School

The middle school/junior high years are ones of great change for girls, as well as boys. Anyone who sees an average eleven-year-old standing next to the average fifteen-year-old can clearly see the changes that occur during these years.

Aside from the obvious physical changes are other, more subtle and unseen changes. Following the Piagetian model of cognitive development, children in this age group move from concrete reasoning to formal thought. They begin to be able to understand things more abstract in nature and no longer need to see physical proof of a concept to understand it. Introspection is another key development for kids this age.

For many students, the change between elementary school and middle school is enormously stressful. They have been accustomed to spending the majority of their school day in one classroom with one teacher. In middle school or junior high, they are thrust into a much larger building than that which housed their elementary school, amidst many more students, with a different teacher for almost every class. Many experience the same kind of anxiety and isolation they felt when they began school in kindergarten. They are afraid they will not know where to go or how to get there, that they won't be able to make new friends, and that they will be picked on by bigger kids, to name a few of their worries. These same concerns may then be repeated as the student enters high school!

Studies have shown that girls who performed as well as, if not better than, boys in their studies begin to demonstrate a loss of interest and ability, especially in math and science classes, during their middle school years. Research by Myra and David Sadker, the American Association of University Women, and others shows that male students are encouraged more in class and are better supported in science and math classes than are girls. Recently, however, girls have begun to become more proficient in the areas of math and science. Female students in all-girl schools tend to achieve more in less time than do those in coed schools.

Another difference between elementary and middle school involves friendship groups. Whereas in elementary school children played together in large groups, in middle school students are classified into certain groups by their peers. Many of these groups exclude new members, while others are more open. Girls in this age group also become actively involved in gossip, spreading rumors and teasing other kids, causing many of the negative feelings that are so difficult to cope with during this time. Students are also exposed to more negative behaviors than they saw in elementary school, such as drug and alcohol use and smoking.

Middle school girls also begin to take a greater interest in how they look and how they believe they appear to other people. The personal hygiene habits of girls in this age group become considerably more lengthy than they were in elementary school! Girls begin to take an interest in boys and begin to think about sexual issues at this age.

Schools, as the places where kids spend the majority of their time, provide some structured activities, such as dances, for students to practice dating behaviors. Often, however, the behavior exhibited by boys toward girls shifts from harmless, playful flirting (which is often reciprocated), to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is defined as any unwanted sexual advance, including sexual comments, jokes, pictures, graffiti, rumors, touching, grabbing, pinching, forced kissing or other forced sexual act. In the AAUW study, "Hostile Hallways," 81% of high school girls said they had experienced unwanted sexual behaviors, 47% of these girls stated that they were first harassed in middle school. According to Catherine Dee in her book The Girls' Guide to Life, 85% of teen girls say they have been sexually harassed. Only 7% of students who are sexually harassed tell a teacher about it, according to the AAUW study.

The negative effects of sexual harassment can be far reaching, with victims feeling powerless and incompetent and suffering from a loss in self-esteem, which often leads to depression and a subsequent drop in school performance (R. Shoop, "Harassment: What's Sex Got to Do With It?" Journal for a Just and Caring Education).

Preventing and stopping sexual harassment are major issues that need to be dealt with by middle and high schools. Currently, steps are being taken to educate teachers and administrators about sexual harassment, how to identify it and how to stop it. However, more work needs to be done. Students also need to be educated about sexual harassment and how to prevent, stop and cope with it, if it does occur. Victims of sexual harassment need to be made to feel that the adults around them will be sympathetic, will assist the victim and actively seek to stop the harassment.

In the aftermath of violent school tragedies, such as the Littleton, Colorado massacre, there has been a dramatic increase in the concern we all feel for our student's safety in and around school. School violence has always existed at some level and continues today. People are verbally harassed, pushed and jabbed in the halls. Physical fights break out at times. Nearly 40% of ninth grade girls report having been in a physical fight. Many schools have adopted a "No Tolerance" policy toward violence of any sort, and perpetrators are promptly suspended from school. The problem is compounded by the escalation in the incidence of students carrying weapons to school. A recent study found that nearly 10% of ninth grade girls claim to have carried a weapon to school with them during any given month, and that 7% report having been threatened or injured with a weapon. School violence occurs in hallways, staircases, the lunchroom, unattended classrooms, the gym and the locker room. Teachers and staff need to be vigilant in these areas, and also need to be aware of the warning signs of impending school violence. For example, kids who may be likely to act violently tend to feel alienated, do poorly in school, experience family problems, have been involved in violent incidents in the past, have an inflated yet fragile sense of importance, be depressed and tend to have a preoccupation with violent fantasies.

In spite of the recently publicized school violence, most students tend to feel safe at school and worry more about their grades than about their personal safety. In fact, most middle school girls realize that performing well at school is important for their futures. They are beginning to make career and life plans and know that if they intend to attend a college and meet with success there and in their careers, they will need to have good grades, if not in middle school, then certainly in high school.

The middle school years are ones in which girls begin to separate themselves from their parents. Part of what this means is that they begin to critically view their parents' behavior. This is also true in their relationships with their teachers. Previously, students may have blindly obeyed their teachers, or assumed that the teacher always knew what was best. As they move through adolescence, however, students tend to identify any shortcomings a teacher may have and freely criticize their classroom technique, teaching ability, etc. Clearly, teaching at the middle school level is especially challenging!

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What Some of the Girls Said:

About Differences Between Elementary, Middle and High School:

• When I was in grade school it was like you can hang with anybody and I mean everybody wanted to be around you and you get more attention ëcause you're little and we don't really discuss the things that we do now in middle school. And when I'm in middle school I feel like kinda alone but then again not. I feel alone whenever my friends aren't there. I feel like I have nobody to talk to or nobody to look up to. You're noticin' different changes in your body and changes as in goin' to school and everything how people act towards you now that you're getting older.

• Middle school is different. Well, different from elementary, you have more friends, you're going to start learning, be more responsible for your homework, and your parents aren't always gonna be there. In school you have to learn how to handle different subjects, you gotta be open minded to things that you learn. You can't just like be one track mind, you have to have different ways; it's just like the highway. You go up, down, exit, and different ways, and you have to understand that not everybody is gonna be the same as your friends. Not all your friends are gonna be friends sometime, you got to keep your enemies close to you, because one day they might end up your best friend, or close friend.

• In elementary you're always accepted and in middle school you're classified. The preps, the sluts, the skaters, the freaks, the gangsters, the nerds. You name it, we got it.

• Elementary school was kind of a time where everybody was just growing up together and nobody really knew what they wanted yet and they're just having fun with everything, but then once middle school came things started changing. People were leaving and people were coming and you didn't really know where you were.
  
  
• A big difference between elementary school and middle school was probably that there were different groups in elementary school. Everybody got along, everybody was friends, and then in middle school people started breaking off into, you know, the people who had money, the people who were of different races, and that was hard for me to understand because I thought, "why can't everyone just get along?"

• One of the main differences was just the fact that people were starting to find out who they were and realize what they wanted in life and it wasn't always, oh, you know you're gonna be my friend forever.

• It's not tough for me. I'm just happy with life and just enjoying it basically.

• I know people who are struggling in school or struggling to make friends.

• At certain points middle school can be lonely because you have certain things to do and maybe your friends might want to go out, and you can't because you're studying for a major test the next day. You feel lonely because sometimes you don't have anybody to talk to because you're not in a certain clique or because somebody wants to hurt you or harm you and things like that. It's major lonesome sometimes.

• I think middle school is more fun, ëcause you get to go around and places and don't just get to stay in one place. You get to go from class to class, and the only thing that I hate about it is that you get three minutes to get from class to class.

• There's more teachers and you don't have to stick with one all the time and you get to go on your own. The teachers aren't watching you and you get to wonder off in places.

• I looked a little bit deeper and I looked over all the things that were happening in the outside world to try to find who I was.

• I respect things more. I understand, when people are talking about stuff and when parents punish you for certain reasons, I understand it and I don't throw fits about it.

• What I'm afraid of for going into high school is like being in classes with seniors. But also walking around having to watch yourself to make sure you don't do one thing wrong like the first two months of high school until you get to know somebody up there. When you go into high school for the first time, it's like you're going into kindergarten cause you're the youngest grade there. And it's really scary cause when I went to kindergarten I was scared shitless. Going into high school and being the baby of the grades really scares me.

• There are people who realize that if you're changing, you also need to change the people that you hang around with so they better fit your needs.

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About Sexual Harassment:

• It's more conspicuous like going around and pushing people up against lockers, but it's definitely there, definitely. Sexual abuse or sexual harassment is right there all the time and it's basically with, well the one I see it's just like a couple of girls and like a whole bunch of the guys that kind of gravitate toward the girl. I know the girls kind of like it in a way; it's a way of getting attention. Of course, it's negative attention, but I think that they kind of like it but they don't like it.

• I think sexual harassment and emotional harassment are a big issue and also the abuse involved. It can go beyond just verbal harassment. I think that something that are less severe is the stuff that goes around the school, like name calling and all that stuff between friends, that's really funny and it's all joking, but sometimes it gets carried too far. Then one of them gets angry and it gets carried to other people, so I guess, at this age we care what other people think. If someone's calling you a name and then someone else started it or joined in with someone else, then it's all kind of ganging up on the one person.

• I think sexual harassment is a big issue with teachers and it wasn't a big issue a long time ago, but one of my teachers doesn't sexually harass anybody but tells us that women should be able to bake pies at the age of thirteen.

• I just think a lot of people flirt in our school, but not like sexual harassment.

• Sexual harassment is like when they really hurt you or something and touch you in the wrong way but like your shoulder doesn't mean anything. I was at a concert one time and some guy came up to me, sat by me and started pushin' up against me. I had no idea who he was and he was older and I had no idea who he was and he just came up to me and started getting close and stuff and I'm pushin' him away and he kept comin' back. My parents were there and they're like, "who is he?" I'm like, "I don't know." He didn't come back to me the rest of the night once I went by my parents.

• I think if you say stop and they keep doing it, then it's sexual harassment and they should stop when you say stop, but if someone you know is just playing around, you know that's life.

• I haven't had a lot of experiences with sexual harassment that I consider sexual harassment. I never had anybody come up to me that I didn't know and grab me in any indecent way just because they wanted to touch me.

• No one should have to experience sexual harassment whether you're three, whether you're fifteen, or whether you're thirty. No one should have to go through that because that's not okay for people to treat you like that because you're female or because you're male or because you're white or because you're black.

• Just the little comments that people make. "Could you wear a shirt that's any tighter," or just the little comments that hurt, the comments that are inappropriate. Those are the comments that stick in your head when you're looking at a guy and thinking, could he be thinking these things about me? The little things that set you off and that are always there.

• I'm friends with a lot of guys and so sexual harassment really doesn't bother me unless it goes like past a certain limit. I mean, so when it starts to bother me, I can just tell them and then they'll understand and if they don't stop then I guess I have to tell someone.

• Some guy I didn't even know came up and pinched me in the butt and said "Hi" and I was like "Get away from me!"

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About Rumors, Teasing and Gossip:

• Rumors can be horrible. Say it was a rumor that could really ruin a person's career? But also I think you are afraid to talk out. If you're harassed by your teacher, it's really scary. If they do something that makes you uncomfortable and you tell someone then your whole relationship with them in the classroom is really screwed up and I think that people are just really scared to talk about anything that happens with their teachers.

• Whatever you do don't tease somebody because they're different. Because you know they may look like a geek, they may act like one, they may be a nerd, but you know until you walk in their own shoesówalk two moons in their shoes, you need not judge them. It hurts, you know. We freaks as we're called pretend that we don't mind but we do. It hurts us a lot. You know and when you guys judge us like that it's really painful for us.

• I kinda get mad about it sometimes. I won't say anything, it depends on what they say to me, but if it's something bad that they say about me, I have to go back to them and say, you know, that's not right what you said to me. We're both human beings, we shouldn't be disrespecting each other.

• I don't like gossip. People will talk about you and you're, you're innocent, and you don't know what's going on.

• I hate gossip because it's like there's snowball effect, one thing just becomes bigger and bigger after each person adds a little detail to it, which is totally not true, and when you try and prove that something's wrong, they just never believe you.

• It just keeps going and going and then once it gets back to that person, then it's like everything is all jumbled up and it's not even what the person said at first.

• I think gossip hurts people's feelings very much. People get real hurt and depressed and put themselves down, and start believing what people are saying, if it's bad.

• There's a lot of gossip, but I don't really do that because it's not fair if people talk about you, and you don't want to be talked about.

• Well the reason why I'm scared to come to school is ëcause I just think that if I do something wrong to somebody, and they're popular, or something, and they're gonna get the whole school against me or they're gonna say bad things, and then probably ruin my reputation. Just like when they pass you down the hallway, they'll just like say these mean things to you so that's what I'm scared about.

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About School Violence:

• Sometimes it's kinda scary. People threaten you all the time. You're walking down the hall, get moving you're slow you know. Then you just kinda like bug them off and they don't do anything. ëCause a lot of the middle school students they talk like they're all that and they're nothing. They're so tough and they're all that. Really they're like wusses. Like sometimes I talk like I'm all that, like I could really kick somebody's butt but yeah right, look at these muscles, they look real tough.

• There's a lot of girls who like to fight now in middle school and in high school. I've had experiences with my friends fighting other people, and it's really hard because you have to choose sides sometimes and it's not that easy. If I saw people who I cared about that were fighting against each other, then I just kind of back off and try to intervene a little bit. Just say "Stop" or whatever, "Don't do this," but a lot of time it was me that would get the backlash for sticking my nose in their business. So I just kind of stay to the side and not pick sides because I don't want to lose my friends.

• I know this one kid that got beat up at school, but that wouldn't be a fear for me, ëcause I wouldn't hang around with those types of people that are gonna threaten people.

• Yeah, girl against girl, it's cat fighting. It's a lot of holding grudges, not really fighting, but yelling at each other. A lot of getting other people to revenge against them, to not be their friend, and to be theirs. Lots of taking sides over little issues. And they're not even big things. I think as we mature, the issues will decrease and won't be as many fights, but there won't be as much gossip, as much stuff that would hurt people.

• What scares me the most is some people are really violent. They'll try to hurt you. People run around the hallways kicking each other or slapping or snapping on each other.

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About Getting Good Grades:

• I think better to get good grades now and enjoy school, though sometimes I don't wish I was at school and I could stay home and sleep.

• I get bad grades, but I still think they're important. I try my best to get good grades, but it's really hard sometimes. Like sometimes the teachers don't wanna help you or can't help you ëcause you're not smart enough and they always say, "well, you should know this." But you need help and they won't give it to you. Sometimes you get so much homework, between school and jobs and I'm in piano lessons and basketball, volleyball, softball.

• I'm gonna get good grades and get a good education.

• I think that school is good ëcause school is your key to a good job.

• My grades are not really important to me. I just try my best and I just do my best.

• I feel getting good grades is good ëcause you can get a scholarship and you can do a lot of things with good grades.

• I want to get a degree and I want to get a good job. I want to be the first one in my family.

• This year I have been really trying to get good grades. I've always tried to get good grades. I went through this stage where it was just like, you know, who cares.

• Getting good grades is very important to me. I think it's a very important thing. Getting good grades means you can go to a good school, good college, you can do a very good job in life and you can have a lot of success and that's very important to me. I don't get so much pressure from my parents, not as much from my peers, you know, friends are just not really there to concentrate on your grades, they're just to be there for you.

• I get pretty good grades. They've gotten a lot worse since elementary. I used to get all A's and I really hate that I get mostly B's now, but once I get into high school, I want to try to get all A's because I want to get into a really good college. I think that's really important, because you need a good job to have a good life.

• I feel getting grades is really important. I never did before, you know, when I was younger and then when I got into high school, every body told me how good grades will get you into good colleges and stuff, so now I'm almost a freak about it. But I think it's important, I think that doing your best is really more important than straight A's, but I think it's pretty important to me.

• Grades are important but they're not my whole life. My parents want me to do my best.

• My mom always tells me that she's never disappointed in me. If I get a B on a grade or something, she won't be disappointed. My dad's pretty much the same way. Grades are important to him, but if it's the best I can do, then that's what he'll take.

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And About Teachers and Parents:

• I think parents and teachers compliment you and encourage you almost every day and it has a really big role on how you feel about yourself, because if they don't encourage you, you won't feel like you need to do anything and life isn't worth anything.

• Some teachers at my school, some of ëem is nice, and some of them I get along with, but the other teachers, they just pick on me and they be trying to send me out in the hallway for things I didn't even do.

• I think our school is pretty fair with like always calling on guys, or always calling on girls, or having girls do one thing, so they're basically pretty fair on having guys and girls mixed together and stuff.

• Hard for you to adjust to anything because with the people here, all you hear is criticism, every day you go to school. Every time you go to school, it's only criticism that you hear. You never actually hear the good things about you, that's what makes comin' to school a bad thing. It's like the schoolwork and stuff is fine, with me because I like homework and stuff like that when I get it, but it's not like a big deal with me for homework. It's just like gettin' along with other people that makes it good.

• A lot of my teachers give us too much homework every night, all we do is read, read, read, read, read, read. And they need to give us a new subject or something. I hate reading.

• We understand what some teachers are saying, but some of them talk too much. And they take too long, and then you can't get none of your homework done and nothing, and some of them I think they're on drugs.

• I think some teachers are too strict and when I was in art class she, she talked too long and we wouldn't get a chance to do anything. It was boring, too.

• Today I asked to do my homework and the teacher wouldn't let me go do it. I had to go to the computer lab and she wouldn't let me go and it was getting really frustrating. I thought I could tear her head off. I'm glad I sat down in my seat and I tried not to talk and I stole one of her birds off the wall.

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Beyond the Butterfly is co-produced by Wisconsin Public Television and NEWIST/CESA #7 (Northeastern Wisconsin In-School Telecommunications).