Middle school attitudes

[steuard]

Pitzer college and the Joint Science Department brought a bunch of middle school kids to campus today to give them a taste of college, and I ran an activity where they could experiment with various kinds of waves. To introduce the topic I asked the whole group to make a circle and link hands: we "did the wave" by raising and lowering our hands as the wave moved around the group. It's a nice hands-on introduction to the concept.

But I'd overlooked a crucial issue: these kids did NOT want to hold each others' hands. Most of them came around pretty quickly, but a few of the boys held out for ages against touching each other. (We even had a minor "teachable moment" when our wave reached a boy who had refused: the wave stopped, with everybody staring at him. He did link up after that.)

My best guess is that the boys were trying to avoid looking "gay". I'd honestly forgotten how pervasive homophobia is at that age, and I probably underestimate it in our culture in general. Most of the people I spend time with strongly favor gay rights: it's easy to forget about the others until they vote for Proposition 8. But as usual, the silent prejudices embedded in the culture become overt and magnified in kids: they've figured out what they're supposed to dislike but not that they're supposed to be subtle about it.

Along similar lines, it also failed to cross my mind that one of my student assistants for the day might strike the kids as a bit unusual: they probably don't see many guys wearing skirts (much less ex-military guys). I didn't notice their reactions myself, but the student commented that the second group of kids had been less mature about it than the first. Once again, I think that's a sign that I've acclimated to an awfully diverse crowd. I like to think that's a good thing, but it pays to be aware that campus communities are far from typical.

Comments

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

You may be right about the homophobia. However, it's also possible that the explanation is a much more general one. Middle school is a really hard time. You aren't really a carefree kid anymore, able to do, say, and touch things and people without awareness of the consequences and implications. You aren't really an adult yet, able to reliably predict what the consequences and implications of your actions will be. Nor do you know for sure who you are, who your classmates are, and what things you therefore want to imply (socially and/or sexually). This is an age at which boys and girls will be exceedingly reluctant to touch, come near, or talk to people of the opposite sex they do like, for fear that someone will catch on and make fun of them for it. I'd chalk it up to a general middle school ambivalence towards all public physical contact.

The reaction to the guy wearing a skirt, I agree, is probably simply a reaction to a type of diversity you are far more accustomed to than they are. Campus communities are far from typical along a number of axes; there are types of diversity that college campuses tend to be low on that flourish in these kids' normal environments, and others that flourish on college campuses and almost nowhere else.

Newt