and skinny, and beautiful – whatever that even means – but at the same time, there is a kind of snobby condescension used on people who are these things: they’re “trying too hard,” they’re “getting by on their looks,” they’re “too pretty to be smart”. So those people who are tall, and skinny, and beautiful are also taught to put themselves down: don’t accept the compliments, defer the attention onto something that you don’t like about yourself instead. And in that, there is no winning. Everyone, without even meaning to, is either taught how to hate everyone else, or they are taught how to hate themselves, and this is something that we all have to fight, together.

(If you’ll recall, I didn’t tolerate anybody putting themselves down in my classroom, even if you said you were joking, even if it was about something minor, even if you were complimenting me in the process – and this would be why.)

I hate that you have to grow up learning to sit down, be quiet, not voice your unpopular opinions, not say what’s on your mind, not “talk back” to adults, even when they are wrong, wrong, SO INCREDIBLY wrong.

(If you’ll recall, when you told me you hated my class, hated the book we were reading, hated the teacher down the hall, hated school, hated your parents, hated me…I always asked you why, and I let you explain, and I gave you advice, and I didn’t just tell you to “be nice.” Because sometimes things aren’t nice, and people aren’t nice, and those in charge of us are wrong about things, and we need to know how to deal with this and talk about it and make sense of it – and this would be why.)

So you see, there are a lot of things I hate about you.

I hate that you have to grow up in a world where you will constantly be having to defend yourselves from attacks on your religion, your culture, your looks, and your lifestyle.

I hate that you are so young and already seeing things I've never had to see, not once, in my life that is twice as long as yours.

I hate that you have to be prepared, always, to fight back against oppression, and hatred, and things you don’t deserve because you are only children.

I hate that I forget how young you really are, because of the things you say, and the things you know about, and the things you have to understand much earlier than people in the past did when they were your age.

I hate that you have to be so strong, all the time. But I love that you are.

I love that you are strong-willed, and impassioned, and willing to fight for what you believe in.

(If you’ll recall, I let you argue with me – a lot – and I didn’t shut you down with “because I said so”; we fought tooth and nail about a lot of things, and I let you justify yourselves, and sometimes I wondered if I was letting you take advantage of me because I didn’t just “put my foot down”…but now I’m so glad that I didn’t – and this would be why.)

I love that you support one another, and despite your quibbles and quarrels and general ridiculousness sometimes, you stand strong. In your life, you will be facing a world that does not understand you, full of people who will not be willing to try, and you will have to stand together so you do not fall apart. Do not break yourselves apart from within. Even though you may not realize it now, you are a powerful force, so powerful that sometimes you blew me away with it.

(If you’ll recall, I’ve written this all for you – and to me, words are the most powerful of things. You’ve given me these words because of everything that you do and everything that you are. You are so powerful – and this would be why.)

I love that you are proud of who you are. And I’ve got nothing to add to that, except that I’m just really, honestly proud of who you are too.

I love you. I love all of you, every single one. And when I leave this school, and you continue to learn and grow and be stronger than you ever thought you could, and you forget me (as you will, and that is okay), please know that I will still be thinking about you, and missing you, and loving the hell out of you.

Because, in the end, I may hate a lot of things about you – things that you can’t control, things that happen to you and things that I can’t stand to watch or even think about sometimes, but that you have to live through, every single day.

I hate these things, and I imagine that I will always hate these things.

But no matter what I hate about you, I will always love you.
And more than anything else, no matter what happens to you,
I will always love the fact that you all happened to me.