Middle School.
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Ira Glass Hey everybody. Ira Glass here. So we got this email at our radio show near the end of the last school year from a 14-year-old. I called her up at her house in California and asked her to read it.
Yeah, you signed it anonymous, but then your email was signed with your name.
Annie It says, “Dear This American Life, I just escaped the whitewashed, brick-walled, iron-gated prison that is commonly known as middle school, and I’m finally out for good. But in all the time I’ve listened to your show, I’ve never heard an episode devoted to what goes on inside the walls of a middle school. I hope you’ll think about it. Anonymous.” I did anonymous because in middle school, everybody is so judgmental, and I didn’t want the kids to judge me or anything if they heard me on the radio.
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I just escaped the whitewashed, brick-walled, iron-gated prison that is commonly known as middle school, and I’m finally out for good.
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Ira Glass Mainly, she says that she wrote to us because she and her friends were talking right after they left eighth grade about how terrible middle school was. And she wondered was it just as bad for other people as it was for them?
And if you had to explain to somebody what are the worst things about middle school – can I ask you to just walk me through it. What is so bad about middle school? Well, today on our radio program, for Annie we look at whatever it is that happens in those mysterious years that we call middle school. We have stories today from all over the country, people lurching their way through these years when you’re figuring out so, so much. We go to middle school dances and classrooms, and down to the Mexican border. From WBEZ Chicago, it’s This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I’m Ira Glass. Stay with us.
Annie You always wonder whether other people are going through the same thing as you. And it’d be cool to hear other people’s stories about it and what they went through.
Kids there are all in socially awkward stages, that the drama every day can be frustrating. And girls write things that are someone likes so and so. And then no matter who you are, or what you do, you’ll get made fun of for it. Anything, anything in the world you can get made fun of for.
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It’s overw
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whelming.
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Act Five: Blue Kid on the Block Ira Glass In September, a kid who we’re going to call Leo – not his real name – started seventh grade at a new school. And he’s having a more extreme experience. He’s having a harder time finding his place in middle school than other middle school kids, because he’s new to town. His family just arrived from Rochester, New York. He’s got that on top of everything else. Leo still loves Rochester. He loved his school there. He loved his friends. Suddenly, everything about his life is different, and, according to Leo, much worse.
Suddenly, everything about his life is different, and, according to Leo, much worse. Sarah Koenig This is how much Leo does not want to be here. When I got to his house, he was on the sofa with a laptop investigating Greyhound bus schedules. His mother was going to drive him and his sister back to Rochester for the Columbus Day weekend, but not until Saturday morning. And Leo wanted to get 8
there Friday for more time with his friends. A multi-stage negotiation followed with his dad, and for one thing, a bus ticket costs money. Never mind that the bus takes twice as long as driving, and never mind that Leo would be alone and have to change buses, and that his parents had no intention of letting him go through with this plan. But it’s the kind of negotiation you indulge when your kid is miserable. And Leo is miserable. He told me right away he was, and that he had been from the moment he got here in August.
Sarah Koenig
Leo
Is this the first time in your life where you felt like you’ve been sad about something for this long?
I think so, except for maybe when my other cat died, my old cat.
And does this feel worse than that?
Yes. I’ve never had long periods of sadness until now. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone here really, and I think it’s just everything in general. It’s overwhelming.
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I’ve never had long periods of sadness until now. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone here really, and I think it’s just everything in general. It’s overwhelming.
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Back in Rochester, Leo had known all his best friends since kindergarten, or before. They played together at school, after school, on weekends. Everybody knew everybody. Everything was comfortable. And as a sixth grader in his old school, he and his friends were at the top of the heap. They wore green sashes in the morning, and got to be door monitors for the younger kids coming into the building.
Leo is between. He’s old enough to decipher Greyhound bus schedules, but not old enough to actually travel on one by himself. So imagine now, Leo takes a school bus for the first time to his new school, a sprawling, one story building full of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Leo is small for his age, only a hair taller than his sister, who’s only nine years old. On day one, he knows exactly no one. Leo It was much louder than my old school, much louder, people talking, people closing and opening lockers, people walking. It was just noise. Just older kids, more kids, because my old school was tiny.
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Leo betw 12
o is ween. 13
Leo is between. He’s old enough to decipher Greyhound bus schedules, but not old enough to actually travel on one by himself. And old enough to know that if he’s going to survive in middle school, he has to make friends, but that making those friends stands to be significantly more complicated than it was back in Rochester. Leo’s sister, Auden, is in fourth grade. He says she’s not having as hard a time of it.
Sarah Koenig
Leo She hasn’t been alive as long. She hasn’t made as deep connections. And she already met a friend in her school. I think it’s easier to make friends in elementary school than in middle school.
Oh really? Why? What do you mean by that?
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Because people care less about who you are. The older you get, the more you judge people on their looks, their background, how they act, like what cool is for kids. Because in kindergarten, you could just walk up to someone and say, “Do you want to be my friend?” And that would be it. But it’s harder. I just think people are more wary before they open up. Like in first grade, if I met someone, I wouldn’t really care who they were. I would just care if they were nice or not.
The day I interviewed him, Leo had had a couple of breakthroughs. He emailed his parents during the school day to tell them the first piece of good news they’d had from him. Until that day, the emails had mostly been three desperate words, “I feel awful,” without even a period at the end to make the feeling finite. It was an endless awful. But on this Thursday, he wrote to tell them the mashed potatoes they serve in the cafeteria were great, followed by four exclamation points.
He dreaded the awkwardness of the phone. Second, and this was the big news, he asked another kid if he wanted to come over. Leo told me he thought about it first for a few days, and finally emailed the boy, whose name is Devin, another seventh grader. But now, Leo didn’t want to call Devin’s house to finalize a plan. He dreaded the awkwardness of the phone. So his dad called Devin’s parents, introduced himself as Leo’s father.
Leo You fool.
Leo’s Dad (on phone) He goes to school with your son Evan, and we were – Devin, I’m so sorry, Devin. I’m getting the evil look from my son. I apologize. But we’re hoping Devin can come over on Sunday. Thanks. (off phone) I panicked.
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It’s easier to make friends in elementary school than middle school... Because people care less about who you are.
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I thought Leo might be upset about it, maybe get sulky. But here he was cracking up, joking with his dad. It was such a relief to hear him laugh after he’d been so solemn in our interview. And I thought this is all going to be OK. He’s going to snap out of it. He’s almost there. An afternoon with Devin is going to do the trick. Then Sunday came.
Devin OK, now I have three health again.
Leo I think you’re becoming a wolf.
OK, I’m going to tell my wolf to attack then.
Sarah Koenig Leo taught Devin how to play Dungeons and Dragons.
Devin Yay, go wolfie, go wolfie, go wolfie. I am so weird.
Leo And the wolf lands on its feet.
Sarah Koenig On the drive home, Leo and Devin talk nonstop, a gentle rat-a-tat, one-up-manship emanating from deep inside a computer game.
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Devin
Leo I am a blood elf, warlock.
I had a goblin shaman.
I’m a knight-elf druid, and I can turn into a cat at level 8, which is nice. And at level 12, you get a bear.
Sarah Koenig By the time they dropped Devin off, they were giggling.
Leo Our cat responds to whatever you call him. We say his name is Felion, or you can call him football. Here Football. Here Football.
Leo’s Dad Thanks for coming over.
Devin Thank you for inviting me. See you.
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Leo Thanks. See you tomorrow.
I know that I have the whole day ahead of me, and then I have the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day ahead of me.
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Leo is o toward b kid he wa
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one step being the ants to be
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Sarah Koenig So a perfect day, right? Leo’s parents were relieved, hopeful, but no. Sarah Koenig
Leo
It’s Wednesday. You had your friend over on Sunday. How’d it go?
It went OK. Yeah, it went OK.
Has it changed anything about being here?
A little bit. I don’t think very much, but a little bit, yeah.
What’s changed? What’s the little bit?
That I know someone at school. It helps. Not all that much, but sort of, yeah.
And this is when I realized I had underestimated the depth of Leo’s gloom, that he greets every morning of every school day with dread. And not because he’s being bullied or anyone’s being mean to him.
I had underestimated the depth of Leo’s gloom Sarah Koenig
Leo I feel sick, because I know that I have the whole day ahead of me, and then I have the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day ahead of me.
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Old enough to understand his life will supposedly get better with time, but not old enough to believe he’s going to feel any differently than he does right this minute.
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Sarah Koenig Does it pass once you get to school?
Do you tell your parents, I don’t want to go. I want to go. Or do you just – you know you have to, so you don’t say anything? Every morning? What was different about this morning? How come you didn’t today?
Leo No, not really. It usually increases to a climax around lunchtime, and then I – actually, I’ve been throwing up recently. And then it just stays that level of sickness until I get home. No, I throw a screaming fit.
Yeah, pretty much. I didn’t today. I felt resigned. I knew that I would have to go anyway, so I gave up.
Sarah Koenig Here’s the curse of being almost 13, old enough to understand his life will supposedly get better with time, but not old enough to really believe he’s going to feel any differently than he does right this minute. Since making friends with Devin, Leo is one step toward being the kid he wants to be, someone with pals, someone who’s comfortable again. But he says right now, he’s just worried he’s going to be throwing up all year. Ira Glass Sarah Koenig is one of the producers of our show.
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This project was made by Leah Strickman at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts for Form and Function in Fall 2015. Podcast used is “Middle School” by This American Life. 28