Preparing the Environment for Middle School Students

Involving Every Adult in the School

By Peter Lorain, Retired high school teacher and middle school principal, Beaverton, Oregon

Physical, social, and emotional changes consume much of the energy and concentration of middle school students, which can greatly impact what they learn. Their changes also can affect the teacher and can really impact a lesson. 

Imagine this scenario. You're the teacher. You've carefully planned a lesson -- which you have introduced and taught in carefully constructed segments -- and you are about to present it in a way that will crystallize all the concepts in a wonderful, magical way. Just as you are about to begin the lesson, one of the girls starts her first menstrual cycle and rushes from the room without explanation. One or more of the boys experiences the sudden feeling of hormonal secretions and becomes uncomfortable with the result. Where are the coping and learning priorities for these students? How can you help them? What are your coping and teaching priorities?

What Do You Do?
The short answer is that you prepare the environment long before the students walk through the door. Then you rely on and support the well-planned environment that every adult in the school has helped create -- a place that meets the needs of young adolescents.

Preparing a suitable environment for middle school students is critical. Every adult in the school must help lay the foundation. When you have the following elements in place, you will be able to provide support for adolescent students in these unpredictable times in their lives.

• Hire teachers who know the age group.The effective middle school teacher has middle school training and is aware of and sensitive to the developmental changes in young adolescents -- critical for every teacher who wants to work successfully with this age group. Even a teacher who is waiting for or has been assigned from a high school should have a background in young adolescent developmental issues.

• Staff the school with caring adults that students can talk to. Every student needs to have one adult that he or she trusts, can talk to about any thoughts and concerns, and turn to for advice. This adult could be the homeroom or advisory teacher, a counselor, an administrator, a favorite teacher, or a caring secretary.  

A young man who was concerned about the unpredictability and frequency of his erections in class talked with the vice principal.  Just having someone to share such personal thoughts with was invaluable to this student.

A girl rushed from the class of one of her favorite teachers.  After school she was able to confide that it was her first experience with menstruation.

• Structure the school to provide small learning environments. An effective middle school creates small, intimate learning environments using teams and team planning and sharing. In these smaller environments, teachers know students well enough to interpret behavior that is part of a pattern or is atypical. A student won't go to the board to do a math problem? Is this typical or might there be another reason? What is it?

• Communicate with other staff members regularly. Talking about and asking questions about student behavior is an essential element of team time.  Remember that every student ideally has one adult with whom he or she can talk. Teachers sharing information about student concerns (sensitively and confidentially) is one way all school staff can work with all students and capitalize on the relationship between a student and a staff member. Administrators, counselors, secretaries, and teachers' aides also can provide information and support the classroom teacher.

The vice principal talked with the team working with the young man about his concerns and developmental manifestations.  The teacher explained to her team that the girl was going through physical changes that might affect what was previously exemplary behavior.    

Some Little Things That Count
Middle school students experience any number of distractions that affect what they learn. A wise teacher knows this and develops lessons and strategies that take advantage of these changes. Effective middle school teachers know that young adolescents are growing, which sometimes causes real physical discomfort, so they structure the class around periodic movement and activity and limit those times when all students must sit quietly. When they have prepared a wonderful lesson only to have one or two students uncharacteristically become distracted or leave the room, they know they need to find out why. And depending on what they find out, teachers know they need to be flexible and ready to present the lesson in another way, at another time, either for the whole class or in a make-up session with a few students.

It is important for anyone who works with young adolescents to know that they experience tremendous, rapid physical change in their bodies. They have to cope with those changes, and they do the best they can with the information and understanding they have. So do we. 

Reference

MacWilliams, Carol. "Why Middle School? Supporting the Young Adolescent." Materials presented at the annual meeting of the Middle Years Association of British Columbia. April 2000.

Related Links

» National Middle School Association -- Information and resources regarding middle schools.

» Middle School Diaries -- Diaries by a six-year teacher, a first-year teacher, a technology coach, and a principal.

» Middle Web -- Issues in middle school reform.

----------------
Pete Lorain, author of articles on middle schooling and other education issues, currently works under private contract. Prior to retirement, he served as a high school teacher, counselor, and administrator; middle school principal and director at the district level; director of human resources; and president of National Middle School Association from 1996 to 1997.