My School
By Kurt Johnston and Mark Oestreicher
()
About this ebook
Kurt Johnston
Kurt Johnston is junior high pastor in Southern California. He's served in middle school ministry since 1988 - longer than most of you have been alive! Kurt was once a middle school student, and when he was in 8th grade he was beaten up by a 7th grader. Kurt and his family live in Orange County where he spends his free time surfing and still avoiding 7th-grade bullies.
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My School - Kurt Johnston
INVERT
MY SCHOOL
Copyright © 2007 by Kurt Johnston and Mark Oestreicher
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition June 2009 ISBN:0-310-86317-1
Youth Specialties products, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020, are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue Southeast, Grand Rapids, MI 49530.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other (except for brief quotations in printed reviews)—without the prior permission of the publisher.
Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Please contact Youth Specialties via e-mail (YS@YouthSpecialties. com) to report URLs that are no longer operational and provide replacement URLs if available.
Creative Team: Dave Urbanski, Laura Gross, Mark Novelli, Janie Wilkerson,
and Rich Cairnes
Cover design by Gearbox
07 08 09 10 11 12 • 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
DEDICATION
Somehow, we survived middle school, but we know we wouldn’t have survived as well if it weren’t for our church youth leaders who cared for, listened to, believed in, and tolerated us. This book is dedicated to all of them. But particularly...
Marko will never forget that time in seventh grade when Terry Prisk told him he’d make a good youth pastor. It was in the hallway just outside the Fellowship Hall at Ward Church, and the exact quote was, Oes-treicher, you’d make a great youth pastor someday.
And Marko has never been the same since Jerry Smith said he saw leadership abilities in him.
Kurt will always be thankful for John Miller, who patiently and faithfully taught his Sunday school class. John also showed up at Kurt’s football games, took him dirt bike riding, and modeled a love for Jesus that changed his life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Marko wants to thank his amazing family—Jeannie, Liesl, and Max—for being so loving and for being patient while I was writing. Thanks to the fine teachers and administrators of Bryant Junior High School in Livonia, Michigan (which is now a field!), for helping me survive my own middle school experience.
Kurt wants to thank Rachel, Kayla, and Cole for constantly allowing me to do the stuff I believe God is asking me to do, like writing this book. Thanks to the wonderful teachers and administrators of Granada Middle School, in La Mirada, California, for making middle school something I actually enjoyed!
CONTENTS
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
INTRODUCTION
SECTION ONE: MIDDLE SCHOOL BASICS
1. Whose Idea Was School, Anyway?
2. Why Learning Is a Good Thing
3. Did Jesus Go to School?
4. Why Do We Need It?
5. So Many Classes, So Little Time
6. Why Is It So Boring?
7. Will I Ever Use the Stuff I’m Learning?
8. Learning about Life, Not Just Algebra
SECTION TWO: WHERE SCHOOL HAPPENS
9. Why Your School Setting Should Influence How You Read This Book
10. A Special Chapter for Public School Students
11. A Special Chapter for Christian School Students
12. A Special Chapter for Home School Students
SECTION THREE: THE PEOPLE YOU MEET @ SCHOOL
13. The Cafeteria Lady
14. The School Bully
15. The Jock
16. The Gossip
17. The Loner
18. The Geek
19. The Popular Kid
20. The Rude Kid
21. The Principal
22. The Substitute Teacher
23. The Strict Teacher
24. The Teacher’s Pet
SECTION FOUR: HOMEWORK AND GRADES
25. Why Do My Parents Make Such a Big Deal about Grades?
26. What Difference Do Grades Make, Anyway?
27. This Class Is Tough!
28. Study Tips
29. How to Make Homework Not So Horrible
30. Getting Ready for a Test
31. How to Do a Long-Term Project
32. How to Raise Your Grade in Three Easy Steps
33. When to Ask for Help
34. My Mom Wants to Get Me a Tutor!
35. I Have Trouble Paying Attention in Class
SECTION FIVE: MAKING THE MOST OF AN AVERAGE DAY
36. How Not to Be Tardy
37. How to Make the Bus Ride Fun
38. Carpooling with Brats
39. Food Stuff
40. The Terror That Is...the Bathroom
41. The Pop Quiz—The Surprise That’s Never Fun
42. I Sit Next to Somebody I Don’t Like
SECTION SIX: THE P.E. PUZZLE
43. I Hate the P.E. Uniforms (and School Uniforms)
44. I Hate Changing in Front of People
45. I Always Get Picked Last
46. Why Do They Make Me Run the Mile?
47. Dodgeball Strategies
SECTION SEVEN: THE UGLY SIDE OF MIDDLE SCHOOL
48. Cheating
49. Fights
50. Peer Pressure
51. Mean Kids
52. Drugs
53. Drinking
54. Gangs
55. Feeling Left Out
56. Being the New Kid
57. Science Class
SECTION EIGHT: MIDDLE SCHOOL URBAN LEGENDS
58. Trash-Canning
59. Cafeteria Mystery Meat
60. My Dog Ate My Homework
61. The Mystery That Is...the Teachers’ Lounge
62. The Pool on the Roof
SECTION NINE: CAMPUS KINDNESS
63. Making Friends with the New Kid
64. Using Your Gifts to Help Others
65. The Power of Your Words
66. Sticking Up for the Underdog
67. Did You Bring Enough for Everybody?
Why Yes, I Did!
68. Birthday Cards for Homeroom
SECTION TEN: MISCELLANEOUS SURVIVAL TIPS
69. Life with a Locker
70. Choosing What to Wear
71. Bad Hair Days
72. The Comparison Game
73. The Popularity Problem
74. Three Final Thoughts from Marko
75. Three Final Thoughts from Kurt
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
INTRODUCTION
See this really dorky picture right here? That’s me, Marko, when I was in middle school. Nice shirt collar, huh? Can you tell I wasn’t the most popular kid in school? Uh, yeah.
0310278821_content_0008_003How about this groovy picture? That’s me, Kurt, back during my middle school years. That haircut rocked, huh? Sure, whatever.
We wanted you to see those pictures—as embarrassing as they are—because we want you to know that we remember what it’s like to be a middle school student. Partly, we remember because we’ve been working with middle schoolers in churches for a long time. We don’t work with high school kids or with any other age group. That’s because we’re both convinced of a few things:
0310278821_content_0008_006• First, middle schoolers are the coolest people in the world. Really! We’d rather hang out with a group of middle school students than any other age group.
• Next, God really cares (we mean, REALLY CARES) about middle school students—about you. And we believe God is stoked about the possibility of having a close relationship with you.
• Finally, the middle school years (from about 11 to 14 years old) are HUGELY important in building a FAITH that will last for your whole life.
This book is the fourth in a new series: The Middle School Survival Series. The first book is all about your faith (that’s why it’s called My Faith—duh!). The second book is about your Family (it’s called, not-so-surprisingly, My Family). The third book is also available now—it’s called My Friends. And we have two more books planned for the series: My Changes and My Future. We hope you’ll read them all!
Oh, one more thing: you don’t have to read these 75 chapters
in any particular order. It’s not that kind of book. You can read them in order if you want (if you’re one of those people who likes order!); or you can just flip through and read whatever catches your attention.
We believe in you, and we’ll be praying for you (really, we will), that while you read this, you’ll grow in your understanding of God (just like the Bible says Jesus did when he was your age!), of how much God loves you, and of how God would do anything to let you know him!
Kurt and Marko
SECTION 1
MIDDLE SCHOOL
BASICS
0310278821_content_0011_002WHOSE IDEA WAS SCHOOL,
ANYWAY?
STUFF YOU MAY NOT HAVE LEARNED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL: EVERY U.S. BILL, REGARDLESS OF DENOMINATION, COSTS JUST FOUR CENTS TO MAKE.
Well, there’s no one answer to that one. In some ways, you could say it was God’s idea because God instructed parents to teach and guide their kids. And that process of teaching and guiding shifted over the years.
One of the earliest groups of people to have an educational system (a school system) for all kids (not just the rich ones) was the Jewish people. All Jewish kids (well, all boys—only some of the girls), no matter if they were rich or poor, went to study with a rabbi (say RAB-bye). Rabbis are Jewish leaders, so it’d be like if you went to study with the pastor of your church.
And get this—Jewish kids memorized the entire Torah (say TOR-ruh)—the first five books of our Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Seriously! Can you imagine trying to memorize that much? Grab a Bible, flip through those pages, and check ’em out.
The kids in the Jewish schools didn’t just memorize stuff, though. They also had long conversations about what the stories and teachings meant. By the time they were 12 years old, they could quote the entire Torah and answer all kinds of complicated questions about Jewish beliefs. How does that make you feel about your homework?
Anyhow, except for the Jewish people and a few other exceptions, for thousands of years schools were for rich kids only. But about 100 to 150 years ago, people in many countries of the world decided everyone has the right to an education. Even then, until much more recently, school was offered through only the eighth grade for most kids.
Sometimes the idea that school is good for you
might feel like a parent trying to get you to eat Brussels sprouts. But really, whether or not you like all your classes, you know it’s true. No matter if you want to be a