The middle is equally good and bad.

It’s a good place to hide. It’s typically safe ground. And somebody on the outside is much more likely to deflect the incoming grenades.

But things in the middle are easily forgotten. They are often torn between the inside and the outside, the higher and the lower.

Middle dwellers can’t decide if they should push to the front or run to the back. The result is a life of limbo, or at least a brief period.

Nowhere in our world is middle syndrome more evident than in a middle school.

The problems and challenges junior high students face have changed with time, but the way they handle them hasn’t.

The pre-teens and young teens handle things from the middle out. They aren’t children. They aren’t adults.

And they aren’t, in general, fun to be around.

I internally cringed last Thursday when I entered the Cathedral School cafeteria and got lunchtime instructions.

For Catholic Schools Week, Cathedral hosted their annual community leaders luncheon. As tradition has it at the school, the guests from the community are paired up with students for lunch — seventh- and eighth-grade students.

Lunch with a middle schooler, I thought. Great.

I didn’t enjoy cafeteria cliques when I was a middle school student. I surely wouldn’t as an adult.

But I learned a lesson — middle can be good.

Ben Hillyer and I were treated to lunch with eighth-grade student Brent Gaudé.

Brent’s not the eighth-grader I’m used to. He’s polite, well-mannered and he can carry on a conversation with two adults.

The average teenage boy struggles to communicate much at all.

Brent told us about his classes, sports and his future career plans — construction engineer.

He’s already started working summers to learn what he’ll need to know for the chosen profession.

Of course, Brent’s had some experience dealing with the boring adults who come through the lunch line each February. As a seventh-grader he also participated in the luncheon. He was called back to help out this year because there were too few seventh-graders.

Maybe he’s a professional. Or maybe he’s just one of a good brood of middle school students Cathedral School is helping to mold.

The 12- and 13-year-olds all around us seemed to be handling what must be at least a slightly intimidating situation very well. Some students had lunch with hospital administrators, elected officials and law enforcement officers. And all appeared to be great hosts and hostesses.

After lunch Brent led us on a tour of the school and told us about a few organizations and clubs.

He showed us where his name was painted on the elementary school wall for excelling in the school’s reading program.

But it wasn’t the things Brent talked about or pointed out that mattered Thursday. It was the manner in which he, and his classmates, carried themselves.

Cathedral should be proud of its seventh- and eighth-graders, and they should be proud of their school.

The community visited Cathedral last week for a brief glimpse. We wore visitor’s name tags, but they made us feel at home.

And that’s exactly how it should be. Our schools are our community and our community is our schools.

Local citizens shouldn’t need a formal invite to visit a school, and, as long as you check in in the office, schools always have open doors.

Children of all ages need support. Why not start in the middle and work your way out?

Julie Finley is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.