Unmuted: No More Screaming Into the Void

When I transitioned to a middle school teacher in 2023, after twelve years with little ones, I expected to struggle to find my stride.

What I didn’t expect was how much middle schoolers would teach me about connection, resilience, and the power of being heard.

I was used to…

Runny noses. 

Untied shoes. 

“My elbow hurts.”

“I have to go number 2, badddddd.”

Was I ready for…

Eye rolls.

Skipped classes.

“Do we have to do this?”

“How many points is this worth?”

As the weeks turned into months, I realized something bigger: teaching isn’t just about helping students find their voices—it’s about realizing how much those voices resonate with our own. 

Even more than that, teaching is digging deeper. 

It’s asking why.

Why do these voices resonate with our own?

I didn’t anticipate the ways my own feelings about life at that age would bubble up– or how much I would learn from those twelve and thirteen year-olds who were screaming into the void to be understood, accepted, heard and valued. 

Their grievances sounded and felt oddly familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure out why…

“Ughhhhh. Miss Pratt, I’m sick of this place! I got lunch detention for something so stupid!” The 7th grader flopped into the swivel chair, letting gravity spin him around to face me.

“What’s up?” I asked, my voice carrying the empathy he likely expected.

A middle school student airing their grievances during Study Center was nothing new. Once they realized I would listen, hearing them felt like a reflex—something I did without a second thought.

“I was in English class, and Ms. White was teaching at the front of the room like she always does. Boringgggg. Well, it was totally silent, and out of nowhere, Eric shouts out, ‘Ms. White, everybody back here is playing games on their iPad!’” Daron rolled his eyes and spoke in a nasally voice, his best impression of what he claimed to have heard.

“And you got detention when you weren’t one of the people playing games?” I tilted my head in curiosity.

“I mean, no… I was playing too,” he responded.

I felt my eyebrows knit together as I waited for him to continue.

“Yeah, I was playing games,” he said, before pausing to throw his arms in the air and shout, “but nobody asked!”

I snorted out a laugh. “Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, but regardless of whether anyone asked, you know you aren’t supposed to play games on your iPad at all, let alone while your teacher is teaching.”

“Ok, but Miss Pratt, it doesn’t even matter because nobody asked! Seriously, you get that part, though, right? Nobody asked him, so he shouldn’t have said anything.”

Middle schoolers thrive on sarcasm and hyperbole.

For Daron, it wasn’t about breaking the rules by playing games on his iPad during Ms. White’s lesson. That didn’t register. All his twelve-year-old brain could focus on was Eric’s unsolicited callout. In his words, Eric needed “to worry about himself and keep his mouth shut.”

Although many adults find middle schoolers’ perspectives annoying and punish their impulsive behavior, much of it is developmentally appropriate. Breaking rules, testing limits, using sarcasm, lying to avoid punishment, and deflecting when confronted are all normal behaviors for students at this age.

Once, while walking to lunch, I casually corrected a middle school student for cursing in the hallway.

Nearby, Zeb chimed in, frustrated by the behavior. I acknowledged his frustration but added with a smile, “I don’t get too worked up about things like that. Science says your brain is still developing. Mistakes are part of learning, and I’m here to help—not judge.”

“Huh,” he sighed. “I’ve never heard a teacher say that before.” He smiled, waved, and disappeared into a classroom marked by a lunch detention slip taped to the door.

Wow… lunch detention sure is popular around here…

When I entered public education in 2011, I expected to navigate tricky student behavior. What I didn’t expect was how often I’d face frustrating behaviors from colleagues and administrators.

As a big-picture thinker, I saw unintended consequences in school decisions—some harmful in the moment and others long-term. I respectfully called out these shortcomings, hoping to spark change. But time and time again, my problem-solving felt like shouting into a canyon, my voice echoing back: 'nobody asked.'

Too often, I was gaslit by administrators, patronized by counselors, and ostracized by teachers who saw me as a disruption. I was making their job harder. Just as Daron couldn’t see his role in Eric’s outburst, I began to see that many of the adults around me couldn’t—or wouldn’t—recognize their roles in systemic problems. And when I tried to help them see? The silence echoed: 'nobody asked.’

Those same people listened when I stuck to the status quo. Put my head down. Stayed agreeable. When I started to speak out, question, and push back against authority in an attempt to hold systems and the people in those systems accountable, suddenly folks stopped listening.

I realized that some of those who should care simply didn’t—and their silence shouted, 'nobody asked.'

After fourteen years in public education, I realized that problems went unsolved and systems unchecked because people can’t see what they aren’t looking for, and they can’t look for what they don’t know exists.

I am here because I picture a different future than the one we’ve been sold since childhood.  

I ask, “What if?”  

When people have grandiose ideas, I say, “Imagine a world like that…”

This blog is for the stories nobody asked for—but the ones we desperately need. It will challenge oversimplified narratives, imagine a more conscious future, and amplify voices that have deconstructed their silence.

In a time when schools, administrations, legislatures, and systems prioritize compliance and tradition over humanity, this blog will ask the deeper questions and spark the conversations we can’t afford to ignore.

How can we change a system designed to ensure certain people fail?

The better question is—how can we not?