I’ve been enjoying Linda Perlstein’s wonderful book, Not Much Just Chillin’: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers, which you might recall from a previous post, here.
I’m not really interested in conjuring up a new review for it, since most of it has already been said. For example, from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Perlstein’s interpretation of what’s going on inside [middle schoolers] hormone-charged world is information every educator and parent should have . . . . A fascinating and important book.”
But as a writer, as someone who finds this stuff useful — applicable, insightful, helpful, necessary — I just want to say: Thank you, Linda Perlstein, great job. Very impressive, not only the detailed, intimate research, but somehow organizing that mound of raw data, as it were, into such digestible (and entertaining) form.
I’ve been working on a book about middle schoolers, seventh-graders to be precise, and at the same time sharing a house with a seventh-grader of my own. This book feeds and informs that work. So as always, I’m reading it with pen in hand, underlining, starring, writing in the margins, endlessly fascinated, sympathetic, horrified, amused, saddened. Such an age of change and uncertainty.
I share the above as an example of my marginalia. I nodded during that passage, because it exactly echoed the central theme of my 2008 book, Along Came Spider.
Anyway, here’s another brief passage I loved. Perlstein is writing about Jackie Taylor, a seventh-grader, her inner thoughts and musings:
If there were a giant question box in the sky, to which you could submit any query without fear of embarrassment, Jackie would ask two things: How do you make out? and What happens after you die?
There it is in a nutshell, don’t you think?
It’s been a busy month, with many school visits and almost no real writing. On Sunday, tomorrow, I’m heading to South Carolina, a trip that begins with three presentations in a middle school. So I thought I’d share my highest recommendation with you.
Listen to This American Life: Middle School. Trust me, it’s terrific. Smart, insightful, poignant, funny, heartbreaking. Really, I mean it. This is brilliant and you have must, must, must give it a listen.
Seventh-graders at a costume dance, dressed
as characters from The Outsiders.
To listen to the show, you have a couple of options. You can go here, for free, to hear the show in its entirety. Or you can catch up on all the old episodes of “This American Life” on iTunes for only 99 cents each. The “Middle School” segment originally aired in late October. Here’s some background info, as provided by WBEZ:
This week, at the suggestion of a 14-year-old listener, we bring you stories from the awkward, confusing, hormonally charged world of middle school. Including a teacher who transforms peer pressure into a force for good, and reports from the frontlines of the middle school dance.
Prologue.
Host Ira Glass interviews a 14-year old named Annie, who emailed us asking if we would do a show about middle school. She explains why exactly the middle school years can be so daunting. (4 1/2 minutes)
Act One: Life in the Middle Ages.
In an effort to understand the physical and emotional changes middle school kids experience, Ira speaks with reporter Linda Perlstein, who wrote a book called Not Much Just Chillin’ about a year she spent following five middle schoolers. Then we hear from producer Alex Blumberg, who was a middle school teacher in Chicago for four years before getting into radio. Alex’s takeaway? We shouldn’t even try teaching kids at this age. Marion Strok, principal of a successful Chicago s
