My older brother was always in the gym, and I saw how hard he worked. Around middle school, I was in there with him, and I started to love it. But it wasn't like I had a basketball in my hand at age 2.

I decided that I wanted to be an artist in middle school, and although my mom wasn't fully on board with me becoming a trainee, she really supported me throughout the years and is very proud of me now.

I still remember sitting in my parent's basement playing 'Final Fantasy VII' in middle school. When Sephiroth came down like LeBron James on Aerith with that sword, I couldn't talk for a full 20 minutes.

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

There was no professional basketball for me in the United States when I was in grade school and middle school. I could look to the Olympics and college basketball, but that was only on TV for the Final Four.

In middle school, I played quarterback. I was at a tiny school, so you played offense and defense - I played linebacker, and in high school I stopped playing around my sophomore year because of my acting stuff.

I definitely started to perform a little bit in middle school, but not the typical musical/play route. I think that I am funny, but it was more of a social thing, where that was my part in my circle of friends.

Middle school left some scars, as I'm sure it did for many of us. When my body started to change, I felt a bit like I was living inside a stranger. People began responding to me differently, which was confusing.

High school was interesting, because I went from a public school middle school to an academy where the first year we were doing Latin, chemistry, biology. I mean, I was woefully unprepared for the type of study.

I've always gone through adversity in this game, and I've always overcome it. My middle school coach told me that I was probably a better hockey player than a football player, and that still drives me every day.

I was bullied from grade one to six. Even middle school was tough for me. Everyone had these pre-existing friendships, and I was the new kid, who was acting, so that didn't help much either. It was really tough.

I was in middle school at a bat mitzvah, and a fashion photographer, Suzy Gorman, came up to me and asked me if I considered being a model. I did a shoot with her, and than I signed with an agency in Saint Louis.

I honestly realized that my dad was white when someone told me in middle school. They're like, 'Oh your dad's white?' I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, he really is white.' I knew what race was, but it didn't matter to me.

I have a really small puppy, Georgie, and one of my favorite things is to take her to the park and play with her. I take two classes at middle school, math and chorus, and I love walking home with her after school.

I definitely tried to skateboard in middle school, and being from San Diego, surf and skate culture is a big, prevalent thing. But I was not that good - I was kind of a chubby kid and didn't totally master skating.

They tried to put me at tight end once, but I would end up just blocking people when they were actually trying to throw the ball to me. I was probably in middle school. It just didn't stick. Except on running plays.

There's something incredibly vulnerable about middle school for me. We're really impressionable during that period. The cement's still wet, so to speak, and a lot of things later in life are born during that season.

I was one of the ones in my generation who actually did connect with 'The Wiz,' even though it was not on Broadway or the movie wasn't big anymore by the time I was of age to notice. But I was into it in middle school.

I grew up in a conservative New England town and showed up to my middle school orientation dressed like 'Clueless' while everyone else was wearing J. Crew and lacrosse uniforms. I never really fit into that preppy look.

When I came out of the military, I had a club in Memphis and I started using the The Bar Kays as my club band. They were still only in the middle school - but I'd take them on the road with me on the weekends, sometimes.

Middle school was probably my hardest time. I was trying to fit in for so long, until about junior year of high school when I realized that trying to fit into this one image of perfection was never going to make me happy.

One of the challenges of commencement speeches is that you have this older, wiser person who is accomplished talking to young, not-yet-so-wise, not-yet-accomplished adults or, in high school or middle school, even younger.

In middle school, you're figuring out how you're affecting people, and sometimes you're affecting people negatively. And what sucks is that it can affect people for their whole lives. I didn't realize I was a part of that.

In middle school, we are all so damn insecure. It was the worst time for me, really destructive, like slapping myself across the face but loving it. Now I have to be an adult and change myself. I have to be a bigger person.

I know from my own personal experience. I was bullied in middle school and high school and went through my fair share of hard times thereafter. Also, one of my really good friends committed suicide when I was in high school.

My mom and I have always been really close. She's always been the friend that was always there. There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn't have a lot of friends. But my mom was always my friend. Always.

To change the media, you're gonna have to totally throw out every journalism school and get rid of everybody in every newsroom, and then you're gonna have to change the grade school and middle school and high school curriculum.

Our approach to education has remained largely unchanged since the Renaissance: From middle school through college, most teaching is done by an instructor lecturing to a room full of students, only some of them paying attention.

I started karate in middle school when my parents wanted me to babysit my younger brother. He was a little troublemaker, so they wanted me to make sure the class was going okay. I ended up being way more into it than my brother.

I once owned a really, really ugly pair of white leather boots. They were so bad. It was back in the '80s! It was just a really tacky fashion choice when I was in middle school, and I thought it was cool. I'm really embarrassed.

I went through a lot in middle school, and you always try so many different looks and try to be so many different people. I finally realized I'm awkward, I'm lanky, and I'm going to embrace it - make fun of myself and just laugh.

In middle school, I started to draw, and my pencil sketches were huge. They were these 4ft by 3ft drawings, and I got a lot of attention for that, so that was very validating. But I didn't start cartooning until I was in college.

I remember kids in high school and middle school who - I was kind of an insecure mess - I think there were those kids who really stepped out and paid attention to the kids that weren't as popular, and I see those kids as leaders.

I was born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1948 but grew up in a black neighborhood. During elementary and middle school, I commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown. So I did not confront white American culture until high school.

I'm just playing basketball, the same way I have always played, from juniors and even back to middle school, I'm just doing it the same way. Nothing different. Just a team game, playing and having fun and trying to play the right way.

I, in middle school, started really, really liking country music because it tells a story. It's really dramatic; I'm really dramatic. There's a lot of emotion. It was like, 'This is a perfect fit,' and I was teased mercilessly for it.

I didn't even get a computer till I was 16, so I didn't have Internet when I was in middle school and beginning of high school. I didn't think to be looking things up and looking at message boards saying whether people liked me or not.

I had a band when I was in middle school, but I was the drummer. I kind of thought if I was going to be in a band, I'd be the drummer. I'm innately drawn to rhythm. But we didn't have any shows. We just jammed in our parents' basement.

When I was in middle school and even high school, I wasn't comfortable with my body. I look back, and it makes me sad, but I've grown into my body and really embrace it. I don't have the typical girl body; I'm kind of built like a boy.

I've always loved film, and since I knew I probably couldn't be a cowboy or a spy in real life, I thought I'd play one in a movie! I started doing theater in middle school and tested for 'Victorious' before being in an episode of 'iCarly.'

I learned Spanish as my second language from middle school through high school. I grew up volunteering at homeless shelters and tutoring kids of Latin immigrants in Atlanta, who didn't speak any English. That prepared me for when I traveled.

Throughout elementary and middle school, I was used to hearing other words: Smart. Studious. Well-spoken. Well-read. They became pillars of my self-confidence, enabling me to build myself up on what I contributed rather than what I looked like.

If anything, we should feel sorry for the people who want us to feel bad about ourselves, because they are the ones struggling for approval. In middle school, bullies tortured other kids because they thought it would make people like them more.

Once your kid reaches middle school, parents are really supposed to fade out of the social picture. Kids are supposed to make their own plans, keep up with sophisticatedly crude discussions, and be able to go out on their own without supervision.

I wanted to do something raw and raucous and R-rated. But then 'Middle School: the Worst Years of My Life' came to me. One reason I took this movie on is because I saw it as a really great opportunity to revisit my own past through this character.

It was jarring to be berated for 'acting white' when I was placed in a predominantly black middle school in Southern California. I was also chubby, into boys who weren't into me, and tried too hard to fit into this 'blackness' I was supposed to be.

School was rough for me. I was a good student in middle school, but high school wasn't so fun. I still pulled through, though! I excelled in art, fashion, history and English literature - anything creative. Math and science I struggled a bit more in.

I think about the milestones from my childhood and what it will be like to watch our kids go through them. Taking Riley to her first day of school was a whirlwind. I can't imagine what middle school is going to be like, and high school, and graduation.

Falling head over heels in love with women was a habit I thought I'd thoroughly grown out of in middle school, when a group of about five girls and I color-coordinated our outfits and spent weekends and even some weeknights sprawled out in each others bedrooms.

I was bullied when I was in middle school in D.C., especially for being an Indian, because there weren't many Indian kids in school. And because of that, I tended to hide my Indian culture, but that changed by the end of high school. Now, I am 100% proud of it.

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