Tag Archives: middle school

May 28 2024

Sand Dune Pony— a retro review

Sand Dune Pony, by Troy Nesbit was one of my “annual reads” when I was a kid. The reader must suspend disbelief rather a lot, but I re-read it recently, and I still enjoyed it. Yes, there was a bit of nostalgia for me, but the story is fun.

When I perused a few reviews on Goodreads, I saw that some folks had the same affection for this little yarn that I have, while others took a modern view and were either skeptical or horrified. The plot, which is nothing like the AI garbage on big A’s site, is simple: A youngster named Pete has come to spend the summer at his uncle’s large ranch in Colorado. Pete had been looking forward to having his own horse for the summer, along with the promise of learning how to be a real cowpoke. However, his Uncle Lem and Aunt Clara lost their barn to a fire, so Lem has had to sell off almost all of his horses to cover the cost of replacing it. Pete is stuck doing chores and watching one of Lem’s hands try to break a stubborn horse, because there is no horse available for him to ride.

Kids have shorter attention spans, so Nesbit’s narrative moves swiftly. A new character, Hatsy, enters the picture in the second chapter, and the older gentleman takes an interest in Pete and his situation. Hatsy offers to take Pete along on a fishing trip, which Lem and Clara agree to, but the goal is not just catching fish. No, Hatsy has in mind catching a horse for Pete. No spoilers, but there’s a mystery interwoven with the finding a horse for Pete plot, and there is enough suspense to keep the pages turning.

Being somewhat chronologically gifted myself, I know that kids were not nearly as sheltered in the era of this tale as kids are today. Probably not many parents would allow an underage child do most of the things that happen in this book in the time it was written, and certainly not modern parents. No, today, Pete would have to play video games on an iPad and wait for Uber eats to deliver, instead of camping beside an old-fashioned covered wagon, eating canned corned beef warmed over a fire, while planning to capture a wild horse with a septagenarian mentor. Fortunately for the reader (and Pete) things were different in back then, and there are many details about the West, horses, and people sprinkled into the story. In short, this is an adventure, and safety isn’t much of a consideration.

Parents or grandparents could read this one aloud to younger kids, or just hand it to a third (or later) grade student. There’s a Kindle version available on big A’s website, for that kid who has a tablet instead of a horse. My daughter bought me a copy off of eBay, as a gift, when we were talking about books that we had enjoyed as children.

Honestly, I was amazed that the one I got looked so good, considering the 1952 copyright. Whitman Publishing books were inexpensive items for kids, so the quality of the binding and pages lacks that heirloom feel! While the cover looks good, the pages are darkened with age and crumble on the edges if the reader isn’t careful. This is an old book! There are several cover art versions, but I chose to display the cover on the book I lost decades ago, rather than the one I received.

Jun 30 2012

Middle School Mentality

Since the video of bus monitor Karen Klein was posted on YouTube, there has been much written about the incident, but not much written about the mentality of the students who tormented her. If you haven’t seen the video or read any of the news stories associated with it, a brief summary of the incident is in order. In a video shot by a fellow student, a group of boys are heard calling an older female bus monitor fat, discussing what it would be like to stab her, and saying that her family would want to commit suicide because of their association with her. Klein does dissolve into tears, but never strikes back at her juvenile tormenters.

As a former teacher, and one who spent years working with students in the middle grades, I sadly state that this video is not so shocking to me. First, I will state that although I was sometimes the target of some taunts, my position as a teacher gave me more authority, and so I never dealt with anything so horrible. But, that said, parents and the public must understand the “middle school mentality” does include more than a bit of viciousness. More than once, I have described middle school students as being similar to a pack of rabid dogs. Individually, they are usually okay, but when grouped together, it is not uncommon to get some really bad chemistry. If there is an age where homeschooling is more appropriate, I believe it is the middle grades. When kids lose their need to impress adults, but before they become accountable, there is a danger zone, and grades 5-9 tend to be the rough ones, for the students as well as for the teacher and staff members.

My own children suffered bullying at that age; in fact, I was blessed to have a husband with a high enough position in the community that he could literally call up the superintendent of schools and ask him to personally intervene in a bad situation that was causing our daughter to go through emotional turmoil.

I have little doubt that the parents of those students in the video do not have to endure constant profanity and threats at home. Actually, I would imagine that the parents were probably shocked at the video of Klein being tormented. While the parents are partially responsible, the students are of an age to take responsibility for their actions. However, putting such students with so little control together, and giving those in authority no real power to keep the students in line, is the real problem.

If these students were in a homeschool, being responsible to one or two adults, and entrusted with assisting younger students, they simply would not get into a situation where they would have nothing better to do than torment others. Anyone who had read Lord of the Flies knows that it is not a new problem.

I’m sorry for Karen Klein, but not shocked. She has stated that if she had retaliated, she would have been fired. If any aspect of this incident is shocking, it is that society doesn’t realize what goes on when middle school mentality is allowed to run amok.