Should We Radically Change the Format of Middle School?

One of my favorite educational columnists, Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, had a post yesterday about transforming the structure and nature of middle school education.   She has a great attention-grabbing title for her article:  How to fix the mess we call middle school.

She starts off with some of the reforms of middle school tried to date, and how they don't seem to be succeeding, at least in raising test scores.  She then states what she thinks are the issues with middle school students (students aged 11-14):

Here’s some of what we know about kids in this age group — and why it is past time to do something radically different: 

* Students in this age group are known to be egocentric, argumentative, and — this is not small thing — utterly preoccupied with social concerns rather than academic goals, driven by the swirling of their hormones. 

* They don’t always have solid judgment, but they find themselves in position to make decisions that can affect them throughout their lives. 

* They enjoy solving real life problems with skills. 

None of this adds up to a great experience with the traditional academic classroom.

She doesn't cite any data for these statements, but just lists them as givens.  Now, I have to say that I haven't really experienced the problems she reports in her first bullet with the middle schoolers that I know through my homeschool classes and activities, as well as those I teach in my Sunday School classes.  However, neither homeschooling nor our spiritual community reflect "mainstream" America, so maybe all those middle schoolers in schools show up that way.

But the second two--that they are old enough to make some serious mistakes when some, at least, haven't mastered impulse control or thinking through the consequences of their choices, and that they are hungry for problem-solving and real life experience--I definitely agree with.

So as she as proposed before, Strauss argues that we ought to do away with the academic focus in middle school, and instead turn that time into a "boot camp for life."  What would this boot camp look like, at least in Strauss's opinion?  It would focus on learning skills in applied settings, rather than traditional academic classes, with a strong focus on physical activity and REAL community service.

Strauss believes this is the perfect time to give students some real responsibility to meet a true community need.  As she correctly states, many school "community service" projects are one-shot deals that involve little challenge or commitment.  Picking up trash in a park is fine, but it doesn't develop any skills.  Instead, Strauss proposes that students serve daily at a homeless shelter for a few months, where they will have to confront how our society deals with issues like poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, and the like.  It would also give young people the potential experience of really making a difference in someone's life--and just think how that might change the path of their career and life choices.

Strauss continues that young adolescents need to be out in the community, helping out or being paired with mentors.  She also advocates giving such students more choice by letting them choose the books they will read and discuss, the music they will play or listen to, the art projects they will do.  Finally, she talks about what all the homeschoolers I know already do:  drawing out the "academic" topics in real life activities.  Regular readers of this blog know, for example, that I use cooking to teach math, history, science, literature, art, world religion, and probably a few other disciplines I'm forgetting right now, as well as developing such skills as time management, following instructions, budgeting and shopping for best prices, concentration, the value of precision, nutrition, hygiene, and many others.  And I don't know about you, but I don't know any middle schoolers who aren't interested in the topic of food.

And this is the joy of homeschooling.  Many of us run our middle schools very much like she is saying, at least in my homeschool group (although we do have academic classes as well).  Many of our classes and activities are organized around, or at least take account of, the students' preferences.  We do a lot of learning in applied contexts and hands-on projects, rather than getting everything from a book or a website.  And we have more time for sustained activity on community projects that we care about.  We have a group of homeschoolers who visit an assisted living facility, not just at Christmas when it is "time to think of others," but every month for years on end.  In my son's case, he has been there almost every month for 11 years--over 130 visits so far.  You think maybe that is why the middle schoolers I know aren't "egocentric," "argumentative," and "utterly preoccupied with social concerns"?

I don't know what it would take to get the schools to change in the direction she advocates.  But based on what I've seen in homeschooling,  I think that is the direction to go.

Middle School Minorities Achievement Gap in Math and Its Effect on College Success

On an email loop of my friend Maria's Natural Math community, there is a discussion going on right now about some research that taking advanced math, particularly calculus, in high school leads to greater success in science classes in college.  But I think the path to calculus in high school begins earlier, particularly with the math instruction students get in middle schools.  And several articles or reports published lately suggest that advanced math instruction in middle schools is problematic for many ethnic minorities, particularly African-American males.

One great example of this, I think, came from a recent article in The Washington Post about the school many publications list as the best public high school in the country, the magnet Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County (outside Washington DC).  While the school is almost universally lauded for the quality and subsequent success of its graduates, it has come under fire recently for the low percentage of black and Hispanic students, despite several years of a concerted minority outreach and recruitment program.  While blacks and Hispanics represent about one third of all students in the surrounding public schools, they make up only 4% of the TJ population.  Approximately 90% of students are Asian or white (with Asians accounting for a slight majority of that number), while the remaining students categorize themselves as "multi-racial."

The school's explanation for such a dramatic under-enrollment of blacks and Hispanics?  One of the pre-requisites for applying to Thomas Jefferson is that the student passed Algebra in middle school.  School officials claim that there is not a large pool of black or Hispanic middle school students with Algebra already under their belts from which they can recruit.  So should Thomas Jefferson drop that requirement for underrepresented minorities, or should the area middle schools do a better job of getting more of those students through Algebra?  (For comparison, the state-wide magnet program at the the residential North Carolina School for Math and Science has about a 10% black, 3% Hispanic, and 1% Native American population; that high school strongly recommends, but does not require, Algebra.)

This issue has been under a lot of discussion here in Wake County, because recent data shows that in previous years, where teacher recommendations were a major factor in admittance to advanced math classes, Asian and white students were admitted to Algebra at much higher rates than other minorities.  In 2008, over half of all test-qualified white or Asian students were enrolled in Algebra 1 in 8th grade, while among black and Hispanic students with similar test scores, only 40% went on to Algebra.  Things were even worse in 2006, where only 19% of high-scoring black male students were placed into advanced math.  This led to a policy change this year where students were placed into math classes purely on math scores, rather than considering teacher recommendations (although the effects won't begin to show up in Algebra until next year, because they still have a requirement for students to complete pre-algebra before entering the Algebra 1 class).  For a detailed analysis of this data, see the article entitled "Math Placement and Institutional Racism in Wake County Schools?" on the excellent blog "Barbara's Take on Wake."

It will be interesting to see the data in a couple years about what happens with this policy change.  Is it really true, as Barbara suggests, that the WCPSS has institutional racism in terms of minorities in math?  Or do the teachers know something that the test scores don't show?  Of course, if we refused to allow failure and gave minority students additional time, if necessary, to complete such classes, that might be the best of both worlds.  But as my blog posts of November 14  and November 21 demonstrate, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

But this only deals with the under-represented minorities who are actually scoring well on their math tests.  According to a recent study by the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation's largest urban school districts, among the urban school systems participating in the study, only about 12% of black males tested at or above the Proficient level in 8th grade math; at least 50% of 8th grade urban black males scored below the Basic level.  According to CGCS, this eventually leads to black men accounting for only 5% of all college students in 2008.

I don't know the answer to all this.  But it is a troubling question to examine.

Should We Get Rid of Middle Schools?

Forget about just getting rid of F's--should be be getting rid of middle schools altogether?  Researcher Peter  Meyer of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute certainly seems to think we should, at least according to his article in Education Next entitled "The Middle School Mess."  Meyer cites studies that show that students who attend K-8 grade schools, rather than stand-alone schools teaching 6th-8th grades, demonstrate fewer behavior problems, maintain higher rates of on-time high school graduation, and earn higher grades and higher standardized test scores.

So what's the problem with middle school?  Meyer argues that the typical middle school does not put a high priority on academic achievement, and so does not demand sufficiently rigorous learning demands on the students in these grades.

According to Meyer, middle schools are a relatively recent invention.  For most of the 20th century, 7th and 8th graders attended "Junior Highs" that were supposed to prepare them for high schools.  But in the 1960's and 1970's, such institutions were attacked to putting too much pressure on the students, while not recognizing the developmental needs of early adolescents.  The fear was that starting the academic preparation for college in junior high was forcing 12 and 13 year olds to focus solely on the core classes--math, reading and writing, and science.  However, the educational theorists of the time protested that early adolescence should be a time for discovering and pursuing passions like art and music, journalism and drama, scouting and other outdoor experiences, and (in those time) topics like home and industrial education.  Early adolescents, they felt, were dealing with a lot of physical, emotional, and hormonal changes, and needed time to explore not only these interests and potential study and/or career paths, but also to figure out who they were becoming and how they related to their family, peers, and world.  Thus, middle schools were founded as a transitional time for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to get used to the high school system of different classes with different teachers and other such attributes and to acquire subject-matter content and skills necessary to be successful in high school without overloading them with work so that they could try on different activities and ways of being as they matured into true adolescents.

So should we get rid of middle schools?  I guess it depends on how much you buy into our current system of evaluating educational progress primarily, if not purely, by test scores and other quantifiable data.  If one's priority is simply higher test scores, then our 1970's-style, more humanistically-designed middle schools are probably out of place.  Meyer states that the recent trend is towards eliminating middle schools in favor of more K-8 institutions.   However, I can see other curricular, economic, and practical rationales behind such schools, so I don't know without more research that a backlash against the middle school concept is fueling that trend.

My personal bias is that schools should be about developing happy, productive, well-rounded, and effective citizens, and I don't think that is measured by standardized tests.  In fact, the current preoccupation with testing is one of the reason we have chosen to homeschool.  And I would like to think that somewhere along the now 17+ years of institutionalized education that we now expect our children to attend there would be some kind of focus on developing aspects beyond being a highly-performing testing machine.

But, then, I know I'm an oddball.  So what's your opinion?  Do we need to get rid of middle schools, or at least get them on a more academically-focused track?

Middle School Required Reading

I was browsing through a local bookstore this week, and realized that they had a table with the books that were required reading for nearby middle schools.  So I examined the books to get some ideas about what fiction middle schools were studying these days and to see how my son's reading compared to that. 

The table had the books required by six different middle schools, four of which were private and/or religious schools, and two of which were public schools.  However, out of the 49 books on display, there were no overtly religious tracts.   Looking over the selections, I had some surprises as well as some books that were expected.

What author would you think would be most represented among middle school reading lists?  In this case, at least, it was Newbery Medal Winner Jerry Spinelli, who had three separate books on the table (a couple of which were in different piles, which I assumed meant that different schools had required the same book).  Following Spinelli's record three novels, there were three authors that each had two books on the table--Newbery Winner Avi, Newbery Winner Lois Lowry, and ALA Best Books for Young Adults Winner Roland Smith.  There were multiple other Newbery and ALA Best Book winners, and many of the titles were other books with good reviews that may not have quite made it up to the top competition level.  But, after all, that is pretty much to be expected.

There was definitely an emphasis on multi-cultural literature.  There were books about young people in Communist China, Nazi Germany, Africa, the Amazon, living with the Taliban, and trying to escape the war in Cambodia.  There were a number of books on both Native Americans and on blacks living during the great Civil Rights tumult of the 1960's.  I wasn't familiar with quite a few of those, and wrote down their titles as books to explore with my son.

On the other hand, there was few of the most popular contemporary literature.  I didn't know ALL the books, but I saw very little science fiction or fantasy, and NO vampires.  One school had City of Embers, and another had Hunger Games, but there was no Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, or Ranger's Apprentice.

What I was really shocked by, however, was the complete dearth of older works that might be considered "the classics."  Again, one or more less familiar books might have slipped by me, but the oldest book I saw was the 1944 Newbery Winner Johnny Tremaine.  But there was no Jules Verne, no Mark Twain, no Mary Shelley, no Robert Lewis Stephenson,  no Jack London, or any of the other 18th or 19th century writers I recall reading in middle school (although, admittedly, my memory could be confusing middle school books with high school). But surely there are SOME authors who wrote prior to the 20th century who belong on a middle school required reading list.  There certainly will be some in our middle school literature classes.

Book Review: Exodus by Brian Wildsmith

This week in our World Religion class, we are studying the story of Exodus, or the escape of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, following Moses in the desert for 40 years, and eventual entry into the Promised Land.  The book we are using to tell this tale is Exodus by Brian Wildsmith.  Brian Wildsmith is a book writer and illustrator from England who is not nearly as well known as he should be, given the gorgeous work that he does (he has won the English equivalent of the Caldecott for the best children's book artwork).

The text is clear and straight-forward and condenses an article book of the Old Testament/Torah in a concise, unbiased, and easily comprehensible way.  While it can be used with elementary students, I think it is appropriate for middle schoolers as well.  But what really sets this book apart is the artwork.  The best word I can come up with to describe the illustrations is sumptuous!  Wildsmith uses rich, almost glowing colors, and even gold leaf in some pages.  His pictures are on a grand scale, capturing the grandeur of Egypt at the time of the Pharoahs and pyramids, and including depictions of hundreds or even thousands of people in the background.  He includes, but doesn't dwell on, the less savory aspects of the story (such as the plagues and the killing of the first-born), and the drawings of that section won't upset more sensitive readers.

But one of the best parts of his take on this classic tale, at least to my mind, is how he shows the more fantastic components of the tale, such as the burning bush and God leading the people of Israel as a cloud or as a flame.  I particularly like how he illustrates God in a symbolic, non-human way.

This is the kind of book that the illustrations can bring up as many discussion topics as the text.  Like the Blockhead book,  I think the wonderful art helps make it relevent to an older audience.  Those who have heard the story before can find new information and objects of interest in the pictures, and those who aren't familiar with the tale aren't likely to forget it with such beautiful illustrations to support a visual memory of whole event.

Lesson Plan: Teaching Concrete Poetry

In "The Captain's Song" from the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, The HMS Pinafore, after the Captain has explained to his crew all his personal prohibitions that make him such an exemplary captain (things like never getting sick at sea, never swearing, etc.), they sing this refrain to each other:
Sailors: What, never?
Captain: No, never!
Sailors: What, never?
Captain: Well, hardly ever!

Like the Captain, one of my personal teaching policies is that I hardly ever give my students an assignment that I am not willing to do myself (or, at least, wasn't willing to do when I was at the same level of development) and/or haven't tried myself.  I figure that if it's not interesting or valuable enough for me to do it, I shouldn't ask them to, and if I haven't tried it myself, how can I give them the best instruction on the matter?   And while I've written a good bit of poetry in my time, I don't think I've ever written a concrete poem....which happens to be the topic I'm teaching this week.

So this past Sunday morning, I noticed something unusual as I was driving to our spiritual community, and so I ended up making a concrete poem out of the experience:

(OK, technically, this is actually a space poem, which shows movement through space related to the topic of the poem, rather than a concrete poem, which is supposed to take the shape of the subject.  But we're covering both, so I think it still counts.)

I'm really glad I did it, because, like the I Spy poem, it is really much harder to do than it looks.  Originally, the second stanza had varying numbers of words (from 9-11), and that just threw the entire composition off.  So I had to find ways to express the same thing but with the same number of words while retaining the same syllable pattern.   It was fun, but it ate up much more time than I expected (but, then, what doesn't?)

One thing that we've been doing in class is writing poetry after being inspired by music and/or art or photographs.  And while the poem came from my experience (another thing we are discussing), the title was inspired by both.  It is a twist on a Stephen Sondheim musical, Sunday in the Park with George, which is about the artist, Georges Seurat, as he paints his most famous painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" (well, it's really about a lot more then that, since it is an examination on the nature of art and artists and relationships, but that's for another blog).

Anyway, were I a visual artist, or even somewhat proficient with Photoshop, I would attempt a picture of what I see in my mind when I think of this poem, which is Seurat's painting:

EXCEPT I would replace all the people with geese, and add a few contemporary touches, like one of them playing with a video game, and, of course, a pizza.  Wouldn't that be a fantastic image?

But, the point is, I think it is really great if we can teach students to use all their senses when writing poetry.  It's great to come up with wonderful words, but it is good for those words to connect with an actual experience, to be inspired by or contain some elements of music (in my case, it's "Putting It All Together" from Sunday in the Park with George), and to create a visual image (like my Seurat geese).  Not every poem needs to have ALL of those, but they should have at least one of these to generate some substance beyond just the words.  And try it yourself--see if your poem isn't more fun and/or more meaningful to you when it includes one or more of those elements.

For a related post, see A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire.

PS--My son wanted to be mentioned in this post, so I will just say that he read my draft and called it "a lovely poem," which I really appreciated hearing from him.

The Beginning

This is a beginning for us...the beginning of the new school year, the beginning of middle school.  As one of my son's new levels of academic expectation, now that he is doing middle school, he is going to start keeping a blog.  And since he is learning to blog, I thought it was about time I started doing it as well.  So this is the beginning of my blog about our journeys together in the wonderful new world of middle school.