Middle School

Long-tenured Middle School teachers Emily Marston, Judith Parker, and Stephen Bartholomew reflected on the history of the Middle School and what made TPS such a vibrant and engaging experience for both students and teachers.

At first, the Middle School consisted of grades five through eight, but by the early 1980’s it was clear that most fifth graders would enjoy the status of senior members of the Junior Unit. Judith Parker recalls what drew her to teaching at TPS: “I joined the MS team in August 1983. I was eager to be part of a school which looked at students through the prism of their strengths rather than judging them by an abstract standard of what a 6th or 7th or 8th grader should be. I was overjoyed to find that we teachers were able to truly get to know each student as a learner and to teach the curricular material in whatever manner that would reach those individual scholars. Because we had the students for three years, or later for two, we were able to make sure that the curriculum, the way we were teaching, and the projects we assigned would maximize the students’ chances for success and for learning.”

In the mid 2000s, the increased size of the Middle School dictated that a reorganization was needed. Just as the Kindergarten and third grade had done years earlier, the sixth grade now separated into their own classrooms and took on the study of identity using Africa as its focus. Seventh and eighth grades built on this more conceptual approach by considering the concepts of interdependence (how the connections between East and West beginning in the 15th century and continuing to the present provide “seeds of change” for both parties) and cultural change (how the work of creating the United States Constitution created a new social contract).

While the trend in recent years has been to teach and to learn in grade-level grouping, connecting students across grades in Middle School continues to be important. Steve Bartholomew notes that teaching a range of ages was a joy for him: “There was both formal education and a boatload of incidental learning. This came naturally out of the interaction of the learners of all ages. Having students who ranged in age from 12 to 14 in various combinations meant that the best of each age combined in a way that enhanced learning and growth for everyone.” More recently cross-grade collaboration for students and teachers has centered on the introduction of intensives and affinity groups, and the continuation of mini courses, first introduced in 1977. Intensives provide an opportunity for Middle School teachers to offer a course of study interesting to them that may lie outside the regular curriculum. Affinity groups allow both students and teachers to meet regularly in self-designated groups to discuss a wide range of topics of interest to them. Mini courses, which now happen for a week in the spring, give students the opportunity to teach and to apply classroom skills to new material and to discover new interest in the process. They also allow teachers to pursue meaningful tangents to classroom units of study. The role of voice and choice continues to drive a great deal of learning in the Middle School.