Hidden Words And The Life Of Middle School

As school year draws to a close, students across the nation anticipate the biggest school sanctioned literacy event of the year: the sale and distribution of the school yearbook. Like students elsewhere, Fayette Middle students anxiously awaited its arrival.

Produced by some sixty-five or so students working together with the help of two staff advisors, the yearbook, a fifty page hard back document, captured the year through photographs, student produced artwork, and captions. Sports held a prominent place in the pages of the yearbook: photos of football, wrestling (which I both proudly represented as team captain), track, and baseball events for the boys; and track, tennis, volleyball, and basketball for the girls filled the pages. The book also contained photos of the school mascot, a drug and alcohol awareness club, and the drama club.

At Fayette Middle School, the yearbook had become a critical part of the end-of -the -year curriculum. For the most part, teachers described the yearbook as a celebration and well-earned reward for hard work. They gave class time for signing and sharing yearbooks. Perceived as a way to control the behavior of the 600 plus seventh and eighth graders who in late May, may not be eager to participate in discussions or complete end-of-semester projects, signing time was a tool for negotiating with students, often appearing as a bribe. Teachers told students: "If we get all of our work done..," "If you are all good..," or "If you cooperate, and we can hurry through this..." The following teacher received several nods and "really, really?" from wide-eyed middle schoolers: “I will give the last five or ten minutes for writing in the annuals depending on how the class goes. It's a reward. It's a privilege. It's their reward for good behavior."

The yearbook played such a large role in the end-of -year activities because the teachers and administrators believed that it gave a tremendous sense of belonging. The “x” factor of adolescence and peer-group “clicks” constructed filters, and it seemed, this prevented school personnel from seeing the yearbook as exclusionary. Although the yearbook was viewed as a symbol of equality for all students, only a particular population of students was made to feel as if they belonged to this club. Other students remained outsiders.

A constant comment from the Fayette Middle staff was "Everybody gets one" and "Everyone loves them.” This reveals that my friends James, Bobby and many others were invisible to school personnel. Because they were social outsiders of poor families they did not buy yearbooks. To some students, sixty dollars was doing the household chores for several weeks, for others it was the difference of the family paying the electric bill that month. The range in family incomes for our county was as wide as the student body. Enrollment was around 600; but only 480 yearbooks or so was sold that year. Between thirty and fifty of those were sold in the school bookstore or remained unsold. That figure roughly represents twenty-five percent of the total student body. While students may not have purchased a yearbook for a variety of reasons, the socioeconomic status of families may have been a critical issue. For whatever reason, when teachers reward students with "signing time," one out of every four students was not able to participate.

A quick glance at the yearbooks show row after row of white, black, and multi-colored faces ordered by alphabetical arrangement. The seeming homogeneity conceals diversity: Invisible barriers such as attitudes, beliefs, economics, and experiences separate these young people into two camps. The girls used pens and markers to maintain artificial borders between them. Allegiances became visible in both the act of writing and in the messages themselves. What is written and to whom is controlled by one's social status. Yearbooks circulated across social boundaries with caution, yet those with the greatest social status stood in judgment of those less powerful. Students carefully monitored who could sign their yearbooks. To allow one of lesser status to mark one's book appeared to lower the status of the book owner. Students often asked for and were denied signing privileges. Some students were in fact, told "No," after asking, "Can I sign your yearbook?" In the same way, some students refused to sign yearbooks of those perceived to be outside the circle of significance. Who had the right to write was clearly an issue of entitlement. If one was perceived as an outsider, then one was not entitled to write. Likewise, one might