Donnette

For most if not all kids the change from elementary to middle school is a big deal. To begin with, transitioning students go from being top dogs at their elementary schools to the babies of the middle school.

And then comes the homework... I had no idea I was going to get so much homework or how I was going to get it all done. I imagined the endless nights that I would have to spend slaving over a piece of paper with pencil in hand while my parents ate pizza and watched my favorite TV show, Myth Busters, without me.

However, after my first few days in middle school, the homework gods showed me the way to unlock the secret of doing homework on the bus, after lunch and between classes, utilizing free time I never dreamed Id have.

Now, some kids would come home and say theyve done there homework, when they really didnt. But I wasnt one of them, because unlike elementary school teachers, middle school instructors warned students that if they didnt complete their homework they would be held back from field trips. And we all know field trips are what keep kids going, because going to school without being able to go on school outings is like doing chores, but not getting paid an allowance!

Something else incoming sixth-graders need to get used to is having an EXTREMELY HEAVY backpack. Middle-schoolers must have a binder, paper, five notebooks, pencils, six or more folders, colored pencils, a calculator, textbooks, a book to read, a lunch box if they arent buying lunch and anything else necessary.

When Ive griped to my well-meaning, yet naive, parents about the overbearing burden of an overloaded backpack, theyve said, You dont HAVE TO carry all that stuff on your back. Why not use a roller backpack?

To anyone but a middle-schooler, that doesnt sound like such a bad idea. Thats because its in middle school kids learn roller backpacks are in reality shoe magnets.

One time I hurt my back while roller skating and had no choice but to use one of those wretched rolling kick-me, packs. In less than one week, the pack was kicked so brutally, so many times that the metal handle bent to the point where I couldnt retract it. Imagine if there had been something fragile in there like my science project that I needed so I can go on the next fieldtrip. At this point, the transition between elementary and middle school may sound like a punishment. However, it does have its upside too. A few of the advantages of middle school are it makes creating new friends easy, strengthens bonds with old friends and brings kids one step closer to becoming adults although personally, I dont know if being an adult is any better.

Michael Moorehead, author of The Student From Zombie Island, just completed sixth grade at Kyrene Middle School in Kyrene Corridor.

When Michael J. Moorehead isn't writing, he's hiking, baking oatmeal cookies, playing video games and participating in Boy Scouts. His favorite animal is the polar bear, and he hopes to one day become an environmentalist. He's concerned about the plight of the polar bears and says he wants to stop global warming to save the majestic white creatures from extinction - but he will have to graduate from junior high school first. Michael lives in Tempe, Arizona, with his mother, a freelance writer and editor for the SanTan Sun News and Arizona Parenting magazine, and his father, an insurance property adjustor, who moonlights as a movie critic for the Wrangler News.