Lessons Learned in the Middle: So Great, It Deserves a Double-Posting

Tom Saunders is the principal of Wild Lake Middle School in Howard County, Maryland. His blog, Lessons Learned in the Middle (link below), paints a picture of a school that is in excellent compliance with “This We Believe”. He mentions that he is a member of the NMSA, so I would imagine that he is familiar with the document. I think he must have given it a lot of weight in his school leadership style, because in reading his blog, I have found instance after instance of the 16 Characteristics that seem to be present in his school.

For example, his May 16^th, 2011 entry, entitled “Middle School Readiness for Our Changing Middle Schools”, demonstrates the essential attribute of developmental responsiveness. Mr. Saunders understands that preadolescents are at a unique period in their development, and is concerned with making the transition from elementary school to middle school a smooth one. This is also a concern of mine, as I teach 5^th grade; in our district, that is the first grade in middle school. The first 9 weeks of 5^th grade is always the hardest for us, as our students try to use the same behaviors they did in elementary school with no success. Their primary struggle is in the heightened expectation of self-organization; each team at my school has about 70 students assigned to it, and I simply do not have the time or resources to make sure every student is organized and doing their homework on time and bringing all of their papers home each night. As they fail to complete homework or get crucial papers signed (which their elementary teacher would have hand-placed in their folder and then called their parents about after school), they experience frustration. Mr. Saunders, it seems, participated in a panel discussion at a professional conference and details a list of things that school leaders, teachers, and parents can do to support the students at this age in their transition.

I am struck throughout the whole blog by his tone of respect for his students' abilities and accomplishments. He really seems to value his students and engage them in active learning, which are two characteristics of successful curriculum, instruction, and assessment in “This We Believe”. He brags on his 8^th graders for walking in a Cystic Fibrosis walkathon-a condition that one of the students suffers from. This is also an example of creating a safe and inclusive school environment, characteristic number 1 in the Culture and Community section of “This We Believe”. (Hereafter TWB). He also describes an instance of active, hands-on learning that seems challenging, exploratory, and relevant (both characteristics in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in TWB) in which his seventh graders participated in an environmental trip to explore their local flora and fauna. Incidentally, this also involved parents and a community partnership with the Howard County Conservancy program; involving parents and the community are also characteristics outlined in TWB.

I am still reading through all of the wonderful blog entries in Lessons Learned in the Middle. It seems to be a good mix of more general educational concerns (he reviews Diane Ravitch's book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” in his June 3^rd post) and specific examples of essential TWB prinicples at work in his own school that I, personally, found very inspiring. I used to be a substitute teacher, and as a result, there is now no amount of money that you could pay me to teach seventh or eighth grades. But Mr. Saunders clearly encapsulates the TWB characteristic of valuing young adolescents, and is more than prepared to teach them. I highly recommend this blog!

http://lessonslearnedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/