Junior high school may be the last frontier of educational reform.
Yet that is changing as educators in Illinois, and at schools throughout Du Page and Kane Counties, rethink this decades-old concept.
Many educators are finding alternatives by restructuring their programs as middle schools, a concept that draws on the elements of both elementary and high schools to best meet the needs of junior high`s young adolescents.
”Middle school is first an attitude and then a delivery system,” said Sherrel Bergman, professor of middle level education at National Louis University in Evanston and cofounder of the Association of Illinois Middle Schools.
Savario Mungo would agree. ”Middle-school philosophy advocates a student-centered approach similar to that of the elementary school and combines it with the subject specialization of high schools,” said Mungo, who is coordinator for the middle/junior high school program at Illinois State University in Bloomington. ”Kids need both at this age.”
It is an age that can be difficult.
”These years, from 11 to 14, are years of the most tremendous changes in a human`s life, except from birth to (age) 2,” said Judith Baenen, director of affiliate and member services for the National Middle School Association, an Ohio-based professional advocacy organization for middle level education founded in 1963.
”And the changes occur in every aspect of the young adolescent`s life,” Baenen said.
”We`ve known (about the changes) for years but have never translated those needs into teaching practices,” said Mungo.
Indeed, for many years the junior high school system has not addressed those changes in adolescents. Instead, junior high has been the stepchild of education ever since it was introduced in 1910 as a watered-down version of the high school model that channeled students on a purely academic track with little regard for the total adolescent.
These days, though, that`s changing with the growing interest in middle schools. While the terms ”middle” and ”junior high” are often used interchangeably, and the grades that are included can vary from 4th through 10th grade, experts agree neither the label nor the particular grades housed within a building matter as much as what actually goes on inside the building. What goes on in the buildings is being strongly influenced by ”Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century,” a report issued by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development in 1989.
The report tells schools just what needs to be done to effectively educate this unique age group. While the ideas aren`t new, the Carnegie report startled educators and the public because it thoroughly analyzed the problems young adolescents face today and how schools need to be restructured to meet those special needs.
The Carnegie report pointed out that middle-level education represents the last best chance to make sure young adolescents get and stay on the right track, and it made eight recommendations that schools need to implement to effectively educate students ages 10 to 15.
”The Carnegie report showed that the development of adolescents is crucial at this age and that they need a different approach,” said Mungo.
”Rather than the mini-high school approach, they need greater parental involvement and teams of teachers who meet with smaller groups of students.” To achieve that, the Carnegie report advocates middle schools use team teaching and advisory programs. Both help create smaller communities of students so adults can get to know students well, which research says young adolescents need.
”A significant adult outside the child`s family can have a fantastic effect on a child`s life,” said Mungo, ”and by teaming teachers, a student has fewer adults to deal with. It gives the students a better chance of knowing one well.”
Schools across the nation are using components of the middle-school approach in varying degrees. While some states, including Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina, have been educating young adolescents this way for years, Illinois has been slow to integrate such programs.
Thanks to Project Initiative Middle Level (PIML), a network of 31 Illinois schools are now restructuring according to middle-school concepts, making Illinois one of the fastest-growing states in developing middle schools.
The project is the result of a $500,000 grant that AIMS received from the Carnegie Foundation in 1990 to fund middle-school reform in Illinois. Because both Gregory and Hill Middle Schools in Naperville had begun reforming their schools in 1986, they were chosen as model schools for PIML. In addition to refining their own middle-level educational practices, both schools host hundreds of visitors from school districts throughout Illinois and surrounding states who are in the process of reforming their own schools.
”When students come here, while it`s a larger building (than elementary school) with a lot of students, they are identified and (placed) within much smaller teaching situations,” said Michael Pedersen, principal at Hill Middle School.
And that, say middle-level educators, is the whole point of middle-school philosophy.
”If you don`t have interdisciplinary teams, you don`t have a middle school,” said Harold Wolff, principal at Batavia Middle School, also a member of PIML.
”The whole idea of middle school is to group kids together and provide them with a sense of belonging and a set of teachers who get to know them very well.”
At Batavia, 6th- and 7th-grade students are encouraged to take as many exploratory courses as they like. In 8th grade, they can take classes that offer a more in-depth coverage of what they liked in the previous two years.
”Even the academic classes should be exploratory in nature,” Wolff said. ”Teachers need to realize that kids are interested in lots of different things, and that they need to explore and not just memorize facts.”
The middle-school concept also extends to sports. A purist approach calls for no-cut sports, a concept that Hill partially embraces.
”Our goal is to emphasize participation and basic skill development, and we try to have the number of kids out for sports as high as possible,”
Pedersen said. ”But unless it`s a facility constraint or program situation, we don`t cut.”
That philosophy extends to cheerleading as well, where the traditional program has been replaced with a pep club. Students buy T-shirts and take turns leading the cheers.
”Rather than just some, anybody can cheer. And there are fewer broken hearts when cut lists come out,` Pedersen said.
Schools that implement middle-school concepts also look for alternatives to dances, a widely accepted practice in junior high schools. Bergman said a seven-year biological difference exists between the slowest maturing 7th grade boy and the fastest-maturing 7th grade girl, a fact that social experiences in junior high schools don`t consider.
”If a boy can`t even get his own locker open, can you really expect him to interact socially with a girl at a dance?” Bergman said.
While Bergman said it`s okay to offer dancing as an activity, surveys of kids indicate they want something more, including lots of food; something wildly athletic, such as volleyball; a place to sit, talk or play board games; and unobtrusive adults.
Implementing a middle-school program can be costly, and few school districts have money these days. But many Illinois schools have begun transition by reallocating the resources they already have and coming up with creative programming alternatives.
”Lock-step miniature high schools are not working,” Bergman said.
”It`s time to take what is developmentally appropriate for young adolescents and make it work in your own community.”
