A new middle school after redesign

The SMIC-I middle school underwent a major redesign in the new academic year. This transformation encompassed changes in both teaching and organizational techniques. It was conceived with the aim to provide middle school students with the appropriate support they need in their years before high school.

“For a long time, SMIC has treated middle school kids almost exactly like high school kids,” Vice Principal Patrick Carroll, said. “There was no special training for them, there was no special support for them…We knew that we wanted to find a way to be more responsive to the needs of middle schoolers and provide them with an experience that is more tailored to their needs.” The resulting middle school structure, in response to this need, is a system focused more on the students than on any individual academic subject. Middle school teachers now teach with the mindset that “their first responsibility is to [their grade level] and their second responsibility is to their [subject],” explained Carroll. There was also a change in teacher office spaces to facilitate the coordination and collaboration of teachers within each middle school grade level. 

Among the several major changes included in the redesign, the first was the integration of some academic units. In the past, every subject was taught in isolation. A history course had no overlap with a science course or a math course. Teachers and the school administration have noticed that this separation of courses has hindered students’ ability to regard their education with a comprehensive view. “Kids would think about things only in terms of ‘well, that’s science and that’s math,’ but in real life, things don’t work like that, you have to consider all of it,” said Carroll. The new middle school integrated units entail a grade-wide project, which would include each academic subject. Students will be using what they learn in every course, from social studies to math, to complete their comprehensive project. The school expects that these integrated units will serve to tie materials from different courses together and help students see their education as applicable among diverse areas. 

The second major change was in the way writing was taught to middle school students. In the past years, students were always taught to write in a designated writing course. Due to this disconnect between writing and other academic areas, students would often find it difficult to apply their writing skills in other subject areas. Teachers of other subjects also had varying expectations and used different terms when it came to students’ writing. Integrated writing took away the writing class. Instead, there is now a writing specialist assigned to each grade who will know every student in that grade and their individual writing characteristics. This writing specialist works in tandem with teachers in other subjects when writing is required for that subject. As an example, Carroll mentioned, “whenever there is a writing assignment in history class, that class is taught by both the history teacher and the writing specialist. The history teacher would help kids with the historical ideas, and the writing teacher would help the kids with the writing pieces.” The new system is anticipated to help recognize whether an individual student needs more help in writing or in other subjects that required writing. 

The third and final addition to middle school this year was the new EEE program. Enhancement, Enrichment, Exploration aims to give students a chance to explore their own interests instead of following the standard classroom dynamics. Every quarter, students will create a project based on their individual interests. With little to no rules, students are given a time to figure out what they want to learn. Based on what each student indicate as their subject of interest, they are placed with a “facilitator who knows enough about [that subject] to teach their kids new skills”, explained Patrick Doverspike, the head of 6th grade. According to Timothy Cushing, the head of grade 8, because of EEE time, the teachers are also “stepping out of their subject areas and more into their interests and passions.” The purpose for EEE, explained Carroll, is “to see what [the students] learned and how [they] learned it.” At the end of each quarter, students will display their works—both the successes and the failures— at an expo, where parents are invited to see what their children created. 

So far, the changes in middle school were met with enthusiasm from the students. 

Featured image- Middle school students in class Courtesy of Kevin Olson