4.4 THE MIDDLE SCHOOL MOVEMENT

The odds are that if you are asked to observe or teach early adolescent students in your teacher education program, you will do so in a middle school. The middle school movement began with experimental or reform-minded junior high schools in the 1960s. Some of the early innovations included team teaching, modular and flexible scheduling, and interdisciplinary teaching practices. Wiles and Bondi point out that over-enrollment and desegregation had as great an effect on the spread of the middle school movement as did curriculum theory or organizational planning. By the mid-seventies, a number of national organizations began to focus on the educational problems and issues of the middle school learner. During this period the National Middle School Association was formed, and at annual meetings of organizations such as the National Science Teachers Association, an increasing number of workshops, seminars and speeches were given on teaching middle school science. The literature on the middle school and the middle school learner exploded, and researchers began to pay attention to the special needs of the preadolescent. The National Science Teachers Association created a journal specific to middle school science called Science Scope, in 1991 the National Science Middle School Teachers Association was formed.

Although the junior high had been developed in the period 1910 -1915 to respond to the special needs of the preadolescent student, the original child-centered focus was lost, and junior high schools tended to resemble the high school in curriculum and organization of staff. The focus was on the content, rather the child.

The middle school educators of the seventies and eighties developed schools that have a philosophy that responds to the needs of the preadolescent learner, which includes physical development, intellectual development, social-emotional development, and moral development. The middle school learner is an emerging adolescent, experiencing changes in each of these realms. The middle school philosophy establishes the rationale for creating a school environment that addresses these needs and changes. For example, this sample philosophy and goal statement, typical of contemporary middle schools, incorporates the needs of these emerging adolescents to create a school that is flexible and exploratory, as well as designed to help students understand the content of the major disciplines, develop personally, and develop basic thinking skills.

Middle School Philosophy/Goal Statement

The middle school offers a balanced, comprehensive, and success-oriented curriculum. The middle school is a sensitive, caring, supportive learning environment that will provide those experiences that will assist in making the transition from late childhood to adolescence, thereby helping each individual to bridge the gap between the self-contained structure of the elementary school and the developmental structure of the high school.

The middle school curriculums are more exploratory in nature than the elementary school and less specialized than the high school. Realizing that the uniqueness of individual subject disciplines must be recognized, an emphasis on interdisciplinary curriculum development will be stressed. Curriculum programs should emphasize the natural relationships among academic disciplines that facilitate cohesive learning experiences for middle school students through integrative themes, topics and units. Interdisciplinary goals should overlap subject area goals and provide for interconnections such as reasoning, logical and critical thought, coping capacities, assuming self-management, promoting positive personal development, and stimulating career awareness.

The academic program of a middle school emphasizes skills development through science, social studies, reading, mathematics, and language arts courses. A well-defined skills continuum is used as the basic guide in all schools in each area including physical development, health, guidance, and other educational activities. Exploratory opportunities are provided through well-defined and structured club programs, activity programs, and special interest courses, thereby creating opportunities for students to interact socially, to experience democratic living, to explore areas not in the required curriculum, to do independent study and research, to develop, and practice responsible behavior, and to experience working with varying age groups.

The middle school curriculum will be a program of planned learning experiences for our students. The three major components for our middle school curriculum are (1) subject content, (2) personal development, and (3) essential skills.

The organization of the middle school provides for the transition from the self-contained classroom of the elementary school to the departmentalization of the high school. Briefly, here are some of the organization trends that you will find in most middle schools in terms of teacher grouping, student grouping and time.

Teachers are organized into interdisciplinary teams to provide instruction in the core subjects of science, mathematics, reading, language arts, and social studies. The interdisciplinary teams work with a common group of students, and controls a block of time. Teachers in a team usually have their rooms in close proximity to one another. Members of a team often have a common planning block, with one of the teachers be assigned as team leader. The facilities of the modern middle schools in which team members are located in close proximity, facilitate close working relationships among teachers.

Students are organized by grade level. Each grade level is typically organized into teams of about 85 - 135 students. Provision is made to deal with individual differences by providing instruction for varying ability levels, skills levels and differences in interest.

In the middle school, teachers of each interdisciplinary team normally have a ninety minute common planning time. Provision is made for a flexible, modular schedule. Typically, a block of time equal to five 45-minute time segments is assigned to each interdisciplinary team for instruction. Students also have a 90-minute block of time for exploration activities and physical education.

What is the current status of middle school science? What is the is the pattern of curriculum offerings in the middle school?