Chuck Sambar N inth grade high school students have a soft spot in my heart and I am going to miss them when school starts this week. Having retired after enjoying 35 years as a high school educator, I will miss welcoming and helping them adjust and find their way around a large and seemingly impersonal and challenging high school.
Most ninth graders have a difficult time entering high school.
They leave their previous school where they were the big cheeses, kings of the mountain, and they enter a new school to find that they are very low on the totem pole. Most feel threatened and somewhat inadequate compared to the mature, fully-grown, beautifully developed, and seemingly giant students in the upper grades. Their first few days, and for some few weeks, ninth graders go around campus in a sort of a daze. Boys walk around in disbelief, slack-jawed and wide eyed stealing glances at the girls and wondering how the long summer changed the physical appearance of the little girls they knew in elementary and middle school. The boys are generally very self-conscious of their own stature and lack of physical development.