How BSS is making Middle School memorable and meaningful. By Megan Griffith Greene
Unless you’re on the Olympic podium, being in the middle never means top billing. It often signifies not being very interesting (think middle of the road), not having much autonomy (being stuck in the middle), or not being noticed (think Jan Brady). And then there’s Middle School. Nothing represents the agony of all the world’s “middleness” quite as much as being in Grades 7 and 8. Physically, intellectually, socially, hormonally at no point are we stuck in limbo more than we are in those crucial, sometimes painful years between childhood and adolescence.
At least that’s how it’s always been in the past.
When I first speak with Winnie Hunsburger, she immediately dismisses my naïve notion that Middle School is like being in suspended animation between childhood and adolescence. Middle School at BSS is not, she insists, merely a cocoon that links the Junior School (where students spend their childhood) and Senior School (which they leave as adults).
Dr. Hunsburger, the Middle School’s Team Leader for Research Inquiry, took everything that I thought I knew about Middle School and flipped it on its ear. In a manner of speaking, I got “middle schooled”.
“One of the most important things with this age group is that it’s a period of change at all levels as dramatic as a child undergoes from birth to age three,” she tells me. “Our role as educators” she says, “is about providing what’s best for the students at this stage of life.”
After only a few minutes, some things become clear. First, that Dr. Hunsburger sees this period as one of exciting growth instead of something that just needs to be endured; second; that BSS has designed some exciting and innovative curriculum that sets the Middle School apart; and third, that and bear with me if your memories of Middle School, like mine, are less than rosy the BSS school program sounds like a lot of fun.
For whatever may still haunt you from Grade 7 the awkwardness, the acne, the lack of social grace it’s clear that Dr. Hunsburger sees this as an exciting time of growth: not a period of waiting out puberty, but an opportunity for girls to shine.
“This is when the girls start to wonder, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am I headed?’” Dr. Hunsburger explains. “They are examining and exploring their own identity. Their frontal lobes which are involved in decision making become really active”
Dr. Hunsburger sees that activity as being essential to everything in school life. And that means making students much more active in the classroom. “In Grade 6, students are still generally OK with people making decisions for them, but part of our role as educators is empowering them to start making decisions for themselves.”
It’s something that Dr. Hunsburger calls “bounded freedom”: providing them with an environment where they can practice making decisions and allowing them to make mistakes all in a safe space.
It’s like when babies learn to walk, she tells me. “You wouldn’t tell a toddler ‘you’re not ready to walk yet, so you’d better stay right where you are.’ No, instead you get stuff out of the way. In the same way, kids need to pursue their own answers.”
So how does this philosophy take shape at BSS? Girls in Middle School get to explore their own curiosity in programs focused on investigative research, which get them engaged in researching and exploring issues that are meaningful to them.
“Sometimes these lines of inquiry are provoked by the teachers, but they are defined by the students by what’s important to them,” Dr. Hunsburger says. While research in the Junior School is closely tied to curriculum, in Middle School the students themselves define the topic and scope, with the teachers helping guide the students in their work.
These projects can draw forward from any subject, and often have implications that stretch across the entire curriculum. So when the Grade 7 students start with the question “What is number?” it’s guaranteed that the answers aren’t all in math class. Instead, it will take them to social studies what numbers mean to society and beyond.
It’s an approach that Helen Raso, Lead Teacher for Curriculum Development for the Senior School echos. Ms. Raso says that the approach has meant that the students hit the Senior School ground running. “Many teachers have spoken about the fact that girls currently in Grades 9 and 10 are more open to investigative work and working independently than they were in previous years” she says.
And it goes far beyond the actual projects, Ms. Raso says. The Middle School teachers are also excellent at collaborating, something she says means that the students are totally supported through their independent work. The teachers meet regularly, and know all the students well, so they know where every student needs help. A good word for a good Middle School educator is ‘catalyst’. They key is to spark something; ask provocative questions.
The questions are just the beginning.” So instead of being focused only on coming up with the answer, the students discover all the ways in which these questions can be asked and answered. The teachers help refine their questions, and direct their research. But where that research takes them? The students decide.
“It’s not just about covering curriculum, it’s about bringing the curriculum to life. We are trying to shift traditional paradigms. It‘s so powerful” Ms. Raso says.
That paradigm shift is not just academic to Ms. Raso. “When I was a student, I never felt that I was part of the decisions that were made in school. I never felt that my own ideas were validated. I quickly learned that if I learned to spew back what the teacher said to be in the same way it was said, that was the key to success,” she says. “Now, that way of thinking has changed completely. It’s now about respecting kids as thinkers and contributors.”
Dr. Hunsburger echoes this passion as fundamental to her approach. “It’s been a major change, moving away from the understanding that education is about transmitting information into the student’s brains. It’s much more about helping the student construct her own understanding.” It’s challenging, they both admit, but then so is the paradox: how something can be in the middle and at the top at the same time?
