K to Great

K to Great

By Andrew D. Deyell

I’ve always loved working in middle schools and being a middle school teacher. Loved it. I have worked at higher education, high school, early childhood, and elementary levels, but my sweet spot is middle school. Most people I know—especially other educators—react to that idea with an expression somewhere between amusement and abject horror. Some find middle school students are hard to like and even harder to engage and educate. Middle schoolers can be unsure of themselves, are often very concrete thinkers, and are easily distracted and distraught by things we might consider unimportant. But they’re also endearingly complex.

And I love the complexity of middle school and the middle school student's mind. Inspiring these students, opening their minds to new ideas, and watching them develop into critical and deep thinkers is exhilarating. You feel like you are helping the students who need it the most. The middle school years are such important years. I think I’ve always known that in a way, but there is an emerging body of research that supports this thinking. More than that, the research points to the K-8 configuration as being the optimal learning environment for middle school students.

Almost all of my 23-plus year career as an independent school teacher and administrator has happened in K-8 schools. And although the research around this configuration affirms my professional choices, I find it is now also affirming the decisions my wife and I have made for our children, who are here with me at EFS.

My son is in fourth grade this year, and as he approaches middle school, I’ve never been more confident in or appreciative of the Pre-K–8 configuration and its benefits. I see those benefits for our middle schoolers every day as I walk the halls.

So I am heartened to know that the research points out that my son, and eventually his first-grade sister, will likely do better academically, socially, and emotionally because of their environment. I am happy to learn that schools with our Pre-K–8 configuration have less bullying than traditional stand-alone middle schools. I am thrilled that my son and daughter will have real leadership opportunities that could not be had if they were attending a middle school absent of younger students or attached to a high school (not to mention not having to worry about growing up too fast among high schoolers).

Instead, I look forward to hearing about how my children and their middle school classmates are helping our early childhood students learn to read and leading field trips with our 3- and 4-year-olds to the zoo. I look forward to watching my children and their classmates mentor new middle school students, leading by example, before graduating ready to take on the unique challenges of high school. And of course, I am also happy to know that by being the older students— the “top dogs”—in a Pre-K–8 environment, my children and their classmates will likely experience improved academic achievement and a better overall learning environment that will help them feel safe and feel like they belong.

Because besides the Pre-K–8 configuration satisfying our children’s basic, yet most important, human needs as students, it meets my and my wife’s needs as parents: the need to know we are doing the best we can for our kids. It’s the ultimate win/win.

For more resources and links to the research referenced in this article, visit www.elmwoodfranklin.org/headlines.

The Big Brother/Big Sister program allows eighth grade students to act as guides and mentors for incoming Upper School students.