Breaking Middle School Perpetrating Lies About the High School

High school, it’s no surprise, is nothing like “High School Musical.” But what people don’t necessarily realize is that Disney Channel is not the only perpetrator of lies about high school. The even bigger offender? Middle school teachers and administrators. If you went to Pollard, you likely, like me, remember the January of eighth grade. Suddenly, the rest of middle school didn’t matter. We were flooded with information about the next four years. Four years that we were promised would be the best ever! …As long as we weren’t too stressed or too busy or too relaxed or too ambitious.

I can only wince in memory of the days spent stressing about high school course selection, writing and rewriting possible schedules, and trying to calculate the innumerous hours of homework I was destined to suffer through. As someone who cares about school a little too much, I was thrilled at the prospect of taking more difficult classes. However, the long monologues and slideshows filled with warnings made me question my own abilities. Was I going to be too stressed in high school? Could I handle taking all accelerated classes? The doubtful voices from “informative” zoom calls began to echo in my own head as I grappled with seemingly impossible decisions.

Obviously, all accelerated classes are not going to work for everyone. But the attitude at Pollard convinced me that I wasn’t smart enough to handle it. If I had been given the opportunity to hear from real students what it was actually like to be in all accelerated classes, I might have believed my social studies teacher when he tried to convince me to take accelerated history the first time. Instead, a series of slideshows told me that only eleven percent of each grade took all accelerated classes and I was convinced that there was no way I could be a part of that eleven percent.

While some of my feelings are particular to my experience, other students had trouble with the transition from middle school to high school, too.

One sophomore said, “I feel like I didn’t know how many options there would be for classes before I got here, because I wouldn’t have taken the art classes I did if I had known the other options.” Although they recognized that the course selection pamphlet held a lot of information, this student felt that the lack of information and support caused them to make choices that did not benefit them as much as they could have. They felt that there could have been more guidance after the distribution of the pamphlets: “My teacher this year went into detail about some of the course classes, and it really helped me decide what I wanted to take.”

Another student commented, “My teachers were just like, ‘We’re going to recommend you for accelerated, and it’s going to be hard, but you can handle it.’ That’s all the support they provided to me. If I asked a teacher to give me information about the high school, they would just say that they did not teach the curriculum but they just knew it would be harder and I was a good student. They kept pushing that on me.”

One ninth grader did not feel prepared for the change in level that high school brought. When asked about course recommendations, she said, “I think they recommended fine classes, but this year it’s too hard because they didn’t prepare me enough.”

I spoke about the subject to a teacher at Pollard, who said that the method of recommendation is definitely aimed towards the kids who are struggling or more likely to take honors level classes. It is in no way intended to harm those deciding to take accelerated courses, but teachers are told to keep in mind the ten percent standard of how many students take all accelerated classes, especially as the jump to high school is a jump in workload. While visiting Pollard, I had the opportunity to offer some advice and speak on my experience so far to two eighth graders. Although I don’t know if it helped, I hope that hearing my side of the story gave them a better frame of reference for when they make their choices. I know that it would have helped me to speak to people of similar experiences before making my decisions. Maybe the solution lies in finding mentors for the eighth graders who are just trying to make it through middle school.

And certainly, it is difficult for one teacher to prepare all of their students for the transition to high school. So much of that transition has to be handled by the students themselves, because it is the only way we can grow. However, a better system for course recommendations would be incredibly helpful. Since it is so individual, perhaps the solution lies not in changing the courses or slideshows about course selection. Having high school mentors to help eighth graders through the process of course selection could give students a much better frame of reference when making decisions. Personally, having mentors in the various clubs I joined when I came to the high school really helped me adjust. If I had had a mentor who knew firsthand what balancing classes, extracurriculars, and life was like before I made those class decisions, my conclusion might have been one of optimism, not stress.

And that is exactly what the prospect of high school should be: optimistic.