Honestly being at a combination middle/high school is ideal. I teach 8th and 11th grade and I adore both.
Everytime I pass one of my 8th graders in the hall we stop and wave saying, "Hello Traveler!" because as he says, it's the main character's world and we're all just NPCs living in it.
Then I see one of my 11th graders and he yells "BAGUETTES" for a reason I still don't understand but high schoolers are the funniest people on the planet so I roll with it.
Then I have a poetry unit at the end of which one student says to me "before this unit I hated poetry with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Now I only hate it with the passion of 999 burning suns." and everything is worth it.
My 11th grade honors class makes pride and prejudice jokes (it was the fall play and most of them were in the cast and/or crew) and they email me memes they make based on class jokes.
My eighth graders are writing horror stories and they're the most amazing things I've ever read.
Being a teacher is amazing, despite the way we're treated.
