Leading+for+Academic+Growth+and+Personal+Development



“Education, particularly in a democracy, has to involve heart as well as head, attitude as well as information, spirit as well as scholarship, and conscience as well as competence.”

– John Lounsbury


 * Leading for Academic Growth and Personal Development **

When I began teaching in 1967 I don’t think I’d even heard the term “middle school.” I had attended a large junior high school in Kansas and assumed what I had experienced was the way it was suppose to be. I didn’t realize starting in the early 1900’s, there had been considerable research and ongoing debates about the effectiveness of the junior high structure nor had I ever heard of a man named William Alexander. Yet in 1963, just four years prior to starting my teaching career, Dr. William Alexander had recommended the development and implementation of a “middle school” specifically designed to address the academic growth and personal development of young adolescents during a speech at Cornell University.

Dr. Alexander’s recommendations resonated not only with the conference attendees but with a much larger audience. Indeed, his speech launched the middle school movement and is why he is considered one of the founders of the middle school movement along with John Lounsbury, Gordon Vars, Conrad Toepfer, and Donald Eichhorn -- each of whom made significant, foundational contributions to this emerging educational reform initiative.

By 1977 I had began learning about Dr. Alexander and the other founding pioneers of middle level education because I became a sixth and seventh grade language arts, social studies, and reading teacher at a Colorado middle school that was striving to implement the tenets of the middle school concept. I was experiencing first-hand what it meant to be part of a school committed to providing educational opportunities that addressed both the academic growth and personal development of each student.

I was given a copy of the original transcript of Dr. Alexander’s speech in 2002 and found myself re-reading it multiple times, drawn to the vision of his recommendations and their continuing impact upon middle schools today. One section in particular caught my attention as he quoted an educational belief statement from the Winnetka Public Schools where he had served as superintendent. In part it said,

“Intellectual growth means much more than an increasing competence in the academic content of the curriculum. We must endeavor to stimulate in the child a love for learning, an attitude of inquiry, a passion for truth and beauty, a questioning mind. The learning of right answers is not enough…beyond answers alone, we must help children ask right questions, and discover their answers through creative thinking, reasoning, judging, and understanding.”

The statement, “**learning the right answers is not enough**” seemed as relevant in 2002 as it was in 1963 and that relevancy continues to today. When you consider the opportunities and challenges of helping young adolescents become healthy, productive, and ethical citizens of the 21st century, you quickly realize that a middle school focused only on //learning the right answers// will never be adequate.

It’s been more than forty-five years since Dr. Alexander first proposed the implementation of a middle school and much has happened. In 1980, the National Middle School Association (NMSA) recognized that no single comprehensive paper had been written to crystallize the recommendations of this emerging middle school educational reform initiative so they appointed a committee to write a position paper and included Dr. Alexander as a member. After a period of much discussion, debates, editing and refinement, the original //This We Believe// was released in 1982 and provided a much-needed common framework.

Since then major foundations, associations, researchers, and practitioners have continued to focus on what the characteristics of the middle school should be and how one goes about the effective implementation of them. Amazingly, when the cumulative body of work is examined, the vast majority of Dr. Alexander’s initial recommendations remain intact, if not yet fully implemented.

Yes, debates continue today regarding the appropriate balance in middle level education between academic growth and personal development. Many mistakenly believe that the middle school concept has focused more on being developmentally responsive (translated more interested in emotional and social development) than being academically rigorous, thereby, missing the critical fact that middle schools have been about academic growth since their very inception. The challenge has been how to best accomplish that academic growth in developmentally appropriate ways for young adolescent students.

Today, many middle level leaders feel genuine pressure to abandon practices they know are developmentally appropriate in order to provide an assumed stronger emphasis on “learning the right answers” for high-stakes tests. However, as Randy Jensen, the 2005 MetLife/NASSP Principal of the Year and former NMSA Board member is quick to point out, “To be truly effective, we must move beyond this either academically challenging or developmentally responsive dilemma and embrace both equally.” (Principal Leadership, Feb 2005, pg. 30 )

In the recently released 4th edition of NMSA’s //This We Believe// recommended characteristics include, among others, the following: organizational structures that foster purposeful learning and meaningful relationships, curriculum that is challenging, integrative, exploratory, and relevant; and every student’s academic and personal development guided by an adult advocate. At the same time NASSP’s //Breaking Ranks in the Middle// nine cornerstone strategies recommend such things as creating dynamic teaching teams, implementing a comprehensive advisory program or other programs that ensures each student has frequent and meaningful opportunities to meet with an adult to plan and assess the student’s academic, personal, and social development; and implementing schedules that are flexible enough to accommodate teaching strategies consistent with the ways students learn.

Can you see why Dr. Alexander had an impact on my middle level career long before I even knew the term middle school existed? So, one might ask, how do schools go about meeting the academic and developmental needs of their students? This concept sounds great, but, what does it look like in action?

Early in my middle school teaching career, I agreed to become the student council sponsor. The former sponsor had moved away and the faculty and administration felt the time might be right to re-visit the purpose of our student council. At the time, our school's student council consisted of an all-school election in the fall which more accurately resembled a student popularity contest. Once elected students held meetings every two weeks where their main concern was planning the social events for the year. By mid-year most were "bored" with the job and interest in student government diminished accordingly.

Clearly, I had an interesting challenge ahead of me. I had just returned from a middle level conference in Arizona where I attended one session about student government that clearly demonstrated these groups had more to offer to a school than arranging its social calendar. I had all sorts of new ideas but realized I'd get nowhere with them unless the students bought into the ideas and felt they were their own. So, I developed a personal action plan to re-invent our school's student council, engaging the students in the decisions every step of the way.

Once the election was complete and our meetings began, I told the new members about my trip to Arizona and the session I had attended. I didn't give all the details of what I learned. Instead, I said I'd heard students share a lot of exciting things about what their student councils were doing and asked if they'd like to hear about them too. When they answered yes (and I had appealed enough to their curiosity they did answer yes), I suggested the best way to accomplish this would be to talk to those students, themselves. With the help of sponsors from two of the schools I'd made contact with at the conference, I set up a conference call with each of the student councils. Each call was approximately 30 minutes in length. After initial introductions, the students told us about their schools and the variety of things they were responsible for doing as student council members. As my students listened, you could see their curiosity increase. They began to ask questions about why and how some of these things were accomplished. After each call we debriefed what we had heard and reflected on how something like that might look at our school. What I hoped would happen did...student-to-student inquiry and discussions sparked new enthusiasm and expectations for our student council to be something more than it currently was.

Together we began to build a shared vision of what could be possible. Within a couple of months, a new student council plan emerged which consisted of three areas of responsibility and leadership opportunities. They included a student ambassador program which was responsible for welcoming visitors to the school and representing the school to the community; a school and community service initiative; and planning of social activities of the school, to include choices beyond dances. The students shared their new ideas with the faculty and administration to gain their support. Then, through advisory groups, the students presented their ideas to the student body highlighting the ways they wanted to expand student involvement and asking for their support. Once everyone was on board, the new plan went into action.

One of the first tasks was to develop a community service initiative to involve as many of the school's students as possible. One of the student council members had severe asthma and recently had attended a special summer camp sponsored by the American Lung Association in Colorado. It was called Champ Camp. She shared how important that opportunity was to her and suggested we do something to raise money for a scholarship to send another middle school student with asthma to the camp. The group agreed and began to develop plans. First of all, a few visited the American Lung Association to learn more about the camp and what a scholarship would cost. They discovered they'd be the first group that ever did anything like this which pleased them even more. Through that visit they learned a lot about asthma and came back suggesting this information should be shared with everyone so they'd understand the importance of this camp and why it was such a special place. That meant another group met with the physical education and health teachers to ask their help. In collaboration with these teachers and the American Lung Association, a new unit of study about the respiratory system was planned and implemented through both health classes and advisory periods so everyone could be involved at the same time.

Finally, the students decided to sponsor a jog-a-thon, giving the entire student body a chance to gather pledges to pay "x" amount of money for each lap run or walked around the track on a Saturday morning. Over 90% of the students got involved and when the event was over the students had raised enough money for 12 scholarships to Champ Camp, exceeding their original goal of one. The day the check was presented the American Lung Association was exciting for everyone. The American Lung Association representatives were truly amazed at what had been accomplished and their genuine admiration and recognition of the students' accomplishment made everyone feel proud. The only request the students made when they presented the check was that the scholarship go to other middle schoolers, if possible. They were assured the need was so great they could easily accommodate that request.

That initial success helped launch a new commitment to providing leadership opportunities for the entire student body. Five years later, the fall student council elections had disappeared and representatives were chosen through advisory groups, twice a year. The Ambassador Program had grown to include over 50% of the student body. The annual community service project always included a curriculum connection and an annual school service project had been added to the plans. And what about the social plans? Well, the school had one dance a year and with greater student input they were also planning open gym nights; roller skating and bowling evenings; and game nights which included playing things like Twister, Pictionary, chess, 4-square and badminton. Student participation in these events reached all-time highs as well.

Most importantly, this experience helped expand our school's commitment to being developmentally responsive to all our students. Curriculum connections in all content areas were reinforced while relevant learning opportunities increased for students. Leadership development expanded to include the entire student body and not just a few. The importance of student voice, creativity, and ownership became a valued part of all we did. It didn't always mean it made things "easier" to do but it helped the learning opportunities and student involvement become more relevant and meaningful for everyone.

Every school has its own examples of how they are developmentally responsive. The most effective schools personalize their opportunities to match the students, faculty, and community in which they live. Steve Pophal, principal of D.C. Everest Junior High in Weston Wisconsin says, " Show me a great school, and I will show you a school that challenges students academically while being developmentally responsive. One without the other is like warm apple pie without ice cream." One example of how they accomplish this is through their commitment to National History Day.

Their school houses 900 eighth and ninth graders. In eighth grade, all students study U.S. History for social studies and are required to complete a research project in their Language Arts class. National History Day serves as a foundation for both. Students are free to select a History Day topic of interest to them. While students will often select topics/historical figures of national prominence, it is common for them to use local topics or members of their own family. Self-selecting topics of study personalizes the project and results in students being intrinsically motivated to complete high quality, demanding work. In addition to selecting a topic, students select one of the National History Day formats to present their topic. These include papers, exhibits, documentaries, performances, and websites. Hence, the stage is set for our middle level boys and girls to complete a rigorous project.

It is noteworthy to mention, all boys and girls in eighth grade complete a project regardless of their disability, ELL status, or any other special challenge to learning they might have. They make the accommodations and modifications necessary for every child to complete a project. In their school, when they say all students are expected to meet rigorous standards, //all// truly means all!

This process culminates in running a local National History Day contest. While all boys and girls complete a project, entry into the competition is optional. However, the majority of students choose to enter. A cadre of community experts judge student projects at the local competition, and the top place finishers qualify to go on to regional competition. Historically, their school has had literally hundreds of boys and girls advance to state and national level National History Day competitions. On the evening of the local competition, family members are invited to school to view student work and attend the awards program where outstanding student work is publicly recognized and competition winners are announced. In the words of Steve Pophal, "Let me assure you, this is an exciting evening at our school. For a principal and faculty, seeing the sense of accomplishment and pride on the faces of our boys and girls and their parents is what makes all our work meaningful. Bring on the warm apple pie **__and__** ice cream!"

While these initial examples start with specific events, the commitment to addressing both academic growth and personal development permeates the entire school curricula as well as instructional and assessment choices of the teachers. At Essex Middle School in Essex, VT the math teachers decided it was time to take a fresh look at their 8th grade delivery model for Algebra I. Algebra I had been available to 8th graders who scored well on several entry tests and did well in math classes. It excluded those, on the other hand, who did not test well. Several under motivated students with poor study habits but were good test takers would gain access to Algebra I while more motivated less adroit test takers did not. Many times the former struggled with the demands of Algebra I while the latter missed an opportunity that with hard work they would have attained.

The math faculty wanted to make algebra available to all 8th grade students but they did not want to put them into a high school style Algebra I course for which they were not ready. There was quite a bit of literature questioning the appropriateness of that approach at the middle school level. After reading the report, The Misplaced Math Student, Lost in Eight-Grade Algebra, written by Tom Loveless, they decided their primary focus would be as Loveless stated in his report, “The goal must not be for students to take an algebra course by eighth grade; it must be for more students to learn algebra.” (Loveless)

With this as the over-riding purpose the faculty determined the following goals : (1) allow all students access to an Algebra I course that if completed successfully allowed them to accelerate to Geometry their freshman year, (2) not segregate algebra students from the other math students by placing them in a separate class each day, (3) bring more authentic algebra into the regular 8th grade curriculum as recommended by The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (Flawn), (4) put greater emphasis on effort and less on inherent talent, (5) use the 8th grade Connected Math Program being taught in regular math classrooms as a launching pad to teach the additional algebra concepts and skills required in a high school level Algebra I class.

Once these goals were determined, the staff began to search for a developmentally appropriate delivery model for their students. After many meetings and school visits, the faculty decided to recommend a Seminar Model to the administration. Decisions were made as to which Algebra I strands would be taught through the 8th grade Connected Math Program and which would be taught in bi-weekly seminars. Course syllabus as well as the seminar format and schedules were developed and a final proposal was submitted for approval. Once approval was gained an introductory seminar was held for all students interested in taking the Algebra I Seminar explaining the expectations, format, requirements and a contract, required for participation was distributed.

No student was forced out of the seminar program. Most decided it was not their cup of tea on their own. Others were spoken to by a math teacher to determine if seminar was really in their best interests. Two major reasons for not continuing were students felt not ready to accelerate or that they were not ready or willing to deal with the additional work load. During this stage there were some parent concerns. Some felt that the new model had deterred some capable students from taking Algebra I. The principal, Ned Kirsch, conducted a parent meeting and fears seemed to be quelled. It was obvious Essex Middle School was sincere in creating a fair opportunity and that no one had been forced out.

There were lessons to be learned by everyone as the seminar model was implemented. It became apparent that success in the seminar model required not only capable math learners but independent learners as well. Since the teacher would not always be readily available to answer all questions the seminar curriculum had to include the teaching of independent learning skills such as reading the text pertaining to the problems, finding similar examples to the ones they were struggling with, looking up the answer to see how they might solve the problem once they knew the answer, or asking a fellow student how they solved the problem. Additionally, a rigid standard requiring all work to be shown, graphs done neatly and completely and format maintained consistently was instituted. A seminar web-site was developed to support students and their parents in a variety of ways by posting such things as assignments, extra practice problems with answers and solutions, seminar schedules, practice tests, and electronic progress reports.

As Laurence Laush, one of Essex Middle School’s math teachers says, ” I feel we are close to accomplishing our goals, and I feel very optimistic about sending very competent students to the high school ready to climb the next rung in the accelerated math ladder. I also see an unanticipated by product of the seminar. It has worked as a kind of professional development workshop for all the math teaching staff. We have had to coordinate, plan and develop instruction together and in so doing elevated our game. When teachers are able to share knowledge, techniques and watch each other instruct, they improve in the same way athletes improve more practicing with a team and a coach. In short, not just the students are benefitting from the seminar model; we teachers are also gaining much professionally.”  We asked teachers and principals to share ways they addressed the academic growth and personal development needs of their students at their schools and the shared the following ideas and examples.

Academically Challenging:

• I consistently recognize efforts of teachers who incorporate rigorous activities for their students while remaining conscious in developing meaningful and appropriate relationships with their students. I complete daily informal observations, followed by short, but meaningful, notes of recognition and appreciation for the teacher’s work.

• I ask teachers to share promising practices with their colleagues at faculty meeting and during building in-service time.

• All our teachers have learned to use literacy strategies that engage students in higher order thinking. We also use AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) to create a culture of college readiness.

• At the beginning of the year, each team reviews the schools of students who are under achieving to determine what interventions should be in place to assist them. Teams also use a protocol to review student work and agree on common strategies to consistently address areas needing improvement. We make sure we use both formative and summative assessment results to make instructional decisions.

• We have created a culture where data is a part of our daily lives. The entire staff is involved in a review process at the start of each year designed to reflect on last year’s progress – based on a variety of data sources. From that we build new plans for the current and future years.

• When scheduling, we look carefully at each student as an individual and encourage ever student to take at least one honors or high school credited course prior to the end of 8th grade.

• I make sure that my teachers have access to student data in a user friendly format that they can use to inform their instruction.

• A school that exudes high expectations for all is one that creates a culture in which academic excellence is supported and rewarded. The vision of our school is based on the belief that every student has the right to learn and every teacher has the right to teach. Student performance is rewarded, academic achievement is actively promoted and strong partnerships are built among administrators, teachers, staff, parents, the community and local businesses.

• Constant vigilance that teachers are using practices that support what we now works, constant professional development for both new and veteran staff, and being a strong voice in the school community advocating for continued support.

• Our administrative team modeled what we believe our teacher teams should do – we looked at data that was both teacher centered and student centered and opened up conversations across grade levels.

• I use formative assessment data continually in my classroom. Data from district/state testing is used but has much less impact on my day-to-day work with students. My classroom environment is one in which each student is seen as an individual and anything that helps me understand each student is useful as it helps build a picture of the student’s needs and strengths.

Personal Development:

• When hiring we ask -- Why middle school? What can you tell me about the unique characteristics of young adolescents? What do you remember about your middle school experience that will help you become a more compassionate teacher? What do you find puzzling about the way in which middle school students learn?

• During an interview – if they talk about what THEY did… ho hum….if they talk about what the STUDENTS did, you’ve got a gem!

• All programs are measured against that which we know about the needs of young adolescents. Obtaining that understanding is an on-going process. We continue to learn more and more and need to adapt accordingly.

• I make sure that all staff members understand the needs of early adolescents through staff development. Teachers, aides, office staff, cafeteria workers, custodians, and bus drivers all receive this training in successful practices for working with middle school students.

• Advisory teachers looped with the students so every child has an advocate in the building that knows them well through all their middle school years.

• Constant review of practices and policies is the key to building an infra-structure that best meets the needs of the young adolescent learner.

• Each person providing services must have the skills and knowledge concerning adolescent development. The adults in the learning community – which includes bus drivers, cafeteria works and custodians - have an influence over each adolescent. Therefore, we must be solid role models and understand how we need to interact with the adolescent in order to leave that positive memory.

• The idea that we are here for students who are undergoing major changes in development is always at the forefront. As a school we are structured in small learning communities and all teachers are either middle level certified or hold dual certification.