Elimination of middle schools in NYC

[Taualumna]

I hate to bring this up over and over again, but there are drug, alcohol and sex issues in private schools as well. However, the 7-12 system seems to work there (and these are schools that are in urban areas, including Manhattan).

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by Taualumna
I hate to bring this up over and over again, but there are drug, alcohol and sex issues in private schools as well. However, the 7-12 system seems to work there (and these are schools that are in urban areas, including Manhattan).

However most private schools tend to be much smaller than the larger public schools where the atmosphere is much different. This isn't universally true but it's true in 95 percent of the cases . . . and I have never seen 7-12 work as well as 6-8/9-12 (or 7-9/10-12) in larger schools.

In smaller schools, whether it's because they're private or because they're rural or both, tend to have a big "everybody knows everybody" atmosphere that bigger schools don't have. This will tend to speed up the exposure to sex/drugs regardless of whether or not the middle and high school are separated -- and it makes the transition much less intimidating when you're going from a school where you already know everyone to another school where you know most of the people there. Smaller schools also have the advantage of students developing closer relationships with teachers/coaches/whatever -- for example, one of my friends that went to a small private school had one Spanish teacher for all four years of high school whereas I had four.

At larger schools and especially larger public city schools the transition to high school can be very intimidating for a number of reasons beyond just the sex & drugs factor. Trust me that had I gone from an elementary school-like atmosphere straight to atmosphere like the one at my high school, I would have probably dropped out of school. It's just too much of a jump. At smaller schools it is much different.

[Cluey]

I think the point that is being missed is the difference in students in middle grades. They're stuck at an in-between age and learn completely differently. They want their teachers to love them, but they also want so desperately to grow up. It is because of all of these intangibles that the middle school theory was developed.

I think about middle school as a bridge between elementary and high school. For some students, it is their first time learning to juggle different subjects with several different teachers with different teaching styles.

Will you turn out to be a three-headed monster if you are not in a middle school? No, I don't think anyone is saying that. But, if you have the opportunity to make the transistion from elementary school to high school a little easier, why not do it? I think that sometimes we get so caught up with the idea that the way we grew up was great that we lose focus that there is always room for improvement.

If you want more information on the middle school concept, read one of the many books by Paul George. He's been on the cutting edge of middle school since the 1980s.

[ZTAMich]

Originally posted by FeeFee
Which school do you teach here in NYC? You can PM me. Depending on the school, I may have some questions for you.

I PMed you.

[dzsaigirl]

I teach in a K-6 school which was a K-5 school last year. I can now say that I feel strongly that it should be K-5, 6-8, 9-12. 6th graders do not belong in the same building with the younger kids. At the same time, 9th graders do not belong with the 6-8th graders either! I completely agree with the middle school/intermediate concept, not the jr. high concept.


where I went to school, they just decided to house 5th grades separately from all other grades...that is effed up

[Taualumna]

Some systems actually start high school in what many of us may consider "non standard" high school grades (9-12 or 10-12). In BC, Canada, elementary school is K-7 and high school is 8-12. But I guess things are different if one is raised from a very young age knowing that.

[Eirene_DGP]

Originally posted by sugar and spice


-Drugs and alcohol were MUCH more prevalent. In middle school I only knew one person who admitted to smoking pot. By the time I was in ninth grade, I knew a number of people who smoked up daily. Ditto alcohol -- almost none of the popular crowd drank in middle school, but by halfway through ninth grade almost all of them had tried it, and many of them drank regularly. A lot of that had to do with availability -- they might have smoked or drank more in middle school if they had had the access to it, but they didn't. If the school had been 7-12 it would have been much easier for them to acquire what they wanted. Like AGDee said, kids at 7-12 schools tend to start earlier on things like that.
- Sex was also much more prevalent. In middle school there was very little pressure but once you got to high school there was the knowledge that some of your 15-, 16-, 17-year-old friends and classmates were having sex and it became a much bigger issue. By high school EVERYTHING was about sex. Basically the same thing as the drug issue.
- High school teachers taught VERY differently than middle school teachers. Middle school teachers were pretty much just a couple steps above elementary school teachers. Most of my high school teachers basically treated us as if we were grown up. I can remember my first day of freshman biology and being shocked when my instructor swore in the middle of his lecture.
- In general the atmosphere was just much more INTENSE than middle school, academically, socially, culturally, everything. I would not have been prepared for it in seventh grade -- but I loved it and thrived in it in ninth.

Also being in the education field, I agree with Sugar and Spice and some others. With the way society is going, I seriously doubt 6-8th graders need to be grouped with highschoolers. I remember when I was in high school, there were several male seniors who preyed on freshmen girls because they knew they wanted to be popular and accepted. I think students need to be kept in an age group that is conducive to their particular developmental stage.

Originally posted by sugar and spice
But you went to a fairly small and rural school, right? Which I think poses a much different, and easier, transition than larger suburban/urban schools.

Here's some stuff at my school:

I guess I can see that. My school was very small (and rural) ... about 400 kids total from 7-12.

Most of the things you listed (drugs, sex, etc) weren't factors even in our high school. Very very very few kids drank, and from what I could tell... not many of them were sexually active, either. I can tell I'm going to be in for a huge shock when my child starts school... I grew up in education Utopia, and it's hard for me to think that there are places where 15 year olds drink and have sex

As far as the culture... I don't know, I guess I didn't really notice the difference in teaching styles, but I don't know if that means they treated us like adults in em. school or like little kids in high school... it was just somethng that never crossed my mind.

Is there really that much difference between a 12 year old (7th grader) and 14 year old (9th grader), though? I guess where I'm getting lost is the big emotional difference between the two...

[Lady Pi Phi]

I knew practically half the people in my class when I went to highschool. There were only 3 schools in our catchment area so I went to highschool with almost everyone from my grade 8 class.
I didn't find it a big adjustment and I knew people in higher grades because I knew them from my public school.

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by Ginger

Is there really that much difference between a 12 year old (7th grader) and 14 year old (9th grader), though? I guess where I'm getting lost is the big emotional difference between the two...

At my school, there was a LOT of emotional difference between the average 12-year-old and the average 14-year-old. People tend to forget how much kids change from year to year -- especially during the middle school years. A 12-year-old might easily be prepubescent and playing with Barbies, but two years later she's got hips and breasts, has started smoking and is spending her after-school time making out in the back of some 17-year-old's car.

I don't think that means that every student who goes to a 7-12 school is going to turn out badly, obviously, but like Cluey said -- it's a lot easier for most middle schoolers to have their own environment at that age and if we can help them with that, why not?

[Rudey]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
A 12-year-old might easily be prepubescent and playing with Barbies, but two years later she's got hips and breasts, has started smoking and is spending her after-school time making out in the back of some 17-year-old's car.

Didn't you say you were making out with a 24 year old in the back of his car when you were 12?

-Rudey

[sugar and spice]

He was 34, actually.

And it wasn't a car, it was a pickup truck.

[Tom Earp]

Oh Jeeze! 1 st school, 2 nd School, 3 rd School! Damn Kids!

Went to two schools, K-7, 8 th - 12 th!

WoW now, my question is, do The Teachers Not Know Enuff to Teach?

Are they becoming specialized like Doctors? Or for that fact any and everyone else! Cant Do S**T!

Hell, and the poorer countries wonder what is wrong with the USA?


Go back to beating Kids Asses for not minding!

[mullet81]

Originally posted by Tom Earp
Oh Jeeze! 1 st school, 2 nd School, 3 rd School! Damn Kids!

Went to two schools, K-7, 8 th - 12 th!

WoW now, my question is, do The Teachers Not Know Enuff to Teach?

Are they becoming specialized like Doctors? Or for that fact any and everyone else! Cant Do S**T!

Hell, and the poorer countries wonder what is wrong with the USA?


Go back to beating Kids Asses for not minding!

I don't know Tom... I think it's a GOOD thing that teachers are being more specialized to the age group theyre teaching. Most education programs offer specialization in:

elementary
middle school/jr high
secondary

It's b/c all kids don't learn the same way and at different ages they especially learn differently.

[ZTAMich]

Originally posted by Tom Earp
Oh Jeeze! 1 st school, 2 nd School, 3 rd School! Damn Kids!

Went to two schools, K-7, 8 th - 12 th!

WoW now, my question is, do The Teachers Not Know Enuff to Teach?

Are they becoming specialized like Doctors? Or for that fact any and everyone else! Cant Do S**T!

Hell, and the poorer countries wonder what is wrong with the USA?


Go back to beating Kids Asses for not minding!

The more the year goes on the more I feel very unqualified and unsupported @ my job here for NYC's Board of Ed. My graduate work in K-6 is a JOKE. It's part of a city run program I'm in for teachers but I feel very unprepared & unsupported. I think content wise many of my fellow new NYC teachers KNOW what it is we need to teach. But the problem as I see it lies in the way we are told we have to teach it in accordance with the curriculum guides and lesson formats here for the city. City teachers feel very micro-managed by our immediate supervisors and above.

And don't even get me started on what we should do to the kids who don't behave...that seems to be a whole nother thread!