Although using standardized assessment to measure performance may be more difficult with this approach to learning, using these techniques teach students to learn and think independently, which many believe is a more important goal for students of this age, rather than meeting standardized proficiencies. This approach may better reflect the unique needs of middle school students who are facing particular intellectual, social, emotional, moral, and developmental challenges (Clark & Clark, 1993). These students are beginning to go through puberty, are beginning to become able to reason abstractly, are facing social and emotional pressures from their peers for the first time and have just begun to develop a sense of self. Advisory programs to accompany individual student research problems can be helpful so that students work one-on-one with teachers and adult mentors, but still advance their academic skill levels. This also shows students that adults are not 'the enemy' which helps them retain a sense of connectedness with adults over the course of their adolescence.
Rather than standardized testing other theorists have also stressed the need for more rigorous certification of middle school teachers in specific subject areas, combined with a team-based approach to learning, so that students can learn to see interdisciplinary connections between math and science, for example, or literature and the arts. Having more than one teacher teach classes solves the problem of striking a balance of a close classroom environment and creating a high school-like atmosphere where different teachers for different subjects (Clark & Clark, 1993). Team teaching is ideal to keep the holistic approach that is characteristic of elementary school and to prepare students for the segmented days of junior and senior high. Varied instruction techniques...
"Part of the challenge of middle school is the breathtaking range of student ability, more pronounced than in elementary schools, where one can only fall so far behind, or high schools, which generally offer tracked classes" (Gootman 2007:2). Although a perfect solution has not been achieved, and the debate rages on as to whether it is more important for students to learn to acquire basic skills in individual subject areas or benefit from more open-ended approaches, at very least a national conversation has begun amongst educators about a recognized need presented by this age group.
Works Cited
Clark, S.N. & Clark, D.C. (1993). Middle level school reform: The rhetoric and the reality. The Elementary School Journal. 93(5): 447-460. Cited by Banks, Ron. (2003). Middle School. Clearing House on Early Education and Parenting. Retrieved 16 Aug 2007 at http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/poptopics/middle.html#2
Friedman, Adam & Richard Hartshorne, & Bob Algozzine (Summer 2005).
Middle Schools Online. Meridian: A Middle School Computer Technologies
Journal. 8 (2):1-6. Retrieved 16 Aug 2007 at http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/sum2005/middle_schools_on_net/index.html
Gootman, Ellen. (17 Mar 2007). For teachers, middle school is a test of wills. The New York Times. Retrieved 16 Aug 2007 at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/education/17middle.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=a041618672b57230&ex=1331784000
