Middle School is Like Scotch

Just found this well-expressed quotation in a NYTimes article. It's from a middle school teacher in an inner city school, and it sums up my current feelings about my job quite nicely:

“Middle school is like Scotch. At first you try to get it down. Then you get used to it. Then it’s all you order.”

Suffice it to say, at the beginning of this year, I could barely stomach my job. I might have had one beer at a party (apparently too much for me) and confessed to my assistant principal that I would drive into work each morning contemplating how bad of a car accident I would need to get into to be injured enough that I could not go into school for several days, but not so badly hurt that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest. (She made me take a day off the next week.) Then, around November, I entered into the phase where I felt like I could handle it. There were fewer teary car rides home in the evening, fewer panic attacks Sunday night, but also very little real enjoyment of what I was doing, and I was contemplating switching careers next year.

On Friday, I realized that I could not stop thinking about how much I love my job. I was chaperoning a field trip and the kids asked me why I wanted to teach middle school, "'cause Ms. Stuntz, I'm not gonna lie, we've got ATTITUDES." I thought about it, and I didn't say all this to them, but I realized that while I never would have predicted this, I cannot picture a better job for me right now than teaching middle school. I get to teach the funniest people on the planet, hands down. Some days they are just like little adults; other days, they are temper-tantrum-throwing 5-year-olds. In other words, my life is never boring. I get to teach them a subject I love and watch them think it's cool, too. We're doing Romeo and Juliet at the moment, which is WAY more scandalous than I remembered, and while I have had to get over my fear of standing up in front of a group of 13 year olds and explaining sex jokes, they love it. I am still exhausted and way overworked (although, probably no more than the rest of you), but I am hoping that will change some next year when I already have materials made and can just tweak things. I don't want to glamorize things at all; my job is not nearly as cool or inspirational as they make it look in "Freedom Writers," and it is incredibly frustrating. But there is so much I enjoy that I think I want to keep going, at least for awhile.

All that to say, I was unofficially asked to stay next year, and I've decided to say yes.

That's the update on me, and, by the way, I am kicking the rest of y'alls butts in posting. And we all know I'm not nearly as interesting as I think I am, so update, please! I want to hear what people are thinking as the spring time rolls around.

Love, Sarah

P.S. I still don't drink Scotch.