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Tough years a bit easier with students as guides

By Sandy Coleman, Globe Staff, 5/26/2002

The long hours of work. The gossip. Intimidating peers. It's tough to be a middle-schooler, say students at St. Kevin School in Dorchester.

''We go through a lot of changes and stuff,'' said seventh-grader Paul Benoit. ''We're making new friends and our parents are in our lives. They want to know everything. They want to make sure we are not doing drugs, not staying up too late and are getting enough to eat. So, it's a hard time.''

The solution: ''Middle Schoolers Know What's Up,'' a 26-page survival guide written by students for students. Benoit and other St. Kevin seventh-graders offer fellow middle-schoolers advice on everything from how to handle loads of homework (put all your effort into it) to how to avoid gossip (don't tell your secrets) and how to make teachers like you (laugh at their jokes).

Edward Sullivan, head of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Middle Level Educators and assistant principal at Sarah Givens Middle School, said he has not seen such a guide written by students for students.

''At this age, it's very common for [students] to think parents know nothing, and they know everything. So, they might be more willing to look at the advice that is given by other students,'' said Sullivan, who reads a lot of material aimed at middle-school educators, students, and parents.

It's not surprising that students would write such a guide, said Jack Berckemeyer, assistant executive director of the National Middle School Association. ''Adolescents all across the United States, even Canada, have been figuring out what their role is in dealing with conflict and issues that relate to them.''

Social worker Nancy Pando is helping students publish the guide, complete with student drawings, at a copy shop to make it available in guidance counselors' offices. Pando, who has been working in schools using a Department of Public Health grant aimed at urban parochial schools, suggested students work on the guide because she, like other experts, believes that the middle-school years can be life-changing.

When she began discussing the guide, the students launched into negative talk with lots of complaints: too much homework, too much gossip, too hard to stick with things, they told Pando. She helped them focus. ''The purpose of the guide is to draw out of the kids the strengths that get them through the day,'' said Pando, who teaches at Regis College in Weston. ''What it is they do well and how they can give that to peers.''

Benoit, who gets advice from his mom and his older siblings, agrees information is more meaningful when it comes from peers. ''Hearing it from a kid is easier than hearing it from a grown-up,'' he said. ''When you're hearing it from a grown-up it's like they were your age 50 years ago.''

One of Benoit's pieces of advice in the guide: ''When handling a bully - never under any circumstances cry or hit them. After they either make fun of you or hit you, go up to the meanest teacher and tell them what he or she did.''

''Some kids will really have problems with bullies,'' said Beniot, 13. ''Sometimes [the person being picked on] starts to think of things to do back to them, very mean things like going into a school and shooting people. The only reason that happens is because they didn't have anyone to help them because nobody knows.''

One thing that can help students through difficult, uncomfortable and embarrassing situations is to keep a ''game face'' (think poker face), said Brandon Webbe, 13.

''I use it most of the time,'' said Webbe. ''I've used it if I wasn't paying attention that much in class and lost the page number or whatever.''