Middle School

Have you ever been so scared to ask another question that you never end up asking it? This happened to me almost every day in almost all my middle school classes. Almost every subject and teacher made me too nervous to ask anything even if it was to use the bathroom. These are some of the times where this happened.

I first started to get nervous after an incident that happened in elementary school and from then on I wasn’t able to talk to teachers about anything ranging from school work, home life or even just asking to use the bathroom. Most people talk about how their middle school years or the worst years of their life and I can tell you that this statement is extremely true. Middle school is some of the most difficult times in someone’s life. For me the worst aspect was talking and expressing myself. I didn’t even know how to ask a teacher to use the bathroom let alone ask them how to do a simple math problem.

A few times that I can remember when this happened was in 7th and 8th grade. Reading and math have never been my strongest subjects and I still struggle with understanding both but in 7th grade was when I struggled the most. I did not understand the assignments that the teacher wanted us to do and I was too self conscious to ask for help. This teacher also did not like me to begin with because she worked with my mother at a restaurant a number of years back and they didn’t get along. My brother was in her class 2 years before I was and she really did not like him and tried to fail him any chance she got because he simply said “oh no” to a book that they were reading and he didn’t like. With that being said, I came into her class and she treated me like dirt on the bottom of her shoe the entire time I was in her class. Every time I had a question about anything she would ignore me and deliberately go to the other side of the room if I had my hand raised. I eventually stopped raising my hand because I felt like I didn’t matter to her and gradually fell behind in her and another teachers class and failed the grade, I did move on to the next grade because my mother signed a contract saying I was allowed to move on.

The same problem happened in 8th grade math. This teacher was either very well liked or not liked at all. He chose favorites and seemed to pick on the quiet kids to answer questions in front of the class. Math was one of my worst, if not my worst subject. I did not understand the material that he had given us and in my mind I couldn’t ask for help because I would just get ignored again. I was relying on my friends to help me with work because I simply did not have the will power to ask for help. This teacher would call on me to answer a question and when I didn’t know the answer, get angry and get extremely vocal and disappointed in me for not knowing it. This only added to me not asking any questions because I simply felt stupid and thought I couldn’t learn anything.

These are just a few experiences of many that I had throughout middle school, I still do not understand why these teachers had it out for 12 and 13 year old me. My take away from these experiences just made me have the courage to speak up for what I believe in now. Now that I have worked with children who ask so many questions one after the other I can honestly say that there are no “stupid questions.” Some people just need a little more help than others and if they have a question, it should be answered no matter how small, big funny or sad it may be, all questions are learning experiences, no child should ever have to experience the encounters or feel how I and many other kids felt going through middle school.

“Inside My Classroom” by knittymarie is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.