Remember what it was like to be a sixth grader? I have been spending a couple Friday afternoons per month subbing for a sixth grade teacher who is also a basketball coach. As the other sixth grade teacher commented to me the first day during PE, “Sixth grade boys are a different animal completely.” They certainly are, but so are the girls. Does any of this sound familiar?
Boys showing camaraderie through tackling,
Girls looking like little girls playing dress up,
Boys treating girls they’re interested in like other boys,
Girls wearing plastic jewelry,
Boys who can’t sit still,
Girls who can’t quit talking,
Arguing without really having a point,
Dressing as twins,
Moving as a pack,
Note passing, and
Tolerating unflattering nicknames that mean you are “accepted.”
Remember when the need to “clump” was so instinctive that boys went to the water fountain in pairs and a girl who was tagged during dodgeball refused to be “out” unless her friend went with her? Remember how “popular” kids coined slang and influenced group perceptions? Remember being an individual meant sometimes being given positive attention by the “in” group, but unpredictably being made fun of or left out at other times? Remember that unique state of fluctuating wildly between being silly and responsible, grown up and child-like?
Ah, yes. Sixth graders; a different animal, indeed.
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