Meet the Teachers Crazy Enough to Teach Middle School

It turns out middle school teachers disliked middle school as much as the rest of us.

“It’s just an awkward and difficult time,” said Peter Schmitt, a middle school math teacher at Lower Manhattan Community School. “I would not want to do it again.”

But if these teachers hated middle school, why did they ever return? In interviews, we found there were three main factors that brought middle school teachers back to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

1. It’s where the jobs are.

Because middle school is a notoriously difficult age for kids, a lot of teachers don’t stick around: more than half leave the profession after just three years. And that means teachers stand a better shot getting a job in a middle school than they do at the elementary or high school levels.

That’s especially true for posts at some of the city’s top-ranked middle schools, both district and charter alike. “It’s very hard to get into a very good high school — those are kind of locked, those people keep those jobs for decades,” said Nat Hawks, a teacher at Coney Island Prep in Brooklyn.

2. Teachers find they really like these kids — even if they didn’t expect to at first.

Margaux Cornelison, who thought she wanted to teach elementary school, was surprised. “I just found middle schoolers to be the people I love teaching the most,” she said.

Maryanne Purtill, who teaches middle school in Ditmas Park, said she loves loves working with middle schoolers because these three years are so critical: all the raw materials are there and now it’s time to the final product to start taking form.

“They’re either going to say, ‘Yes I love school,’ or ‘This? Maybe not so much,’” Purtill said. “And it’s a great age group because most of the kids, if you give them the opportunity, they just want to do it.”

3. They’ve got what it takes.

Middle schoolers are starting to figure out who they are  and how they ought to behave. It can be a rough transition: middle schoolers make up one fifth of New York City’s students but account for one third of all school suspensions. 

“They smack the kid next to them, they see you watching them smack the kid next to them, and when you call them on it, they’re like: ‘I didn’t hit him,’” recalled teacher Amanda Xavier. “Just, you know, total denial.”

So the best middle school teachers know how to reach them. More than teaching content, they’re teaching students to appreciate learning, and find their voices.

“I want them to leave saying, ‘You know what, this school thing, it’s worth investing my time in,’” Schmitt said.