It takes a thick skin and a sense of humor to teach in middle school. Not all teachers take the same approach, but most will agree that you have to be a little out there yourself to make it for very long.
When a student at Seth Low Intermediate School loudly pronounced Corinne Kaufman a “fat lady” during a fire drill one recent day, Mrs. Kaufman, a 45-year-old math teacher, calmly turned around.
Voluptuous,” she retorted, then proceeded to define the unfamiliar term, cutting off the laughter and offering a memorable vocabulary lesson in the process.
Such are the survival skills Mrs. Kaufman has acquired over 17 years at Seth Low, a large middle school in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn: How to snuff out brewing fistfights before the first punch is thrown, how to coax adolescents crippled by low self-esteem into raising their hands, how to turn every curveball, even the biting insult, into a teachable moment.
Ms. Kaufman's reply to the student was perfect for this age group. Once they manage to get your goat, they run with it. They have no filters when it comes to saying exactly what they are thinking. Some educators feel that training for middle school teachers isn't sufficient. Others are concerned about the high turn over rate for middle school teachers.
States and school districts looking to strengthen their teachers are trying a variety of approaches, among them offering special certifications for middle school teachers, paying them extra to work in tough schools, or having them cover two subjects instead of one to let them develop closer relationships with students.
The demands of teaching middle school show up in teacher retention rates. In New York City, the nation’s largest school system, middle school teachers account for 22 percent of the 41,291 teachers who have left the school system since 1999 even though they make up only 17 percent of the overall teaching force, according to the United Federation of Teachers.
In Philadelphia, researchers found that 34.2 percent of new middle school teachers in one representative year quit after their first year, compared with 21.1 percent of elementary school teachers and 26.3 percent of high school teachers.
Relating to the students is the most important survival skill mentioned in the article "For Teachers, Middle School Is Test of Wills". I think that this is probably true for any age group. The old theory of "Never let them see you smile" is on shaky ground. Several teachers share stories in the article and there is also a video you can watch about teaching middle school.