My Kind of Circus

It was October, and Fall colors were blazing bright throughout the hundred-acre campus of my K-12 independent school. I was in my car, crying. Again. I was six weeks into my job as a middle school Latin teacher, a job that I had actively pursued after finishing my PhD. My very first experience with middle schoolers — as a substitute teacher still working towards my PhD — had been pure joy. I had chosen this path, yet I had also cried almost every day in my car. Despairing thoughts regularly swirled in my head: Am I cut out for this? Have I made a mistake? Am I ruining these kids’ school years and making them hate Latin?

I had replaced a beloved teacher and I frequently felt like the mythical evil stepmother to my two 8th grade classes. They did warm up to me in the end, but at the beginning I took their reluctance as proof that I was an impostor and was, in fact, making them hate Latin. Sometimes I just cried in my car because my ears hurt from so much noise.

That first year was a big lesson in how not to manage a classroom. I was terrible at it. Middle schoolers talk. A lot. Their stage of life involves inquiry, a personal opinion and voice, and the transition from egocentric thinking to recognizing other viewpoints. I did not know how to make students feel heard while simultaneously keeping a semblance of order, when some of those students had yet to learn how to participate in group discussions.

I questioned my own ability daily. I felt like a novice working in a school of experts (probably because I was). My only previous K-12 experience was as a substitute, and my entire pedagogical training consisted of the large teacher orientation offered to graduate instructors of the Arts and Sciences and a few teaching workshops that were particular to college teaching. What I had under my belt my first day on the job were eight years of graduate school, a few years of college teaching, and a completed dissertation. (Literally! I carried a shoe box containing my dissertation to my job interview, and I went straight from the campus visit to the Dean’s office to submit the hard copy.)

That Fall, however, I was teaching alongside seasoned veterans who regularly planned thoughtful lessons that were developmentally appropriate and recognized different learning styles. I had learned how to teach Latin mostly from observing college professors, and this was definitely not a seminar.

I lacked formal training, but I drew from my favorite memories of college that were in line with a middle school mindset. As a student, I took seminar notes that frequently featured comics to illustrate points. As a teacher, I loved ditching the textbook exercises one day and playing an adaptation of the board game Clue to review the passive voice and uses of the ablative case in my Latin 101–102 class. That same year my students took to the sidewalks to practice writing in chalk the bits of Roman graffiti we had read. At the core of these activities are traits that I have come to realize are essential to the middle years: laughter, play, and inquiry.

I am now four years into my job, and although each day presents new challenges (and I sometimes wonder what is the world record for waiting until a class is silent to continue, because I may be a contender), I no longer cry in my car every day, and I have stopped wondering whether I am meant to be here. I know that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

It turns out that I am not the only one who has wondered: Why middle school? Whereas my initial inquiry was rooted in the feeling that middle school was my home, but not necessarily knowing why, the majority of people I encounter simply ask, “Why would anyone teach middle school?” (It is telling that the most common response when I tell people what I do is “Bless you.”)

Yes, a portion of my job involves or has involved: bottle flipping, slime, thinking putty, Rubik’s cubes, fidget spinners, flossing, Fortnite, memes, Vines, and dabbing. I still don’t exactly know how a V-Buck works, and, to quote Parks and Rec’s Andy Dwyer, “at this point, I’m too afraid to ask.” (To those readers whose students and/or children are not similarly obsessed, a V-Buck is the currency in Fortnite, a popular video game.) These passing trends may elicit eye rolls or at the very least, Google searches, but they are very much a part of middle school. You will also find in most middle schools the things that don’t go viral: curiosity, enthusiasm, candid participation, empathy. I could go on.

Incredible amounts of fear and excitement can co-exist in the mind of a 6th grader. A new school! Who am I going to be in middle school? On that first day I take a mental snapshot of the sweet (and short!) students sitting before me. They will never look as young to me as they do on that first day, sitting still (still!) in their seats with neat piles of various Latin texts on their desks.

We start with the alphabet. My Indiana Jones reference regarding the Latin “I” gets fewer nods of recognition each year. When we start to speak the language, they relax. Oh, language can be fun! Each September, I regularly hear 6th graders enthusiastically greet each other with a loud “salve!” in the hallways. I often wonder whether that will be the only phrase they will recall years from now. The importance of this greeting became evident when, recently, a 6th grade girl was the last to walk into class, and her face fell. “Guys! I came in, but no one said salve to me.”

Most 6th graders seem to readily adopt ancient language and culture. (I remember going through a serious ancient Egypt phase myself in the 6th grade.) They’re not only excited to speak a dead language — they want to live it. One parent shared with me that her son was regularly reclining at the dinner table “like a Roman.” Another set of parents shared that their daughter was calling them “mater et pater” at home. This engagement with the culture is most resonant in mythology. Many students come into my class with extensive background in Greek and Roman myths, partly due to the popular Percy Jackson series and partly due to classics like D’Aulaires. My jaw dropped the day I heard a 6th student casually include ichor in our informal discussion of the Greco-Roman pantheon.

And then there’s the humor, starting with the obvious: counting to sex, how one might pronounce Uranus, and the first time the students encounter the preposition cum in the textbook. Imagine a 6th grade boy trying to say, “Are we having a quiz on … Uranus?” while absolutely losing it. I’m not even sure he finished the whole question. And the tangents! One student reads aloud: Cerberus est canis. Another: Canis! Dog! I have three dogs. Do you have a dog? What is your dog’s name? Can I see a picture of your dog? My mom wants to adopt another dog, but my dad said no. My one dog is weird and eats ice cream. What’s your favorite ice cream?

There is one recurring joke that captures the essence of middle school Latin humor. A group of 6th graders were in stitches over the line in D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths where Hermes runs from Apollo and says, “I am only a newborn babe.” They translated this as Hermes est babe, which very quickly became Hermes est bae. I cannot count the number of times I have seen students write out this phrase, Hermes est bae, usually accompanied by fits of laughter. I’ve seen it on the board in math classrooms, and I’ve even had colleagues come up and ask me what it is, why students are joking about it in their class, and why it’s so funny. This joke makes very little sense, and yet, that is precisely part of the reason why it is such a funny middle school joke, and why it prevailed beyond a full school year.

Middle school isn’t all jokes, though. So many transitions happen in this short time span, and one of the joys of being in such a small department (I am currently the only middle school Latin teacher) is that I get a front row seat to students’ growth from 6th to 8th grade. By 8th grade these kids have matured so much. There’s the physical development, for sure. (There’s always that moment when I do a double-take as a deep baritone greets me in August.) They are still inquisitive, but they are becoming increasingly aware about the world outside of their home and school.

When I have taught political tituli to 8th graders, they have brought up current politics, both domestic and foreign. Sure, there were students making political tituli for Yeezy and Waka Flocka Flame, but then there were others that were beginning to think critically about how name recognition plays a role in politics, both ancient and modern. (There was also the 8th grader who, I think, coined vinpectemus, “We shall overcomb,” by combining vincere and pectere.)

Whether the topic is politics, sports, or pop culture, I do what I wish more of my own teachers had done: I listen to them, take their opinions seriously, and value what they have to say. Many people in this country, I suspect, reconsidered their preconceived notions of preteens when 11-year old Naomi Wadler spoke so eloquently and passionately at the March for Our Lives in D.C. this past March.

Although I may have initially felt that academia and middle school teaching were disparate and disconnected parts of my story, I now see that they are harmonious. On one end, the experience of teaching middle school has brought out the best Latinist in me. I am learning how to harness the excitement of middle school students and their willingness to explore, and for the first time in a long time, I find myself asking questions and taking risks. How can my teaching be more inclusive? What can I learn about the non-elite and how can I represent that in the classroom? How can I take this lesson out of the textbook/classroom/SMARTboard?

These questions have brought out some of my most successful teaching moments, including a recent class period with 7th graders where where I set up the classroom like a portico and acted (in Latin) as a stern grammaticus. My students used their new Tablet PCs and styluses as if they were wax tablets to transcribe lines of Greek and Latin poetry. (I did feel a bit like I was living out one of my favorite children’s books, Miss Nelson is Missing!) During the “free voluntary reading” time I have set up for my 8th graders, I sit alongside them and read. While they read the many exciting Latin novellae now on the market, I have been working my way through Ovid and Martial. Some of my grammar has become a bit rusty over time, but my enthusiasm as a reader has never been stronger.

At the same time, the longer I teach, the more I am able to recognize and tap into the gifts of my PhD. Some are obvious, and others less so. When I want to give more context for the theme of a chapter in our textbook, I know how to go about doing the research. Much of the information out there for middle grades is watered down, and I have found that my students want the “real stuff,” whether that involves throwing up an adapted passage from Pliny to enlighten their study of ancient medicine or synthesizing a series of articles on wild animals and hunting. Many of my 8th graders, and a good number of 6th and 7th graders, reject oversimplified stories as “cute.” They know the world can be a tough place, and they are willing and ready to engage with the less savory aspects of Roman culture.

Another gift is a little bittersweet, and it has more to do with the experience of teaching college students than getting a PhD. A common saying among many of my students is, “Grades don’t matter in middle school.” In my first year I’d use this as a poor attempt to control the classroom: “Grades may not matter now, but they do next year and you’ll wish then you had paid better attention! Etc.” But it was also in this first year when I saw that, despite this belief, many of my students showed high levels of anxiety. I could see younger versions of some of the high-achieving students I had taught at the college level, and I had been teaching in the Ivy League at a time when student mental health was getting national press.

I bought into their notion that “grades don’t matter in middle school,” and changed many of quiz and test procedures to encourage academic risk, minimize anxiety, and normalize failure as part of the learning process. One example of this is Mons Morphologius. I have turned the dreaded paradigm quiz into a set of mountainous nature trails that students get to choose and then traverse at their own pace. (I have my own ideas about the efficacy of such charts, but my students continue into an upper school program where it’s useful to know them.) Students would start their verb paradigms with the following description:

The Verb Trail: This 12-mile hike steadily climbs up to an elevation of 1500 feet. This trail tests one’s endurance — its many levels are straightforward if you can keep your endings and thematic vowels at the ready . The large presence of sheep along levels 6–10 (i.e. the imperfect tense) make the journey well worth it.

Passing means they get to keep going, but a mistake means that they get to stay put and work on it until they feel comfortable. I have little pictures of each student, and they delight in moving their figures up the mountain when they have passed. No grades are awarded, and students get the full amount of points for participating. These types of quizzes have not eradicated anxiety from my classroom altogether, but they have added a bit of lighthearted fun to an otherwise dull assessment and most importantly, they emphasize the fact that learning, like hiking, is a journey with ups and downs.

The last gift is one of shared experience — and no, my students are not getting a PhD on the side. (Although some look at that eight-page English paper in the same way I often looked at my dissertation: as an impossible task to complete.) I have come to appreciate the liminal status of both middle schoolers and graduate students.

As a full-time graduate student, I existed somewhere between college and adulthood. I just wanted to be taken seriously by other adults, namely my professors, but I also needed a lot of reassurance from those same adults. My middle schoolers are discovering their independence, but they also still need the support of caring adults. They want sincerity and respect from their teachers, but they also want a space to play. A common adjective to describe middle school is awkward. If you did not have this middle school experience, or are removed from that time of life, please watch Bo Burnham’s beautifully realistic Eighth Grade.

I felt awkward almost all of the time in grad school. “OMG! Did I really say that stupid thing at an SCS reception?” One of the most important traits of an educator, and especially of a middle school teacher, is empathy, and in my experience, at least, graduate school helped me relate to the middle schoolers I teach. The growing pains from childhood to adolescence are often aching, and they can give rise the hardest of feelings.

I do think it is no accident that the two times in my life I have had the lowest self esteem were in middle school and while writing my dissertation, and I have heard similar remarks from others. It is my job to teach Latin, but it is my duty, I think, to give these students a safe space to make mistakes (I have learned from that first day and now make it a point to own and discuss my own mistakes in the classroom with them), and for the ones who feel these growing pains more critically than their peers, to remind them that it does, in fact, get better.

I want to conclude by offering some of the concrete steps I took to transition from academia to middle school. On the application end there are three things I would advise. First, and perhaps obvious, spend time with middle schoolers. While in my last year of writing a dissertation, I signed up as a substitute with a Classics department at a local K-12 school. I also found a few volunteer opportunities that connected me with preteens and teens, some of which were outside of Classics completely.

Second, be honest with your faculty advisers. I caused a few eyebrows to raise when I told people of my career plans. The transition from academia to middle school in particular is fairly uncommon, and the transition from working on obscenity and the Carmina Priapea to working with preteens is almost unheard of. Nevertheless, I received support from my professors as I asked them to rework their recommendation letters in order to emphasize my teaching potential, rather than research, and they were happy to oblige.

Last, convey your passion for working with middle schoolers in particular. It has been my experience that middle school programs want to know, Why middle school? And perhaps consider coming up with something more eloquent than what I said in response to this same interview question: “I think [middle school] is my kind of circus.”

If you are in your first year or two of teaching and you find yourself, like me, crying continuously in your car, take note. Sit in on as many classes as your colleagues will have you in. In my first year, I used several plan periods to observe my colleagues in Modern Languages, English, History, and Art. I chose teachers whose style seemed similar to and different from my own. On the one hand, it is reassuring to see someone who has made a successful career out of teaching in a way that feels familiar to you. On the other, if your pedagogical training is lacking, as mine was, it can be very helpful to see someone teach effectively in a way that is not second nature to you. Also, it can be incredibly eye-opening to observe your own students in someone else’s class, especially those students whom you struggle to engage.

Go outside of your school and jump on opportunities for pedagogically-driven professional development. A pivotal moment in my own development was the 2016 NEH Seminar on Daily Roman Life run by Matt Panciera of Gustavus Adolphus College. This program fortified my otherwise shaky foundation of Roman social history (students have almost zero questions about Callimachean aesthetics, but they do have several questions about Romans’ bathroom habits), and it was where I learned through experience how much fun it is to have an active component in the classroom, whether that is physical or verbal. This was also my first time being with a group of K-12 Latin teachers in person, and I ravenously took in their advice. Outside of programs like this, there is social media. I sometimes think the only reason why I keep a Facebook account is so that I can benefit from the wisdom, energy, and experience of Latin teachers in the various groups centered around this profession. These educators have so much to offer.

My last bit of advice, albeit a bit cheeky: invest in a hand-crank coffee grinder. You will need the caffeine in that first year, and there is apparently nothing more entertaining and novel to a hyperactive middle schooler than a hand-crank coffee grinder. This became so desirable an activity that I had to create a sign-up sheet. Let that sink in: a sign-up sheet to grind coffee that you won’t drink and don’t even want to drink. How perfectly middle school.

This article is part of “Dispatches From the Front Lines,” a series about pre-collegiate Latin and Greek instruction

Heather Galante is the Middle School Latin teacher at Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, PA. She has yet to successfully flip a water bottle, can kinda do the floss, and spends too much time analyzing teen slang.