How was middle school?

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Ironically, 7th and 8th grades were the best of my grade school years.

Elementary school was OK until 4th grade. 6th grade was the worst. Grades 9-12 were tough.

7th & 8th were like a little break in the clouds where I actually felt somewhat normal. During this time, I tried out some fashion styles. I had a group of friends that were all girls (for me, a very strange thing.) I was invited and went to birthday parties and other activities with them. I was on the school basketball team. I excelled in my classes without being completely overwhelmed. I was in the school play (2 lines.) My family was at peace.

I still did have the people who picked on me and were mean. I had one friend that betrayed me. I had some struggles with certain teachers. A couple of boys gave me some grief. I still experienced plenty of confusing moments.

But, overall, I look back on these two years as an opportunity to emerge and explore. It didn't last. High school was terrible for a number of reasons.

I was nervous about going there, still a year younger than the classmates. It was very intimidating and big, but being on the gymnasium (latin school?) it was not too bad,only returning home after school exposed me to the insults of former classmates.
After three years I changed for preparatory scientific education.

It sucked. High school wasn't much better, but I think middle school was more traumatic for me because so much s**t happened in my life all at once when I was in 7th grade. Oddly, I actually kind of enjoyed 8th grade, mainly because I had a good homeroom teacher, and we learned tons of cool stuff in social studies. As far as 9th grade, I don't count that because that's where high school began in my school district.

Lets be honest, I don't think anyone can say they enjoyed middle school.

I wasn't being dishonest when I said 7th & 8th grades were the best years for me.

I think the biggest reason why middle school (or for those of us who are older, junior high school) was so tough is due to puberty. In fact, a lot of 7th grade curriculum is pure review because all the kids are going through so many physical changes they can't learn anything.

But, for me, by the time I was in 7th grade, I was all done with that. Got my period when I was 10, was already almost my full height at 5'7" in 7th grade. I really do think having gone through the worst of the hormone stuff was what enabled me to have a better time in middle school than most.

I am sorry to know that OP. People can be so cruel. They do not understand when someone has a problem.

Middle school was horrible for me too. These girls in the grade above me always picked on me.

Sad knowing most of these bullies grow up to be adults who hide their cruelty by doing volunteer work or making it seem like they are nice people. Really, from what I have heard, they are still bad people.

Sorry if you thought I was singling you out, I wasn't. I suppose I should rephrase it to puberty was hell for all of us. Strangely it was in 7th and 8th grade when I got put it the accelerated programs at my school. Now that I think about it that may have been because a lot of others weren't thinking about school work while I was more devoted than ever. Well that and my mothers power within the school system so who knows.

It wasn't bad at all, but I was going through a lot of crap in my personal life (foreclosure, moving to another school district, living with grandparents for almost 2 years).
Unlike 6th grade (which was actually elementary school where I lived), where I had an a$$hole as a teacher who made me upset probably a dozen or more times that year due to his demeaning, rude manner to everyone (I swear he was bipolar), all of my 7th grade teachers were great. I had a fantastic counselor whom I kept in touch for a couple years afterwards, a great homeroom teacher, and I was on the junior high honor roll. Was always nice/kind to people, got Student of the Month for that, near the end of the year. Almost all the 7th graders knew me, I knew them back.
8th grade was OK. Went to a 6-8 middle school (7th was a 7-9 junior high) in a city where most of the kids were upper-middle class and high class. Yes, people knew me and I had some good teachers, but I felt really jealous/weird being in the "we're poor, we have very little money, we're living with other family members" scenario where all of the other classmates would go to California, Nevada, Arizona, New York, Hawaii, frickin week-long tours of Europe, etc. on spring break.
PE was tough for me at times. It would get worse in 9th grade however. And actually, my PE teacher was fired from the district for being drunk while teaching!

I shockingly went through middle school WITHOUT any trouble (suspension, detention, etc.) at all, and went through middle school without metal in my mouth (i.e. braces). At 17, I've never had them - never will.

It was bad, but nowhere as bad as high school.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Really, I thought that only in movies pupils live in hell while they study, I was visiting school in Russia where my Grammy live, and schools and kids are nice there. Any evil jokes or something like that. Of course there were some pupils who were offended by other kids, but offends was not really evil and kids never hurt each other physically. Now I feel lucky to avoid it, and really sorry for you. Do you mind if I'll use some quotes from this topic for research paper on teenage violence? Your answers sound so sincerely and so sad.

Pretty bad, I hated it. High school was not any better :<

Both junior high (middle school) and high school sucked.

I went to 3 middle schools
The first one Davidson Middle School was the most fun I had at a school.
The mascot was a freaking DRAGON!! ! and it was an ADVENTURE!! !
The coaches would let me eat at their office (and not at the yucky loud lunchroom) and by helping to clean out the gym they would pay for my Papa John's pizza that they would have at the lunchroom. Sometime I would save the money to eat at the Starbucks or One Scoop or Two (which was an awesome mom and pop ice creamery that sadly closed in early 2007) when I walked on the way home.
Along the way home I would collect change that is removed from the water fountains by the guy who cleans them (getting like 30 dollars in change).
In the mornings I would get a chocolate chip cookie the size of a cake at the deli and a newspaper from the Starbucks (unknowingly stealing them at first because I didn't see the price ). The Starbucks during Christmas has fake snow in front of it and there was a fair and Christmas parade in our neightborhood.
Oftentimes during lunch I would go to the library and look at the huge Nat Geo atlases they had there.
The field trips were fun and plentiful and the school halls would get decorated whenever we did a reading project like Narnia or Stormbreaker.
Everyone knew me after I won the school geography bee, and when I left hundred of students and teachers signed a gift card and hosted a going away party when I was about to move. I never got the medal that I would have gotten from winning the geography bee because we moved too soon.
The teachers and coaches were very nice and would often help me with my work (or excluded me from having to do it because I was so smart and kept getting good grades).
I once took a huge amount of graph paper meant for drawing maps (but was never used) and at home I drew detailed fantasy maps of a fictional world with several lands and the creatures that lived there.
The only problem I had there was one of the teachers I had looked really ugly and wore too much make up, she looked really scary.

The second Safety Harbor Middle School was also fun but I only went there for a few months.
Some of the teachers were nice others were short tempered.
I don't remember much except the bus driver and assistant were very nice.
We went to a few fun field trips.

The last, Summit Charter School (more like Summit Charter Prison) SUCKED, it was so bad Orange County Public Schools had to shut it down a couple years after.
The other students would not stop picking on me and my friends.
The field trips were fun but there were supposed to be several more that were all cancelled because the Principal used all the money for himself.
The teachers were whacko, I got out of school suspension just for asking the crazed Obama supporter we had as a teacher to teach us about language arts.
I won third place in the Science fair but the 1st and 2nd place were because they were by the coaches daughters.
Little did I know 9th grade would be far worse.

After primary school I was lucky enough to only have one person from my old class in the same school.
Wasn't too bad actually. I didn't really have many friends and was excluded from everything but I got along with a few people. Sometimes I got some attitude during lessons, but whatever... I had seen worse things before that.
Some bully incidents, but overall not many. I knew how to prevent them.
I didn't really know what other people there were in my grade (there were 6 different classrooms) because I stayed in my classroom whenever I could and didn't communicate with people from outside and to prevent contact with that one guy. I was known as sporty (but weak at the same time), detached and smart but also childish and weird, silent, moody, insecure and uncooperative in my own class.
I didn't want to be conventional because I thought it's brainless, no cellphone for me, no movies, not the usual youth cultural stuff. I wondered why people would repeat everything other people in the class had said 2 minutes ago...
Also I was scared to meet people from primary school at the disco.
But I was the biggest Spongebob Squarepants fan and knew many of the scripts by heart because they repeated the episodes over and over.
I also watched a lot of anime on TV like Yugioh and played the card game. Collected cards together with another guy, which eventually lead to him selling the trade binder and keeping the money.
I also had problems with vision impairment and hyperactivity and social skill (teacher said I look at her with contempt when I was just tired).

At the end of middle school (grade 7) there was the obligatory class trip for one week.
One of the evenings, I don't remember how, I was alone in a room with a girl from my class, I'd had some unintentional questionable eye contact with her long before that and she asked me if I had a girlfriend. Of course I didn't, so I avoided an answer and removed myself from the situation.
At the time I didn't want to have a girlfriend anyway because I was convinced that having a girlfriend shows weakness. I was more into video games.

/e: Oh yeah, "Find a partner..." excercises were (and still are) my worst nightmare.

Middle school wasn't that bad for me actually. I was in a pretty small class (we were 19 girls)
High school on the other hand... oh boy
HELL

There was no way to sugarcoat it: Junior High (or Middle School) was pure, unadultered hell. I don't want to repeat half my posts here but even some of the worst bullies seemed to think I suffered too much, like when one girl decided to slice my arm open with a razor sharp metalworking brush the bullies all stepped back.

Of course, one of the few times someone got in trouble for what was done to me, it was a guy named GiantHockeyFan. Yes, pushing a bully beating you was detention worthy. The bullying did start to subside late in Grade 9 but I was fingered as a "rat" by a future murderer for no apparent reason. Luckily nothing came of that and I never saw them again.

When I hear some ignorant fool state that school helps prepare you for the real world, I usually respond with a few four letter words. Nowhere in the real world is it acceptable to randomly beat someone for no reason, not even a prison yard.

As if the bullying wasn't bad enough, this was always an anxiety inducing nightmare. The teachers never intervened to get me a partner and I even had to sit on the floor of the bus because nobody would let me sit next to them and when eventually forced after my mother complained they made it clear how unwelcome I was. The ONLY time anyone ever wanted to be my partner was to take advantage of my intelligence. People are a**holes.