As a parent, I will be breathing a big sigh of relief in a couple of weeks when my older son leaves middle school behind. And the parents of his classmates tell me they will be doing the same. I'm almost expecting that the entire neighborhood will feel the breeze emanating from the middle school auditorium next Wednesday when the whole ordeal finally ends for the lucky 8th graders and their parents.
Elementary school is a time of positive discovery and growth for most kids, and parents get a second-hand thrill from watching mastery develop, friendships form, interests and talents emerge. While high school can be catastrophic for some kids, for others it is a time to soar. Middle school, though, just seemed like a frustrating nowhere-land, with a few bright spots provided by wonderful teachers.
I think it was about three years ago that a New York Times columnist referred to middle school as "the Bermuda Triangle of education". I didn't get it at the time, but now I do. It's where your kids drop off the radar. It's where the whole home-school communication thing falls apart dramatically. It's where the odds that at least one of your child's six or seven teachers is going to rub you the wrong way are very, very high.
Education expert Hayes Mizell gave his thoughts on the topic at a speech [1] a few years back. One thing that strikes me in reading his talk is the notion that physical activity is identified by researchers as one of the key developmental needs of middle schoolers. That makes sense -- this is a time of rapid growth, rivaled only by the years from 0 to 3 in terms of the speed of change and development that goes on. Young adolescents need to keep in touch with their rapidly changing physical selves.
Yet at my son's middle school, like many others, there is no longer any recess during the school day. Gym class is a one-semester affair. There are a few after-school sports, but a lot of kids have jobs or other obligations, and a lot of kids that age aren't into team sports, with their potential for public humiliation.
Parents, Mizell says, are a key to middle school reform. But it's hard to know how to assess your child's middle school and how to approach the job of trying to make it better. There's help available. MiddleWeb [2] is a wonderful window into the philosophy and practice of middle school education, and the teacher blogs [3] can be addicting. Schools to Watch [4] offers a parent-friendly assessment exercise [5] that can be completed in as little as two hours by interested parents. I wish I had known about it a few years ago. If you have a rising middle schooler in your family, think about giving it a try next fall.
Let's put middle school back on the map.