​
JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION
  • Lexplore
  • Who is Janine?
  • The Today Show
  • Interviews
  • Peak Learning Time
  • Contact

Now we see it.

2/1/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Throughout my years in educational leadership I have heard fellow educators sigh over and over about middle school. They frequently talk about the problems at this age and the lack of performance of students in middle schools. More times than I can count, someone will say, "if we could just get our middle schools right." Recently I was talking to some school board members who were contemplating changing their schools to a K-8 system to eliminate middle schools. They believed that somehow these kids would magically become more equipped for the academic demands of grades 6-8 if they could be kept in a building with younger students. While there is some research to indicate that students may behave a little better if they are role models for little guys in their school, I advised them that reconfiguration would not solve their problem.

Middle school is when the failings of our educational system become most visible. This is when we see the results of students who have not developed reading and math skills. This is when executive functioning becomes so important. Students who have not learned to manage themselves independently begin to become a real problem. If we have engaged in grade retention to solve instructional issues we can now see huge gaps in maturity. Boys and girls in sixth and seventh grade who have been retained once or twice will look a decade older than their peers who are still not teenagers. 

Yet many still insist that we have a middle school problem. I don't agree. If a school district is struggling with a middle school population, they are simply seeing what did not happen in earlier grades. Kids who haven't learned to read and haven't learned to function in elementary school will transform into behavioral problems in middle school. The problems occurred so much earlier. It just takes that long for us to see them.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Janine Walker Caffrey writes about reading, education and a few other topics related to happiness and life in general.

    Archives

    June 2016
    May 2016
    November 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    September 2013
    May 2012
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009

    Categories

    All
    Achievement Gap
    Adult Learning
    Arts
    Civil Rights
    Common Core
    Differentiation
    Discipline
    Federal Aid
    Grand Parenting
    Happiness
    Lead By Example
    Length Of School Year
    Middle School
    Parent Engagement
    Parenting
    Personalized Learning
    Phonemic Awareness
    Phonics
    Reading
    Reading Horizons
    School Finance
    School Reform
    School Spending
    Social Justice
    Special Education
    Student Engagement
    Summer Slide
    Suspension
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tiger Mom
    Title IX
    Traffic Light

    RSS Feed