I’ve Taught Elementary, Middle, and High School – I Still Don’t Have a “Best” Answer
People ask me this all the time, usually when we’re lingering by the chip bowl at a backyard cookout, after I say I teach. “Which grade’s the best to work with?” they’ll say, like there’s a right answer, like I must have picked a favorite after 14 years in the classroom. I usually fumble for a response, because it’s not that simple. I’ve done all three, started right out of college at a small neighborhood elementary, switched to middle after four years, moved to high school part-time after my son was born six years ago, so I’ve got enough messy, sticky, awkward experience to weigh in.
Second grade was my first job, and when I was 22, full of dumb, bright energy that didn’t know how to burn out yet, elementary felt like magic. Those kids think you hung the moon. I drew a lopsided sunflower on the whiteboard once to teach fractions, and three kids asked if I could teach after-school art because I was “the best drawer ever.” They bring you dandelions pulled from the playground crack, they hug your waist unprompted, they tell you their deepest secrets about how their goldfish died and they don’t want their mom to know they’re still sad. Yeah, it’s messy. I still have a hoodie at home that’s permanently stained with grape juice and glitter glue from that first year. There was the time little Tyler hid behind the reading nook because he peed his pants and didn’t want anyone to know, and I had to walk him to the nurse while he sobbed into my shoulder, and I gave him my last granola bar to make him feel better. By 9am most days, I’d already mediated three fights over crayons, wiped two noses, and talked a kid off the ledge because their snack was the wrong flavor. Parent emails were something else – I got one at 10:30pm once from a mom who was furious her kid got a “good effort” sticker instead of a “super star” sticker, because it would “ruin his self-esteem.” When I was 22, I had the energy for all that. I’d go home after school and plan cute little diorama projects, I’d run around the playground at recess chasing kids, I didn’t mind that my clothes always smelled like glue and apple juice. Some weeks I miss it so bad it hurts. I still have a stack of wobbly construction paper cards from those first classes taped to the inside of my pantry door.
After four years, I was burnt out on glue stains and sticker drama, so I switched to 7th grade language arts. God, middle school. People talk about it like it’s the worst, all hormones and attitude, and yeah, that’s there. The hallway always smells like a mix of too much Axe body spray and Cheetos that got dropped behind a locker and left for a month. I accidentally dropped my laptop on the first day of my first year there and said “damn” under my breath, and the whole class gasped like I’d said something unforgivable, and a kid wrote it on the whiteboard when I left the room. Two weeks in, I found a note passed between two boys that was just a drawing of a butt with my name written under it. I didn’t yell, I just taped it to the corner of my desk, and they were so shocked they didn’t pull anything stupid for the rest of the year. That’s the thing no one tells you about middle school: they’re just raw, right? They’re not little kids who need you to wipe their nose, they’re not big kids who’ve already learned how to perform being a person for adults. They’ll surprise you when you least expect it. I remember after we read The Giver, a quiet girl who never spoke up stayed after class, and she told me that her grandma had Alzheimer’s and that the “release” thing the book talked about felt exactly like watching her grandma fade away, and she’d never told anyone that. I didn’t have any perfect words, I just sat with her while she cried, and that’s the moment that stuck with me more than most lessons I’ve ever taught. Yeah, they’re moody. One week you’re their favorite person in the whole world, the next they won’t make eye contact with you because you called on them when they didn’t raise their hand. I left middle school after 8 years because I was pregnant and wanted a slower schedule, but I still think about those kids all the time. That butt drawing’s still taped to my desk at work, actually.
Now I teach 10th and 11th grade English part-time, which fits right now with having a kid of my own, soccer practice, all the other stuff that takes up my energy before I even leave the house in the morning. The best part about high school is you can have actual conversations. Like, actual adult conversations, not just talking about why we don’t draw butts on notes. Last semester, a senior who took my creative writing elective stayed after class, and we drank that terrible instant coffee from the teacher’s lounge, and she talked for 20 minutes about how she was scared to go to college out of state because her little brother has autism and her mom relies on her, and she felt guilty for wanting to leave. I didn’t fix it, I just listened, and that’s it. That’s the good stuff. But it’s hard, too. Half these kids are working 20 hours a week after school, plus sports, plus homework, and they’re half asleep in first period most days. I spent two and a half weeks grading 52 research papers last semester, and at least a third of them were so obviously copied off random internet sites I just wanted to throw the whole stack in the trash. You also lose that unbridled adoration that little kids have – no one’s bringing you dandelions, most days they can’t even remember your name if they don’t have you that semester.
So when people ask which is the best, I don’t know. It depends on you, doesn’t it? When I was 22, single, no kids, all I had was extra energy to chase little kids around and make paper turkeys for Thanksgiving, elementary was perfect for me. When I was in my late 20s, I loved the mess and the surprise of middle school, those kids that make you laugh when you didn’t think you would. Now, in my 30s, with a kid of my own who drains half my energy before I even get to work, high school fits. Some weeks I’ll see a 2nd grade teacher herding a bunch of kids in Halloween costumes at the parade my son’s school does, and I think I could never do that again – my back hurts from bending down that much, I don’t have the patience for 10 meltdowns before snack time. Then the next week a 10th grader will mumble that my class is the only one he doesn’t skip, and I think yeah, this is right. I don’t think there’s a universal best. It’s just what fits where you are in your life. Right now I look at my desk, I’ve got that lopsided construction paper heart from 2nd grade, that butt drawing from 7th grade, and a sticker that says “world’s okayest teacher” a senior gave me last year all taped up next to each other. I wouldn’t pick one over the other. That’s all I’ve got. (Word count: 1187)
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