Week 1 - Middle School Development

The first set of reading introduced me to the process behind the development of the middle school program I understand now.  It is difficult for me to pull my thoughts and ideas together based on what I read this week.  It has been a while since I have written a blog and I am trying to develop an order to what I read and the impact it had on me.  I will state I was very curious to learn where and how the middle school program started and transformed into what I knew as a student and now experience with my two sons.   My sons are 5 years and grades apart and during that those years my school district implemented changes at the middle school level.  There were new things to learn and experience as a parent.  I like seeing their are major goals for the middle level education.  It provides administrators and educators a map on how to think thoughtfully about developing their middle school program.

I found it interesting that even though Harvard University started considering a way to organize schooling between the primary and secondary grades, middle grades were not considered a separate category.  In addition, there really was no consistency between schools or districts on where middle grades were to reside.  In some areas, middle grades were grouped as primary or elementary grades and in other areas it was grouped as a secondary grade with high school.  It took many years to for any type of consistency to develop in the United States.  I attended a junior high school which was grades 7 and 8.  My elementary school was broken out into two sections, primary (K - 3rd grade) and intermediate (4th - 6th grades).  As I reflect on my experience, it made sense to me.  Primary was when we first developed our learning habits and understand what school was all about.  Intermediate had more rigor and asked more of us as students.  We also had more after-school opportunities and given more responsibility.  When we transitioned to junior high, it was to prepare us for high school.  We had lockers and changed classes for each subject.  We had similar opportunities as a high school with sports, student council, newspaper, choir, plays and other clubs.  It was just a smaller scale.  I felt it did prepare me for high school but it also seemed short.  Keep in mind this was during the 1980s (yes I am dating myself) and seemed off to some of the timelines mentioned in both readings.  I can say I was not aware of any team type movement which was mentality.

Another interesting topic was the change in focus from the structure to the student-teacher relationship.  I seemed to always have a relationship with my teacher but I enjoyed and looked forward to school.  In the article, it made sense that students did not succeed with a distant teacher connection.  If the teacher didn't show interest in them as a person, why would the student feel the teacher cared so how would that motivate a student to show up to school and continue learning.  As I have progressed through my time at Trinity, I have heard from multiple professors that it is those student teacher connections that make everything worthwhile.  It makes the students want to come to school and learn, especially for those students that may be lacking a stable home.  School provides them that structure and allows them to know someone at the school cares about them.  

A new concept that I was exposed to was the concept of team teaching.  This was new to me when my sons entered middle school because each grade is separated into two teams with their own set of distinct teachers.  I thought this strange and odd.  Why do this?  After this week's reading, it makes much more sense to me.  It allows the teachers to collaborate better on what they encounter in their classes, exchange information on students that may need extra supports or had a rough day or week and it creates a warm atmosphere where the teachers truly get to know their group of students on that team.  They do many team activities as well and helps keep the students organized and give them a safe place to learn and ask questions.  Our school district prepared 5th grade students well for the transition to middle school.  The 5th grade is separated in a different wing from the other elementary grades and the two or three 5th grade teachers work as a team.  Despite each teacher having a set 5th grade class, there were times the teachers swapped to teach their subject matter specialty or to help another teacher out.  It provided the students an opportunity to work with all the 5th grade teachers and not just one.  This helped prepare students for that eventual middle school experience with a new teacher for each subject.  

Finally I was surprised to learn that principals needed to become more involved and effective with creating the environment at the middle school grade level.  Obviously they are providing their teachers with the ability to professionally develop but I didn't realize that the principal was lacking that ability.  The middle school both my sons attended has a wonderful principal and administrative staff.  The principal cracks jokes, pokes fun at himself but also can get down to business.  I recall at the 5th grade parent night the principal talked in a light hearted and inviting way to pull in the parent.  I noticed later he does the same with the student body.  Both my sons love their principal.  They say he always smiles and greets the students as they enter and leave the school.  He doesn't hide in his office.  Also the teachers are a reflection of the principal.  The teachers, while busy, have a similar inviting demeanor and not one of my sons have come home saying they don't like a teacher.  Now that my oldest has graduated high school, I can reflect that the same atmosphere and culture is severely lacking at the high school.  The high school student is almost considered like an adult instead of a teenager growing to be a young adult.  I am not saying that the high school should be like the middle school because each grouping has different needs.  The high school needs to better balance parent communication so they can support the student and be aware.   

Overall the reading was informative and really caused me to reflect on how I experienced my adolescent years within school and compare it to what my sons have experienced now.  As I stated earlier, my sons attended the same middle school and had some of the same teachers but their experiences were different because changes were made.  The principal was still the same and there was a new vice-principal here or there but they changed the curriculum where needed.  They added a new exploratory class for 7th graders, called entrepreneurship.  For 8th grades, the exploratory class list was much more robust.  My oldest only had 8th grade art as an elective but my youngest had three different art class electives to choose.  When I asked the principal about those changes, he said it was to give the students a chance to truly explore other areas of interest at a more detailed level.  The student, parent and teacher feedback indicated there was a need and they developed the curriculum to change the program.  This is just one example of many and this truly impressed me.  I like knowing that they are not staying still and trying to meet the needs of the students but also not changing just to make change.  Middle schools do need their own curriculum and development because as I read the students have such varied needs due to their social and emotional changes.