Dear Reader:

When I taught middle school and would tell someone what I did for a living…usually a look of sheer horror would cross their face…middle school! Are you crazy! The worst age possible!

Since my first teaching job (right out of Erskine College) was at Alston -Junior High- as it was called at that time…one year out of segregation…one year into integration…I never knew there were other grades possibly less demanding.

That is until I became the Social Studies Specialist for the district and realized that I probably was more suited for elementary than secondary grades…but, to tell the truth, I adored my little harmone crazy adolescents.

The first year I taught…I, along with a handful of other baby boomers entering America’s classrooms, was sent to a conference on classroom management and discipline. It was pretty boring until the luncheon started.

We all had name plates at numbered tables to sit at and I found myself with a ‘seventy-something’ year old retiree beside me. The funniest person I have ever  met… before or since this encounter. She had me in stitches…laughing so hard…I can’t remember ever eating lunch that day.

She was complaining about the inept advice she was hearing concerning middle school classroom management. She reassured me that she could help me in five minutes just by remembering these three things:

“When you teach middle school …you can safely assume that the three “H’s” are present in your classroom.”

1)  Hungry: Middle Schoolers are always hungry. That is why you find candy papers all over your classroom after your students have left. Oh they are tricky about getting the food in the mouth (without you seeing it) …but the left-over garbage, on the floor, gives them away.

2) Hormones: They are bouncing off the walls…shooting out this way and that way…by spring each year…you will feel like you need to hose down everything in the room. Every feeling, good/bad, love/hate are magnified during the middle years.There will be lots of tears… so keep spare boxes of tissue on your desk.

3) Horny: There is no way getting around it…all the boys can think about are girls and all the girls can only think of boys. Thank goodness, most of the time, it stops with  thinking and daydreaming…but watch out for the “mavericks” in the class…they will lead the weak ones down the primrose path if you aren’t careful.

Now if you can handle the 3 H’s …God bless you…you have earned a special place in heaven…Congratulations! You are a middle school teacher!

Years later…as I ( exhausted by the end of the day) would glance in the desk openings ….only to see candy wrappers stuffed in almost each one… and then stop to hand Susie another tissue because Sallie told Edna who told Susie that the boy she had a crush on thought she was a real nerd…

…And the gossip circling the eighth grade hall was that Billy almost “got it on” with Judy under the P.E. trailer…but a mouse ran by just in the nick of time…well, I remembered my old dining partner and her advice about the “Three H’s.” She was right on every account!

God bless ’em, though, these same young adolescents were the most giving creatures in the world. They still believed in right over wrong and helping others.

* (A little advice) If you ever want to raise money for a community project…”Sic”a bunch of middle schoolers to the task and you will raise more money than you ever imagined!

So when I came across this true story…it really hit home. How I loved my young “Wonder Years” students!

“Share a Smile”

When I was in middle school,I got mad at my parents because they would never give anything to the homeless that would pass us by.

On a family vacation in Washington DC there was a homeless man down the street who would say the same thing “food, money, a smile?” My family always walked past with our eyes at our feet.

On our final day in the city, when my parents went for an evening walk I snuck out of our hotel room and ran down the street to the homeless man. He looked at me with curiosity, surely not expecting anything from a middle school girl. I asked him what he would have for dinner if he could have anything in the world. He replied ‘lunchables’.

I ran into the grocery store down the block and bought 5 lunchables, 3 bags of chips, one chocolate bar, my favorite candy, 1 smoothie, 1 juice, and a bottle of water. I ran back outside with a grin on my face and handed the three grocery bags to him. His smile has been in my mind ever since.

I ran back to the hotel room and when my parents returned my dad told me he had a story for me. He asked if I had remembered the homeless man down the street from our hotel and I shyly nodded. He then told me, with a grin on his face, a story of how as they were returning from their walk the homeless man was sharing grocery bags full of food with other homeless people around and they were all smiling and laughing as they ate.

I smiled at my dad but never to this day have told him the true story of that homeless man. The next morning my mother saw the homeless man with a ‘mile-wide smile’ as she describes him at the Starbucks across the street buying a fancy drink with dimes. She then went on to lecture me of the importance of dignity.

 I still haven’t forgotten that man’s smile but I wish I had the courage to do this more often. One small fearless act by a middle school girl can begin a ripple effect of smiles and dignity. So please, share a smile and give some dignity to the homeless even if you can’t afford to help them.

-Amanda Stapp-

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Isn’t it sad that, as adults, we sometimes lose that freely given gift of unconditional help by adding judgmental criteria to our giving? Aren’t we glad God doesn’t do the same for us when we need help?

By our own actions we teach our children how to give. We must remember “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” ( John Whitehead)

So until tomorrow… (C.S. Lewis) “Nothing that you have not given away will ever truly be yours.”

* If we could somehow musically combine this C. S. Lewis quote and today’s story…it would sound like this: one of my favorite country songs: “What We Give Away” (Vince Gill/Sheryl Crow)

Gives me chills every time I listen to it!

Vince Gill & Sheryl Crow – “What You Give Away” (Live …

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh