Middle School

An Interview

By Berend Michels

My grandfather is a charismatic jokester who taught me many life skills – table manners, how to raise the flag, and how to be polite. I see him almost every holiday break, and it is a joy to do so. I love hearing his tales of how life was back when he was a kid and a young adult. When I was given this project, I decided I wanted to hear about his middle school life so I could compare it to the modern trials and tribulations of my middle school. As most of my grandfather’s stories are about his older self, this interview was the first time I learned what middle school life was like for people two generations before me.

What was your middle school environment like? 

It was a good environment. My middle school was a little different from yours. It was for 7th and 8th grade only, while yours is for 7th, 8th, and 9th, right?

How challenging were the classes compacted to classes today? 

I think your classes are probably more challenging than mine were. We had more days of school than you have. In other words, I think your teachers are trying to fit more learning into fewer days of school. 

What were your classes? 

We always had math, language, and science — the big four. We also often had history and a woodworking shop.

How was your lunch? 

The lunch was probably like your lunch. Not very good. We had stuff like shepherd's pie, and we had, um…that stuff that you put on a piece of bread. I'll tell you what we used to call it. It's not very nice. Oh, your grandmother said I can't say it, so...it was chipped beef. Cream chipped beef on a piece of toast. Fairly simple stuff. There was nothing fancy about it. No pizza. Pizza was just starting to come into our diets. You pretty much had to go to a pizza store to get a pizza. There weren't even frozen pizzas in those days. Yeah, see how lucky you are to be born when you were? You get much better lunches than we did.

Were there any sports after school? 

We had three main sports. In the fall, we had football, and that was the big sport. Football ran until Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving was basketball. That ran until spring vacation, about the middle of March. And then after spring vacation, baseball and track and field until school ended. We didn't have lacrosse. We didn't have rowing. We didn't have a lot of the sports that your generation has. We didn't have the choice that you have. 

Who were your friends? 

I went to an all-boys school. They were all very nice guys. Some were good athletes, some weren't. Most of them were funny. Most of them were not the most brilliant guys in the class. My two best friends and I used to be referred to as the fat, dumb, and happy boys. Maybe not the nicknames you want, but what we got. 

What were the disciplinary punishments? 

We had the famous old-time school disciplinary action. The paddle. In our shop course, a couple of my friends and I made butt protectors out of aluminum. We put the butt protectors in our underwear so that when the teacher asked us to come up to the front of the class and he got out his paddle, my butt protector shattered his paddle. He didn't think that was very funny. The rest of my class thought it was a riot.