Middle School

This American Life

This episode of 'This American Life' explores the tumultuous experience of middle school through personal stories and expert insights. Cente

Key takeaways

• Middle school is marked by intense social pressure, where even small personal choices like clothing or language skills can lead to ridicule.
• Brain development during middle school involves a surge in neural connections that are pruned based on use, making peer influence and environment crucial for shaping identity.

Main topics

• Social anxiety in early adolescence
• Developmental changes in the brain during puberty

Notable quotes

"You always wonder whether other people are going through the same thing as you." – Annie

"They're just not as cute, right?" – Marion Stroke on the 'terrible 12s' vs. 'terrible 2s'

Conclusion

Middle school is a transformative yet painful period defined by rapid physical,

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Hey everybody, Eric Glass here. So we got this email at our radio show near the end of the school year from a 14-year-old. Speaker 1 (0:07) Hello? Speaker 4 (0:08) Hey, is this Annie? Speaker 1 (0:09) Yeah. Speaker 4 (0:10) I called her up at her house in California and asked her to read it. Speaker 1 (0:13) It says... Dear This American Life, I just escaped the whitewashed, brick-walled, iron-gated prison that is commonly known as middle school, and I'm finally out for good. But in all the time I've listened to your show, I've never heard an episode devoted to what goes on inside the walls of a middle school. I hope you'll think about it. Anonymous? Speaker 4 (0:33) Yeah, you signed it anonymous, but then you actually, your email was signed with your name. Speaker 1 (0:38) Yeah. Speaker 4 (0:39) Yeah. Speaker 1 (0:40) I had said anonymous because in middle school everybody's so judgmental and I didn't want the kids to judge me or anything if they heard me on the radio. Speaker 4 (0:53) Mainly she says that she wrote to us because she and her friends were talking right after they left eighth grade about how terrible middle school was. And she wondered, was it just as bad for other people as it was for them? Speaker 1 (1:04) You always wonder whether other people are going through the same thing as you. Speaker 1 (1:10) And it'd be cool to hear other people's stories about it and what they went through. Speaker 4 (1:15) And if you had to explain to somebody what are the worst things about middle school, can I ask you to just walk me through it? What is so bad about middle school? Speaker 1 (1:22) Kids there are all... In kind of socially awkward stages that the drama every day can be frustrating and girl-boy things or someone like so-and-so. And then no matter who you are or what you do, you'll get made fun of for it. Anything, anything in the world you can get made fun of for. Speaker 4 (1:44) In Annie's case, she had friends who smoked, so she got criticized for smoking. But then she also was made fun of for not smoking, for being too much of a sissy to start smoking. She was made fun of for coming from a bilingual elementary school where everybody learned to speak Spanish and spoke it throughout the day. Speaker 1 (2:00) And leaving elementary school, I guess I thought that when I got to middle school, everyone would think it was really cool that I spoke Spanish. But when I got there, they mostly just thought it was dumb. I don't know if they were jealous or what, but they would make fun of me for it. Then they'd say we were all full of ourselves for that we spoke different languages and stuff. Speaker 4 (2:24) Did it make you feel bad? Speaker 1 (2:26) Yeah, I didn't want to stick out in that way. If I got a new sweater or something, say, for Christmas that I really liked and I would really want to wear it to school or something, but I'd be nervous because, like, what if someone didn't like my sweater or someone made fun of me for wearing it? It can be hard to do even the smallest things because you're so nervous that people tease you or judge you from it. Speaker 4 (2:50) That sweater example, is that a real example? Speaker 1 (2:53) Yeah, it actually is. I worried about it so much. I also had a pair of moccasins that I'd never worn, and they're kind of my signature now. Everybody really likes them. They're like ankle-high lace-up moccasins. Speaker 4 (3:06) And how long did you have the moccasins before you actually wore them? Speaker 1 (3:09) A few months, like probably two months. I guess I just thought if people didn't like them, they would all make fun of me for wearing them. And I didn't want to stand out that much. Speaker 4 (3:24) What could be done to make middle school better? Speaker 5 (3:36) We Speaker 4 (3:37) talked about this for a little while. She said basically everybody comes into middle school as a little kid. And you're going to have to grow up and figure out who's in what group and who you are and who's above who. And you'd have to figure that out somewhere at that age, right? Might as well be middle school. It was terrible, she says. But now she's in high school. Speaker 1 (3:58) Whatever middle school was, it worked. Everyone's a lot friendlier and everyone's lives are a lot better now. Speaker 4 (4:09) What a day on our radio program. For Annie, we look at whatever it is that happens in those mysterious years that we call middle school. As the new school year begins, we have stories today from all over the country, people lurching their way through these years when you're figuring out so, so much. We go to middle school dances and classrooms and down to the Mexican border. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us. Speaker 4 (4:44) This American Life Today show is a rerun, one that we thought would be a nice one to run for returning to school with. Act one, life in the Middle Ages. So we wanted to understand what is going on exactly physically and emotionally with middle school kids. And we talked to all kinds of people about that this last few weeks. And one of the producers on our staff had a very strong opinion about all this. Alex Bloomberg, before he got into radio, he taught in a middle school in Chicago for four years. He was a science teacher. And he concluded from that experience. I don't know if they learned anything. Speaker 3 (5:16) Like they are so consumed with learning all these other lessons about where they fit in and the social order and how their bodies are now working and who they're attracted to and who they're going to be that facts and figures and geography and all the other stuff that you teach in school, it just doesn't even penetrate. Speaker 4 (5:35) Wait, wait. Are you saying like we shouldn't even bother to have them in school? We should just basically put them to work in the factory for two or three years? Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:43) I basically came away thinking like you're sort of wasting your time trying to Speaker 4 (5:47) teach middle school students Speaker 3 (5:48) anything. Speaker 4 (5:49) If that seems just insane, Alex told me that Maria Montessori, who's the creator of the Montessori schools, who looked at what kids could learn at each developmental stage, at one point in her career actually tossed out a similar suggestion. Perhaps she said young adolescents would be better off at a farm school, what she called an erudkinder, where they would work with the land. Speaker 8 (6:12) Is he just got a great sense of humor or what? Speaker 4 (6:14) I am. Ran Alex's thoughts by Marion Stroke, the principal of Evergreen Academy Middle School in Chicago, which was listed as one of the best middle schools in the country, a school to watch by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. Speaker 8 (6:26) You have to be, I have to say, well, I obviously don't agree. Okay, I think that we definitely have a way to stick knowledge in their heads. It's being creative about how we do it and taking into consideration all of those other things. I'm not going to lie. It's not easy. Speaker 4 (6:43) Can I ask you how much of the stereotype around students this age is true? Are you saying that the stereotype is true? You just got to deal with what it is? Speaker 8 (6:52) It is true. And you have to, as the adult in the situation, you have to find a way to work around it. Find a way to help them to grow up. They won't have to suffer if we do things right. They won't have to suffer as much, let's say. I mean, you're going to go through emotional changes and your body's changing. That can't be helped. The raging hormones, that can't be helped. All of that can't be helped. It's the way that we react to it that will make such a difference in their lives. It's our flexibility. It's our concern. It's our listening to them. It's our hearing them out. Speaker 4 (7:28) And so what's actually happening developmentally in the bodies and brains of kids when they're in middle school? Speaker 8 (7:33) Let me give the overview this way. The terrible 12s are a complete analog to the terrible 2s. They're just not as cute, right? Speaker 4 (7:42) This is Linda Pearlstein when she wrote a book called Not Much Just Chillin', The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers. following five middle school students very closely for a full year. She also incidentally researched everything she could find out about what is going on developmentally with kids that age. That makes them so different from other ages and fascinating. Speaker 8 (8:00) This is the time of biggest growth for a human being aside from infancy. So your bones are growing faster than your muscles, so you can't actually sit still. But your brain. your gray matter. During the middle school years, what happens in your early stages of puberty is this vast overproduction of brain cells and connections, far more than you actually need. And only some of them are going to survive puberty. This growth in your frontal cortex, it peaks at 11 for girls and 12 for boys. And then what happens is the cells just fight it out for survival. And the ones that last are the ones you exercise more. Speaker 4 (8:44) In other words, during those years, your brain turns you into you, the adult you. The stuff you don't exercise just kind of goes away. And what stays? Speaker 8 (8:54) So if you think about what you learned at the early stages of puberty, I don't know what that was for you. For me, it was tap dancing and French. You know, it sticks. I know French much better than any language I learned after that and not because I had a better teacher. I was learning it at the right time. I can still do tap dances, though I won't, that I learned when I was 12 or 13. Speaker 4 (9:20) Yeah, I can still do magic tricks that I learned at that age. Speaker 8 (9:23) Exactly. It's embossed in your existence. It's this important time for your brain. It's like this use it or lose it time. Speaker 4 (9:38) Linda Pearlstein agrees that all the stereotypes about middle schoolers, everything, in fact, that Annie complained about, all of that is true. But she says that there's a flip side that people don't usually talk about. Middle school is when kids open up to the world. It's when they think about bigger things. And they haven't formed their opinions on things yet. Everything is up for grabs, which is amazing to be around. Speaker 8 (9:58) I just think kids that age are fun. I like being around them. Middle schoolers are in that real nice spot of... Being interesting, but also being able to explain to you what's going on in their minds and why they do the things they do. You know, they're self-reflective. They're capable of self-reflection in a way that... Younger kids might not be. Speaker 4 (10:22) Older kids, she says, high school kids, by then they can be jaded or cynical. They're settling into who they are. Middle school, everything's new. You're probably picking your friends for the very first time. For the first time, they aren't just the kids on your block or your parents' friends' kids or the kids who are around. So you make a best friend one day who then you drop two weeks later. You get obsessed with guitar or computers or dance for two weeks, and then two weeks later you drop it. For everything that's awful about middle school, she says. That's the great thing about it. You experiment. Speaker 4 (11:06) Deck two, stutter steps. One good place to see the experiment that is life in middle school in action is a middle school dance. Last Friday, there were middle school dances all over the country, all at the same time, and we sent reporters to a half dozen of them to find out how kids were doing. They talked to them before the kids went inside to the field of battle, and no surprise, we found a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty. Who's nervous about tonight? Speaker 5 (11:34) I am. I don't know. Speaker 4 (11:35) Why? Speaker 5 (11:36) Well, just, I don't know. We don't know what it's going to be like. I'm just confused. I just don't know. I mean, yeah. I mean, we've gone to these things before, but they've never exactly had the term dance to it. Speaker 4 (11:48) These four girls are sixth graders, and they're in a car on the way to a neon-themed dance at Edgewood Middle School in Highland Park, Illinois, with their mom and reporter Rob Woldebar. Who's going to dance with the boy tonight? Speaker 5 (12:00) Nobody. I don't know. I can tell you that. You don't know if it's going to be slow dancing or regular dancing. That's why we are nervous. Speaker 4 (12:07) Roughly 800 miles east in New Jersey, 6th grader Ethan DeRose was hoping that there would be at least one slow dance. Though, did he feel ready for a slow dance? Speaker 5 (12:18) Nope. Not at all. Speaker 2 (12:21) Why not? What are you worried about? Speaker 5 (12:23) I just don't know how to do it. Like, I'm not sure that I'll do it correctly or, yeah. Speaker 4 (12:32) He's standing in front of the school with reporter Brian Reed as kids stream into the school. Ethan is wearing a button-up shirt with green and black stripes that he is not happy with. Speaker 5 (12:43) That was my mom. She made me wear it. She said that if I don't wear... the two shirts that I'm wearing right now, that I can't go to the dance. Speaker 3 (12:52) What are you hoping happens at this dance? Speaker 5 (12:55) I'm hoping nothing bad happens, like no humiliation or not something that'll be a story for the next month or two. At least to me. Speaker 4 (13:09) Of course, Ethan and the girls in that car in Illinois are sixth graders. In New York City, seventh graders Evelyn Benson and Alice Westerman are excited and feeling very grown up on their way to their school's Halloween dance. Speaker 5 (13:22) I'm really happy because last year they split the gym in half so it's light on one side and pitch black on the other side. All the sixth graders are kind of banned from the dark side, but that's where all the cool kids are. So now we're in seventh Speaker 1 (13:34) grade and we can dance on the dark side. So it's like, whoop, we're cool. Dance on the dark side. Dance on the dark side. Some Speaker 4 (13:40) of the middle school boys got up the nerve to ask girls to be their dates to the dances. But because this is a new experience for the girls too, being asked out on a date, they don't exactly know how to handle it. Here's a girl named Autumn talking with our producer Lisa Pollock in Delaware. Good afternoon to the dance. Did Speaker 8 (13:56) you get asked to the dance? Yes, I did. And what did you say? I said I don't know, but I Speaker 5 (14:04) probably Speaker 8 (14:05) won't say yes. Wait, you haven't told him yes or no yet? No. Okay, so it's 1.20 and the dance is at 7. Speaker 5 (14:16) Yeah. Speaker 8 (14:17) When do you have to let him know? Speaker 5 (14:19) I probably won't answer. Are you serious? Yeah. I just kind of want to hang out with the girls. Speaker 8 (14:32) So he's the only one who asked you? There was other people