At last the school year 2015-2016, eighth grade, the final year of middle school, the long awaited year I never thought would arrive had finally reached.
I didn’t have any expectations on what was going to happen in eighth grade, but what I did know was that a serious countdown had already begun for the day I shall be finishing my middle school years and venturing on to high school.
At this moment in eighth grade neither my parents nor Jaime and Chris’s parents had any expectations on the three of us being in the same classroom.
They had the same thoughts as we did that this was our last year in middle school which they hoped would start and end well for their children.
Our classroom teacher was Mr.
Sims with a total of twenty five students in our class, including some of my previous seventh grade classmates: Cynthia, Eddie and Carl.
There were a few changes that took place in eighth grade starting with the subjects that were similar to seventh grade.
We would be learning language arts 8, math 8 or algebra 1, science 8, and social studies 8.
New additional subjects we would be learning included fine arts 8 which included dance, drama, music and visual arts (options that we could choose), physical education included health 8, technology and career education 8.
As for the foreign languages, I continued with Spanish.
For the fine arts I choose dance and drama.
My after school activities remained the same as seventh grade; badminton, debate club + MUN (Model United Nations), journalism, and archery club.
It seemed eighth grade was going to be an even busier year as it was the year we begun preparing for high school, this also meant lots of project presentations, assessments, meetings and course selections in preparations for high school, sports and drama competitions and ongoing classroom activities.
To be quite honest none of what was being presented or would be happening worried me at all and after what I went through in sixth and seventh grade, I was more than ready to face whatever was thrown to my face.
Jaime and Chris were also in a different classroom which in some ways was a good thing as we got to spend lots of time talking about different stuff during recesses, after school and weekends.
Although all studied the same subjects, took the same subjects, but the amount of assignments and project presentations we had to do was different which never quite made sense at all.
Nevertheless, the good thing was that we were able to meet up after school, when we got home and the weekends to help each other out with the assignments, the group and individual presentations.
Mr.
Sims our classroom teacher was completely different from Mrs.
Clemens and Mr.
Simpson. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Mr.
Sims was a tall man with broad shoulders, handsome white Caucasian man, with brownish golden hair, and had a very deep voice.
The minute he started talking we all stopped what we were doing paid attention and all eyes were focused on him.
To me this was not the key aspect of why I liked Mr.
Sims; his teaching approach was not only very precise and clear but his teaching style was so modest and moderate.
Whenever students had a question or didn’t quite understand what he said or taught, he patiently explained again from top to bottom pausing to ensure that everyone understood what he said.
He would even stay after school just to help the students that were struggling either with math, science or language arts.
Furthermore, he always gave chances to everyone and even when students gave the wrong answers he encouraged us to learn how to find our mistakes and correct them.
Although, he was quite strict but with good intentions even when it came to resolving conflicts, he was very fair and with good reasons but consequences were to be faced.
I truly enjoyed his lessons, learned a lot from him including his caring nature to all students didn’t matter race, gender or color, he was a teacher who really cared and ensured that all his students were treated equally with love and respect.
He was a also a teacher who influenced and motivated students and his colleagues encouraging one to always do their very best and fight till the very end no matter the results.
Although this was my last year in middle school I felt it was going to end on a very good and positive note knowing I was having one of the best teachers in middle school.
News about Mr.
Sims had already spread throughout the entire middle school even Jaime and Chris came to check out our classroom teacher just to confirm whether the positive rumors about Mr.
Sims were true.
It was funny how all over sudden our class was full of students from other eighth grade classes, while others were trying to be friendly just to be able to have the privilege of visiting our class for the sole purpose of getting even a slight glance of Mr.
Sims, which was just too funny!!
Thank goodness my only focus was on my studies and after school activities and staying out of trouble; less trouble, less drama and less chaos in my life.
The life as an eighth grader was pretty daunting at times because at one point there was the competition of who was the prettiest girl and the most handsome boy in eighth grade, then about the smartest, brightest, coolest eighth grader, and that was how you ended up having a lot of friends. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
That was just not cool for me at all.
I even spoke to Jaime and Chris about this madness and although I was clearly in my own world, Jaime and Chris seemed to like that entertainment, guess I had to learn to loosen up a little and enjoy the entertainment as well.
There were quite a lot of things that my classmates and the rest of the eighth grade students never knew about what I can and could do except Jaime and Chris.
For starters having a good memory and being able to remember a lot of information off head especially in my science and social studies classes.
Secondly, being able to write, solve and explain complicated math problems without using a calculator and the best part scoring higher than Eddie in all five math quizzes we had in class.
Finally being the champion in archery and badminton competition two years in a row.
Tell me how anyone could beat that….OK not to brag or anything but I sometimes had no clue what was going on in my head or how my body became so powerful at such a young age in having the ability and talent to master all types of skills in academics and sports.
I did speak to Jaime and Chris about it, they even witnessed it themselves when we were having the badminton and archery competition in our school.
They had never seen anything so awesome and cool in their lives.
The fact that I was able to shoot accurately without a miss in the archery competition, and be able to pay three sets in badminton, jumping and hitting the shuttlecock in various corners of the court without a miss was something they didn’t understand, neither did I.
My parents were also at a loss of words in what they saw happen to me at the badminton and archery competitions and to top it all when they saw how I did in my science and social studies presentations without even using any notes, facing the audience and only depending on my PowerPoint presentation.
Yes, they were very proud of all my achievements and successes and doing extremely well, but at the same time it was alarming for them as they thought something was happening to my body and mind, the fact at the age of twelve I was able to do so much and accomplish so much was something they found very difficult to comprehend.
I also remembered one time over the weekend when my parents were discussing about me, but was not sure what exactly they were discussing.
I could hear mum going “should we tell her?” In my mind I am like “tell me what?” then I could hear dad saying “not now as it will be very hard for her to understand and what if she asks about her parents.” I was trying very hard to listen carefully to every word they were saying but their voices were too low to make out anything they were saying.
I left and went back to my room, started thinking and going over what I had heard.
I decided not to think too much of it and obviously had I asked my parents what they had been talking about, they would not be willing to tell me anything, so I left it at that and never thought about it, nor had any intensions of asking them anything.
Nevertheless, whatever discussion that had been going on that weekend was never a conversation I would forget and was always going to be somewhere in the back of my mind.