Middle School

I did a crazy thing today. I went back to middle school! Jill & I went to visit my friend Katie, who currently teaches there, and we ended up spending over an hour bopping around feeling old. It was kind of nuts going back there...I've never gone back to my high school. My high school and I had what I would describe as sort of a "friends with benefits" relationship: we both took what we needed from each other and there was no love-loss when we parted ways. Middle school, however, middle school was different somehow.

I tried to picture what it was like to be there. They had closed in a lot of the classrooms (turns out the Open Classroom Environment didn't work that great for a bunch of noisy tweens) and the lockers are actually BIGGER now. I remembered how my friendships solidified, deteriorated, and re-grouped -- sometimes all in one day, and I remembered not really thinking boys were all that great -- at least, not boys my age. I also remembered being extremely pleased when I had an E.N.U.F. sweatshirt for every single day of the week.

We saw another friend of ours, Al, who is student teaching there and we found our old band teacher, who happened to be napping at the time, which was fun since he's one of the only ones I feel guilty about not visiting at my high school. Before we left, I even made us stop in to see our old science teacher who made my heart stop 10 years ago. It was absolutely ridiculous -- Jill and I must have passed his classroom 5 times before we actually went in. We were total middle schoolers, no, we were worse than that! I can't believe we were so nervous, but he's still gorgeous..sigh. As we left the building skipping and giggling like twelve year olds Jill said that she had broken out in a nervous sweat talking to him and I noted that I still felt like I was blushing. GOODNESS.

Sadly, my favorite teacher, my 5th grade teacher, passed away a few years ago. To this day, I believe that the most important things I ever learned in school, I learned from him. I never got to tell him that, I only bawled at his memorial service, but I think that he knew in some way.
- He told us to own up to it if we ever got pulled over for speeding and apologize like crazy. I've been pulled over 3 times, I've received 0 tickets.
- He had us read and reenact Shakespeare and he built a stage so we could create elaborate puppet shows.
- He taught us about volcanoes and earthquakes, Africa & Indonesia -- all things he had first-hand experience with.
- He made us fill out job applications for Dairy Queen and said that if anyone did it 100% correct, he'd take us all out for ice cream. One kid came close I think.
- He explained the value of insurance and gave an example about how he'd increased the deductible on his boat right before a storm ruined it.
- He thought the mandatory DARE program was bogus.
- He stood on his head and told us our checks for the book order were to be made out to him so that we would remember. I'll never forget that.
- He asked us what we would do in the occurrence of life changing events, and he told us what he would do, openly and honestly.
- He came to my best friend's Mom's funeral and it meant a lot to her (and to me).
- He expected better from me and he had the insight to tell me and my parents that I was lazy with my potential and that I was smarter than that. I'll never forget that, either.