Quality Middle Grades Foster Relationships
Even though relationships are a thorny issue at all stages of human development, more careful consideration is required in middle grades schools where hormones, gawky physical growth, and a need for peer bonding replaces an earlier reliance on adults. In addition to the students’ unique developmental stage, there is the complexity of overlapping layers of relationships within the school. For example, there are groups of teachers (leadership teams, professional learning communities by grade level and by subject, and friendships), small learning communities for students, peer groups, clubs, and sports teams. To be successful, all these groupings and teams need explicit norms, objectives, training, and facilitation to achieve their goals, resolve conflicts, and ensure effective communication.
In the Spotlight
Mistletoe School—Built on a Foundation of Close Relationships
Mistletoe School is a K–8 school located in Redding, California of Shasta County. Mistletoe prides itself on creating a family atmosphere that goes beyond just serving the intellectual needs of the child. The school provides a personalized environment that supports students’ ethical, social, and physical development as well. Each student connects with a homeroom teacher as a primary mentor/advisor to enhance and develop a sense of community pride and character. However, the trust and relationships built among students extends beyond the homeroom into their electives, extra-curricular activities, support systems, and sense of family.
The campus is physically divided into grade-level sections or pods which encourage collaborative relationships among adults and children. Primary and intermediate teachers foster relationships with middle grades students through a variety of contacts, including:
- Coaching sports teams and activities.
- Offering clubs such as the Cinco de Mayo group.
- Supporting activities and development of students through the Associate Student Body and Student Leadership teams.
- Connecting middle grades students to younger students through the Reading Buddies program.
Mistletoe’s small learning communities are built on a solid foundation of 16 common character traits that define the stable, close, and respectful relationships the school staff enjoys with students and families.
Relationships are critical to learning. More and more research data suggest that students will have greater academic achievement in schools which foster caring relationships and prevent factors that create risk. Researcher William Daggett emphasizes the importance of relationships when talking about increasing rigorous and relevant learning:
Most successful schools have created learning environments that are not only rigorous and relevant, but also safe, secure, engaging, and caring for staff and students. Leaders in these schools know that humans are social creatures and that socialization based on strong relationships – between and among students, among students and staff, and with the larger community outside the school – are critical to optimizing growth for every individual. Socialization is also critical in language development, in the sharing and interchanges of ideas, and in fostering creativity. Socialization matters, whether a part of everyday classroom learning or in the more subtle but critical learning that takes place elsewhere in the school, whether in arts and music programs, clubs, extracurricular activities, or through coaching and mentoring. Ensuring that every student feels cared about, valued, and respected by the adults in the school is key.1
In Schools That Develop Children, James Comer, M.D., cites examples of exemplary schools:
. . . schools must create the conditions that make good development and learning possible: positive and powerful social and academic interactions between students and staff. When this happens, students gain social and academic competence, confidence, and comfort. Also, when parents and their social networks value school success and school experiences are positive and powerful, students are likely to acquire an internal desire to be successful in school and in life, and to gain and express the skills and behavior necessary to do so.2
In the Spotlight
San Lorenzo Valley Middle School—Where every student is connected to a caring person on campus
Knowing how vulnerable middle grades students are and how caring relationships can support their resiliency, the principal of San Lorenzo Valley Middle School wondered if each student in the school had a meaningful connection with at least one staff member. To find out the answer, the principal put a list of all the students’ names on the wall of the faculty room and asked the staff to place a dot next to any student’s name with whom they knew well. For example, they had conversations with the student and learned of his or her interests, friends, families, what they did over the weekend, or other nonschool-related activities. The students with no dots next to their names were then “adopted” by staff members so those students would know that someone on campus cared about them.
Connecting with Kids (WMV; 5:06) | MOV shares more information on the No Dot Program.
Rio Norte Junior High—Where team meetings focus on relationships
A strategy used by some middle grades schools is to form interdisciplinary learning communities. At Rio Norte Junior High, team members plan time at each regularly scheduled team meeting to discuss students' needs and strengths.
They understand that teachers are more influential when they take time to get to know each student. With teaming, students feel a part of a family. Through teaming, teachers are able to personalize learning strategies because each teacher brings a different perspective of the student. The outcome of teaming is looking at the whole child where the socio-emotional aspect becomes as important as the academic.
Making Connections (WMV; 5:19) | MOV shares more information on relationships building through teaming.
In developmentally responsive middle grades schools, educators go out of their way to help students handle new pressures, including new perceptions of gender, changing roles in their communities, and the conflicting messages they receive through popular culture. Successful middle grades educators make sure students feel that they belong.3
Research also demonstrates the negative consequences that emerge from a lack of positive relationships such as isolation, cliques, and gangs. “In addition to low grades, lack of motivation, relationships with deviant peers, and social alienation from school-based peer networks during grades eight and nine all independently contributed to the risk of dropping out among students.4
More recent research supports correlations between caring relationships and graduating from high school on time. While there is a variety of reasons for dropping out, students often suggest that having smaller classes or small schools would have helped. Both of these really have to do with building relationships and connections to school. 5
Successful middle grades schools, as those in the Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage model school program, foster relationships among students and between students and teachers. The Schools to Watch™ criteria under “Developmental Responsiveness” and “Social Equity,” delineate specific practices that support young adolescents’ need for a personalized environment. Based on some of the Schools to Watch™ criteria, below are some specific examples schools provide students:
- Design fun or engaging standards-based activities (drama, skits, mathematics games).
- Allow students to work in small groups on projects and provide them with specified tasks and norms.
- Deliberately include newcomer students and loners into leadership and interest groups.
- Create several focus groups of students – from a broad representative spectrum of students in the schools to examine and explore their ideas on how to improve adult-student relationships. Take the students’ recommendations to heart and act on them.
- Create a school climate task force consisting of students, teachers, and other adults in the schools who continually assess the quality of the school environment.
- Establish rewards or recognition for positive behaviors.
- Make one-to-one time with students—check in!
- Make personal contact with students every day by doing something as simple as saying hello or giving a smile.
- Pay attention and actively listen to students.
- Learn the names of students and their life context.
- Be available to students by having an open-door policy where students feel comfortable dropping in if they need help or just want to talk.
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Footnotes
1 Daggett, Willard R. and Paul David Nussbaum. How Brain Research Relates to Rigor, Relevance and Relationships (PDF; Outside Source), October 2007.
2 James P. Comer, Schools That Develop Children (Outside Source), The American Prospect , Vol. 12, Issue 7, April 23, 2001.
3 Rick Wormeli, Moving Up to the Middle (Outside Source), Educational Leadership, Vol. 68, April 2011.
4 Jaana Juvonen, Vi-Nhuan Le, Tessa Kaganoff, Catherine Augustine, and Louay Constant, Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American Middle School (PDF; Outside Source). Arlington, Va.: Prepared by the Rand Corporation for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 2004, 48
5 Baenen. Nancy, ed. Best Practices to Promote High School Graduation. Research Watch. E&R Report No. 8.15, January 2009.