(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Winter 1996/1997)
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A DAY IN THE LIFE
Through her lively description of a typical day at
Johnson Traditional Middle School, 7th grader An Nguyen
shares her consumer's perspective of middle school life.
Dear Diary,
"Uhhh! Another five minutes, please, Dad!" I moan as my dad calls
for me to wake up.
As always, a little before 6 a.m., I roll and roll until I get away from
the mat I sleep on and onto the floor. Dad yells at the top of his lungs
to get me out of my fuzzy, cozy khaki blanket. If I don't wake up immediately,
he will push the switch of the two lights hanging on the ceiling. . . .I
would grouchily stamp to the bathroom.
My day starts with stretching my body a little, hoping to get in shape someday.
(Oh, no! I am into depression about my physical shape again!) Can't hold
back my eagerness anymore, so I turn on my Sony 12-inch TV and watch my
favorite show, Pink Panther, while munching on my crispy Cheerios. (Can
you believe a student whose essay is going to be published... is such a
TV fanatic! )
After that, I slip into my uniform and go back to my TV and go over my homework.
At ten until seven I shut the door quietly and head for the bus stop. When
my bus (#8945) pulls in the driveway of the school, I look at the windows
of the gym to see if there are students sitting there. (Students wait in
there until school actually starts at 7:40.) I don't like to wait in there.
Language Arts class
Every day at the beginning of class, we are supposed to start on the sponges
on the board. Sponges are the daily review of punctuation and parts of speech
which we've studied. Like a routine, our teacher reads us a poem to get
us to prepare to listen before she grades the sponges. It was not important
so I didn't listen attentively like I used to do at the beginning of the
school year. Neither did most of the other students.
For about three weeks, we've been assigned in groups to work on our presentation
about punctuation, which includes hyphens, question marks, quotation marks,
commas, periods, exclamation points, and apostrophes. Most of us have finished
our presentations. Today, it was the apostrophe and quotation mark groups'
turn. Our teacher expected us to take as much notes as possible, so we could
do the handouts on these punctuations for homework.
While my classmates took notes like crazy, I sat there relaxing. Readers,
please do not take this the wrong way. Before we were in groups, she'd told
us to read the pages about punctuation and take notes on them.... So I just
jogged down any information I didn't have. At my table, some students were
on task. However, I am for sure that most were doing something else.
Literature class
After the bell rang, we rushed to our literature class. Mrs. Minogue passed
out paper Egyptian tombs we designed and made yesterday in art class. Some
of us had finished our designs so we started writing a thank-you letter
on the back of our tomb to Mr. Price, who came yesterday to show us a video
he shot on his trip to Egypt.
Next, our teacher put us in groups by placing us with the people we don't
talk much with. A couple of weeks ago we read a short story called "Rip
Van Winkle" which is about a man who slept for 100 years. Today, we
were to write a modern one based on the original story. Besides writing
a story we needed to draw pictures of the story, write 10 new vocabulary
words, and describe the characters.
To start with how the main character is going to be gone for 100 years,
we jogged out ideas on paper and voted for one. I had all these crazy ideas
from watching too much TV: "Maybe he is Superman. One day he heard
a scream and he followed the sound but somehow he ended up wandering in
outer space."
Or: "He was walking on the beach thinking why his wife left him. There
was a quicksand spot dead ahead, and he dropped down under the sea. There,
he met a beautiful lady. One month in the undersea world is 100 years on
land. . . ."
None of my ideas were favored by my group. We ended up with a rich man named
Craig New whose wife had left him. He was going to be lost on a deserted
island.
Students were very talkative today, and I think they mostly talked about
something else other than work. However, not all of them are that bad. Some
of them worked really hard -- so hard our teacher gave 60 extra points.
Although we didn't learn anything new today, we were expected to cooperate
in our groups. From the smile on our teacher's round face, I think we cooperated
well.
Science class
"Density p; the average of the mass and the volume of a liquid."
I read this on the overhead screen as I copied down the notes about density.
We learned the formula to find the density by dividing the volume from the
mass of a liquid. Also, the three forms of water -- solid, gas, and liquid
-- were taught.
At each table, there was a tray with some blocks and a balance. With a group
of four, we divided one job to finish it faster. Two of us measured the
mass and the other two figured out the volume of the blocks with the formula
LxWxH. I then used my calculator to divide the mass by the volume.
It didn't go as smoothly as I've said. A girl in my group stubbornly didn't
want to do her job as I'd asked her nicely to do. Gladly, I knew better
than to argue with her. I measured the blocks to find the volume myself.
Finally, we were done and then started to discuss our answers with the whole
class. No one had a problem about finding the density. They were on task
. . . Mrs. Kremer is very strict. I guess they were afraid. I hope we will
do a better job on the next test.
Lunch
"Backs against the wall!" hollers Mrs. Kremer, our science teacher
and Cats team leader. "Or we will stay here as long as you want!"
Everyday we go through this routine: the students talk and are not in a
line and our teachers sing their operas. For a little while, we zip our
mouths but later we go back to our conversation. The teachers know us and
don't do much about it.
The girls in my class take the right two tables. I settle at the second
. . . I think there are two groups at that table. It's funny how the groups
are different. One is the tall-people group and one is the short-people
group. Even the things they talk about are different. The tall people talk
about boys; the short people talk about their homework and other stuff that
doesn't refer to boys. However, there's a slight similarity: they both talk
about teachers. Me, I don't belong to any group; I talk to both.
Now comes the nutritious part: Food! Every Tuesday, the school provides
Papa John's pizza, and Arby's hamburgers are sold for $1.75 on Wednesday
or Thurs-days. On wild Fridays, we have Subway. Besides those special treats,
we still have the regular lunch, which includes chicken nuggets, hamburgers,
tacos, and school pizzas with fruit and milk. As a natural thing, the students
don't like the school's nutritious food-except for me.
While eating lunch, I asked some of my friends this: What do you think you
are learning in school? Their responses are:
"How to get along with everyone."
"To be a friend."
"Learn to be someone in the future."
According to their responses, we can see that most are concerned about the
relationship with their peers more than their academic knowledge. I think
that is the problem with teens today.
Social Studies class
Social studies is my favorite class this year. Today, dear reader, you will
explore a day with a substitute. Mrs. Ballew is not like any other boring,
strict substitute. Let's see what she has done!
Bear with me a minute please, readers, while she lectures us on the consequences
if we start acting up. After all of that is done, some of us raised hands
to read an essay defending or opposing the ways of life the Egyptian pharaohs
lived. So far, all of them opposed the abusive ways the pharaohs used their
power. Here comes the exciting part:
Mrs. Ballew asked us the definition of power. Some said power was the ability
to do something someone else can't do; others said "to have money."
To demonstrate for us what some pharaohs used their power to do, we had
a little role playing. She chose two students, a boy and a girl. One was
the son and the other was the mother. Mrs. Ballew left Wesley at her desk
and walked out of the room. When she walked back in, she said, "What
are you doing, Wesley?"
"Stealing a pencil," replied Wesley, which we thought was hysterical,
so we bursted out laughing uncontrollably. We'd never had this much fun!
"You know," Mrs. Ballew said to him, "I've been wanting to
get on your case. You never turn in your work and have lots of tardies.
You are a beaver!" We all had another good laugh.
Wesley pretended to go home and tell his mother, and you knew his mother
would be coming to see Mrs. Ballew. Lily came walking in the door and said,
"Uh, Mrs. Ballew? I'm Wesley's mother. I...." Lily was interrupted.
"Oh, Wesley's mom! Hi! You know, Wesley is one of my fine students!
What's your name?"
"Lily. I heard you called my son a 'beaver'"."
"What? Oh, no! He must have misunderstood me." Quickly she turned
the story around. "We are doing a project on animals. I asked him if
he was doing the beaver."
Mrs. Ballew was demonstrating the misused power of the pharaohs through
the teacher abusing the student. Then the students started telling their
stories of how their teachers abused them or the people they know. Before
we could hear the next essay, the bell rang. It was worth it, though. We
all liked the substitute. She was cool.
Mathematics class
Our substitute in math class is a short and stout person. She is not cool
like Mrs. Ballew, but is nice. Unlike our social studies class, we had lots
of pages to work on in our math textbook.
Some of the problems were not familiar because our regular teacher hadn't
taught us yet. One of the problems was about writing out the standard form.
I asked the substitute for help. To my surprise, she had no idea what it
is. Some students said they knew the answer. She asked a boy to help me,
but he then erased all his answers. Next, a girl helped me. I sort of got
it, but I'm not sure.
Orchestra class
While catching my breath, I unpacked my violin and set my music in order
as our orchestra teacher wrote on the board.
We played some of the pieces but not anymore after our teacher went in her
office to help the new boy with his fingering on his bass. The others were
talking and laughing continuously while I practiced. I couldn't keep silent
anymore, but joined the talk. I pretended to practice by moving my bow over
the strings.
Whenever Mrs. Johnson tapped on the glass windows to remind us to practice,
we would move our bows and swing our heads side to side as if we were moving
along with the music. If Mrs. Johnson had not come out, we'd have talked
until the bell rang. We played some pieces and packed up.
At the End of the Day. . .
I think social studies is my favorite class. The most interesting thing
today was the role playing (when the substitute was here). Ever since we
started school, all we did was read the textbook and answered questions.
We'd never done anything this fun. I guess I like this class because I make
good grades.
I went home after school. As soon as I finished showering I turned on the
TV. To tell the truth, I love food. I immediately went down to the kitchen
and searched for leftovers. After resting a little, I started on my homework
at 7 p.m. I walked to my computer class, which lasted until 8:30 p.m. With
a little more TV, I ended my day.
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