Introduction to the Middle Grades Concept

I'm a little confused about what, exactly, the middle grades concept is. As described in the module readings, it seems to advocate for the creation of schools that meet the physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and moral/ethical needs of adolescents. But what about this is "middle"? As Lipsitz and West write in "What Makes a Good School," "There isn't anything int he [National Forum to Accelerate Middle School Reform] that is exclusive to the middle grades; we believe our vision applies to all schools teaching all grade levels." Beane and Lipke seem to agree, writing, "Obviously, most components of the middle school concept are appropriate for any grade level." They go on to explain their rationale for applying the "middle school" moniker to the idea: "Why, then, would advocates of the concept specifically tie it to the middle grades? Quite simply because they intended to implement it as an alternative to the impersonal, inequitable, and irrelevant structures and curriculum that characterized many junior high schools." Does this mean we are okay settling with "impersonal, inequitable, and irrelevant" high schools?

My point here is not to argue semantics -- whatever we call this concept is fine by me because, clearly, it's what teachers and schools need to be doing. However, I think at some point our high school colleagues need to join the middle school dialogue about how to meet the needs of their learners. High school students, after all, are adolescents; in fact, brain science tells us that for many people the prefrontal cortex does not fully develop until they reach 25 years of age. Seen in that light, 15-18 is more the "middle" of adolescence than 12-14, which is when students traditionally attend "middle" school. At the moment, though, most high schools I have seen seem to be bridges between compulsory public education and college, much like junior highs were considered bridges between elementary and high schools in prior decades. In this way, high schools might more appropriately be considered "junior colleges." After all, high school teachers are divided into departments and often teach in isolation from other disciplines, much like college professors.

But instigating a paradigm shift in high schools seems a bit beyond the purview of this institute. What I can change, of course, is what I do in my own classroom. After completing the Young Adolescent Organizational Structures chart, I feel confident that my team and I are doing much to meet the needs of our young learners, and have plans to do even more next year. Of the areas in which we could improve, I think the most glaring is in meeting the emotional/psychological needs of our students. We are not leveraging our advisory time in a way that helps give students a sense of belonging and safety. Some action steps in improving this might be to compile a plethora of advisory activities and somehow publish them electronically so that advisory teachers can easily access them, perhaps on a Google site.