On TV, it`s called ”The Wonder Years.” But ask just about anyone who has recently come through middle school or junior high school and chances are they`ll describe the experience as ”The Stupid Years.”
”I was in honors reading in elementary school,” says Carrie Hunt, 14.
”Then (in junior high) my grades went down because it was harder, and the teachers graded you harder, and then you made more friends and you didn`t care about your grades for a while.”
Hunt will be in the 9th grade this fall at Rich South High School in Richton Park. She earned her junior high stripes at O.W. Huth School in Matteson.
Even if you`re like most kids and happy to leave elementary school behind you, making the transition to middle school or junior high can be bumpy. Often times, that bumpiness takes the form of your grades slipping a notch-or two.
It doesn`t help that many older people take this transition for granted, leaving you with the short end of the stick as far as understanding is concerned. ”You feel like saying, `I need some sympathy here,` ” says Hunt. ”But your parents just bug you because you get bad grades.”
Lost in more space
If it`s any consolation, experts say it`s not unusual for your grades to go down. The fact that most junior high or middle schools are bigger than elementary schools is one reason.
”It`s easier to get lost in the crowd because you`re changing subject teachers, and it`s less likely there will be a teacher who knows you really well,” says Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia and co-author of ”You and Your Adolescent” (HarperCollins, $10.95).
”I was nervous,” says Hunt of her first days in junior high. ”I was afraid I`d be embarrassed because I wouldn`t know where the classes were.”
If you manage to find your way around quickly, you may still feel lost, thanks to a major increase in what you`re expected to learn. ”More work is expected of you as a student,” says Steinberg, ”out of school as well, in the form of homework.”
Hunt remembers how hard it was to keep up with it all. ”I would hate to carry all my books home,” she says.
Hard and fast
Volume of work is only part of the problem. The type of work changes as well. In literature classes, you might be asked to do more critical thinking and interpretation, to ferret out the meaning of symbols. ”It`s different from just paraphrasing what the World Book says,” says Steinberg.
As for math, while you may have been a whiz at basic computations like addition, subtraction and division, algebra may leave you wondering if you ever knew how to add 2 plus 2.
All this new material isn`t thrown at you as a kind of torture. Developmentally speaking, your intellectual capacities are maturing along with the rest of your body, making you better equipped to handle more abstract thinking: hypothetical (”what if”) situations; more advanced kinds of mathematics. There also may be more complex memorization asked of you, and you may even start learning a foreign language.
But since this developmental process isn`t exactly smooth sailing, and because it gets complicated by all the other things that are going on in your body, learning anything new may seem like the hardest thing in the world.
And not everybody develops intellectually at the same pace, even though many school systems act as if they do. Frances Moore-Bond, a learning consultant and testing coordinator for the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, says many of the problems that kids face in middle or junior high school could be eased ”if the school systems would learn to be more flexible, instead of saying `You need to take algebra in the 8th grade.` ”
Driving forces
It`s easy to get discouraged, especially when you`re not sure why you should be sweating bullets in the first place. In elementary school, a big motivator for doing well is pleasing your parents or teachers, but they tend to slip to the bottom of your priority list when you reach middle school or junior high.
”We couldn`t stand our teachers,” says Hunt, laughing. ”We wanted them to feel bad.”
At the same time, college and a career seem very far away (and you may not have the faintest idea what you want to be in life anyway), so it`s hard to make a connection between your school performance and your future.
Instead, the big motivating factor becomes what your friends think. If
”nerd” is a favorite insult in your group, you could actually feel pressure to not work as hard, or feel like an outcast if you do. ”Usually, when you`re smart, you`re not supposed to show it,” says Hunt.
The opposite sex
Your growing-no, make that exploding-appreciation for the opposite sex complicates matters. ”We could have cared less about boys in elementary school, but we were boy crazy in junior high,” Hunt says.
There`s nothing wrong with being, well, preoccupied. Unfortunately, boys are often a reason why girls actually let their grades slide. ”In our society still,” says Steinberg, ”girls find it difficult to be both good in school and perceived as attractive.” Yes, the double standard lives on. (Think about it: When was the last time you heard about a boy playing dumb so a girl would like him?)
Then there are all the other distractions that start cropping up. ”When you`re a child, there`s Little League on Saturday and not much more than that,” says Steinberg. But in junior high the number of extracurricular activities begin to boom. You may even have a part-time job.
Survival tips
So what should you do if it looks like you`re going to be a total washout in junior high and your parents go into a full-blown panic? Here are some suggestions:
– Budget your time. ”It`s easy to get overwhelmed by everything,” says Steinberg. He suggests setting aside a chunk of time each day when you do nothing else but homework. Most junior high and middle school students find that the work seems to get easier, so ”you might be able to relax as you go on.”
– Don`t let anyone stereotype your interests. Moore-Bond says many teachers still ”begin to divide subjects into `boy` and `girl` subjects.” If you`re a girl, you might find that you`re being steered toward English, and may even be told that girls just don`t do well in science and math. Don`t believe it, and try to seek out sympathetic teachers. (The same advice goes for boys who like English.)
– Lean on your friends. Hunt says that her friends played a big part in helping her with the adjustment to junior high. Steinberg agrees. ”Kids who make the transition with good friends do better,” he says. ”Reach out to other kids-talk about what`s going on.”
– Get help when you need it. This is a time when being independent from your parents, teachers and just about any other adult is of the utmost importance to you, so it may be hard to admit that you`re having problems with your schoolwork. But it`s never a good idea just to coast, and constantly having to play catch-up is no fun. Most schools now have tutoring programs, learning labs and other resources that can help you stay on top of things. Don`t be embarrassed or shy about seeking them out.
– Note to parents: Don`t overreact. Junior high is a time when any failure cuts very deep, so your offspring is probably already swimming in self-blame. ”Parents need to understand that school does get harder,” says Steinberg. A dip in grades doesn`t mean anyone is headed for a permanent place in the unemployment lines. But it may require some changes: getting a tutor, cutting back on extracurricular activities or even getting a few more hours of sleep. In most cases, says Steinberg, ”It isn`t the end of the world-and it`s not irreversible.”
