The reading in AMLE this week focused on the type of school community that a "developmentally responsive" middle school should have. This includes involving families and the wider community, being advocates for students, and fostering an egalitarian social climate that is safe and supportive.
The phrase "developmentally responsive" really resonated with me as I was reading. I think this best sums up the main goal for any middle school administrator to have: they want to be able to best meet their unique students' needs, and this can only truly be done if the school environment is developmentally responsive. That means that the teachers are well-versed in the emotional needs and developmental milestones and characteristics of a middle school student, as well as the administrators. I believe a lot of the aspects of an outstanding middle school come down to this idea.
The book also emphasized the importance of teachers being advisors to students, and that each student should have at least one adult who they can come to for support. This, to me, makes teaching at the middle school especially unique. As the text further points out, "... every adult in developmentally responsive middle schools serves as an advocate, advisor, and mentor." (AMLE, 35). This is a serious responsibility, and it shows that all teachers need to be well-versed in the developmental needs of their students at this age, because they will be better able to fill these roles if they are.
The text also talked about how advisory periods should be used, which made me recall my own experience with advisory or "homeroom" in middle school. Everyone had homeroom at the very beginning of the day, before actual class periods started. From what I remember, this time was not utilized in the ways the book points out - to literally advise students - and indeed, it seemed the only reason we had homeroom was to take attendance and to be grouped into special activities. The same was true once I got to high school. It makes me wonder if more middle schools are now using this time in the way that these best practices reccommend. It will also be interesting to see how my first student teaching placement, a middle school, makes use of advisory or homeroom classes.
Hi Melissa!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that the phrase “developmentally responsive” best sums up the main goal of middle school administration. I got to see this in my placement for the fall semester. Today I went in for the institute day to meet with my cooperating teacher and learn more about the school. One of the first things one of the other teachers told me was to not assume anything and used the example of students not knowing how to line up at the door. She knew they had trouble with this and adjusted accordingly. I completely agree with you that homeroom should be used for advising. My experience was the same in that all we did was take attendance and hang out before our first class officially started. We also had something called “connection” at my middle school. Contrary to what it sounds like, it was not a chance to connect and get advice, we just talked about bullying and did a few related projects.