THE MARVELLOUS, MADDENING, MAGICAL MIDDLE.
Over many years of teaching, I have witnessed the profound effect of young adolescents on the adults in their lives! For parents, the disappearance -sometimes overnight it seems- of their lovely children and their replacement by argumentative, non-compliant, temperamental, and unpredictable adolescents, comes as a great shock and brings turbulent times to happy homes!
For inexperienced teachers (and some experienced ones imported from other age-groups), teaching becomes intolerable, as the aforementioned characteristics lead to disputes, inexplicable outbursts, frequent displays of euphoria, angst, and sullen silence. Tears, too, can flow!
Unlike parents, of course, teachers can leave!
But there are those teachers who not only stay but clamour to ride the bucking bronco of middle years teaching! They just love it, and the kids love them. Wise schools search for them, hire them, and when they have them, keep them! So, what is it about these marvels of the middle that makes them succeed where others flee?
They all possess three essential attributes:
a genuine liking of challenging students
a deep understanding of the cognitive changes taking place as they grow
an equally deep understanding of the physical and social changes in play
A genuine liking of such students is usually found in those teachers who remember well their own adolescence, the teachers who reached them then, and the attributes of those memorable souls. They remember the teachers who truly cared about them as individuals -those who set high expectations and went the extra mile very often to help them reach those expected heights.
Now they are teachers themselves, their memories prove a great help!
These teachers understand that peers and social life affect learning, so they create collaborative situations as often as possible; they know that their students will generally prefer to work together, not in isolation; they know that students need time to be active, to move frequently, so they plan learning tasks that require these things; they also know that students need clarity and consistency from them through calm direction and constant support. But this is far from the whole story!
These teachers also need a deep understanding of the cognitive changes occurring in the developing brain, even though it develops more slowly at this stage. These are a growing ability to understand abstract ideas and symbolic concepts, and the processes that use them. These processes involve exploring real-life problems and venturing to solve them; wishing to pursue things that they feel are useful; having the freedom to show their independence by resisting adult control; beginning to think critically; focusing on themselves and their standing with their peers.
Collaboration, real-world issues, solving problems, understanding self and others, and critical thinking, are all central features of the Paideia program that is central to our Middle Years Program. A key process in the Program is the Socratic Seminar, well explained as follows:
Socratic seminars are named for their embodiment of Socrates’ belief in the power of asking questions, prize inquiry over information and discussion over debate
Socratic seminars acknowledge the highly social nature of learning and align with the work of John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Paulo Friere.
Elfie Israel succinctly defines Socratic seminars and implies their rich benefits for students:
The Socratic seminar is a formal discussion, based on a text, in which the leader asks open-ended questions
Within the context of the discussion, students listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate their own thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others
They learn to work cooperatively and to question intelligently and civilly.
“ Examining Multiple Perspectives in Literature.”
The Westside School Middle Years Program (MYP) is rich in engagement, collaborative learning and thinking; it prepares students admirably for pre-university studies, where the value of learning how to learn will stand them in fine stead. Socrates would approve!