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Message from the Middle |
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by Martha Haakmat, Head of Middle School
Middle School can feel a lot like being the middle child in the family. It’s easy to see us, with our gangly bodies, odd and intermittent growth spurts and general awkwardness and just need to avert your eyes and hope for the calmer days of high school. Middle School can look messy; it’s noisy and jam-packed with high drama, less than logical decision-making and social madness. Imagine harnessing all this energy in the 5th through 8th grade classroom, and you will have stumbled upon the wonderful secret that is teaching in the middle school! The potential for learning and academic achievement is so great, it can feel like electricity in the very air of the middle school floors at 375 Pearl Street. If you can wade through the stormy bits and really check out what is happening in and around the learning, it’s a beautiful sight to behold.
Take fifth graders, for example. Just a few short months ago, they were in lower school, traveling around the halls with their teachers and spending most of their academic time in one room. Fast forward to now, and our divisional newbies have taken off as independent thinkers and planners. They have come leaps and bounds in their reading skills, with carefully guided lessons about how to deconstruct text, build meaning, deepen their vocabularies and make connections between what they read and their lives. They can write a persuasive essay with an introduction, a conclusion and body paragraphs with supportive evidence. They are learning and practicing these life-long skills, which will be the keys to academic success for the rest of their lives, and our students are soaking it in, joyfully and with celebrated success.
Our sixth graders are off and running, completing reading portfolios, and honing their academic strengths. In their classes, they are building on their reading and writing skills with an eye toward clear expression as leaders and learners. Our strong academic program demonstrates for these students the power of language skills beyond self-expression to intellectual independence. It is the beginning of the realization that language, reading and writing it effectively, is a powerful tool for sharing ideas and for making change.
Seventh and eighth graders are exploding with their academic promise and accomplishments. They are coming into their own as academicians so powerfully, that their teachers are sometimes surprised by their achievements. This year, students in these grades created their own diversity club, because they wanted to engage each other in dialog about race and other identifiers. They call their club “People For People,” and eighth grade club leaders have taken turns facilitating regular meetings since the fall. The adults who advise this club sit in the background and watch the magic that happens when the third floor conference room fills with students who give up their lunch break to talk together about power, privilege and wanting to make change in the world for equity and social justice. Seventh graders prepared for their day in court through our Constitution Works
project as they study the US Constitution. They are applauded each year
as not only the best behaved but the best prepared and skillful in the
mock trial culmination of the unit. Our middle school elders in these grades have also submitted more pieces of writing to this year’s Scholastic Awards Competition and won more honors nationally than ever before! They showcased their poetry, persuasive essays, and short stories, and brought back 11 of the top awards in competition with their peers from public and independent schools.
So, the next time you see a loud or giggly mass of middle schoolers heading your way in the halls at school, or on the subway or sidewalks, take a closer look for the academic powerhouses that lurk below that surface. Hooray for middle school teachers who understand how to tap this potential and build scholars to continue their success in our upper school! |
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