The Vortex that is Middle School

With angst in my heart, and "old records" playing in my head, I wandered through the sea of tables in various stages of eating...yesterday was my first partial day at the middle school where I will serve the remainder of my Internship. To get my feet wet, I was asked to be in the lunchroom for the remainder of the 7th grade lunch period. I really did have to try to look calm while fighting the demons in my head. Do I think ill of middle schoolers, or for that matter 7th graders? NO. The demons lurk from my own impish childhood in which middle school was such a flurry of oh-my-gosh-I-don't-know-what-to-say-think-or-do, that I literally had an internal pseudo-panic going on.
To compound the issue, my year of teaching middle school overseas came back to haunt me...that place where I was culturally less aware than I should have been...that place where I started on the wrong foot because I didn't know differently (it was my 3rd year teaching)...that place where students called me what they wanted (to my face) thinking I wouldn't understand what they were saying.
It was all rushing back to me, so I had to act quickly so as not to make a complete idiot of myself to these students who do not know the depth of my passion or my commitment to doing what's best for them if only for their dignity and humanity.
My inner adult sat my inner child down for a heart-to-heart. The adult said, firstly, you are one now. Secondly, they can't hurt you anymore unless you let them. Thirdly, these are different, more sophisticated students, and I am a different and more sophisticated educator. I decided to default to what I know how to do and that's meet people at their eyes. As I walked I smiled and met students's eyes. Not only did I see wonder, but openness. I even saw a former first grade student of mine, and a former 5th grade one from the previous year. All of a sudden,I realized, I was the one with the wall up and that if I hoped to have any chance with these students, I needed to return to the same vulnerability that they may have with me one on one.
Today, I got to watch the students leave for the day. Again, I met their eyes and watched the principal interact with them, and realized that this trip is going to be o.k. I will default to what I know about kids and how I connect with them, and it will be o.k. I can lay the demons to rest now, because I have the opportunity before me to assist others in remember what it's like and to not ever let school be an emotionally unsafe place.