January 27, 2016
Friends,
As you scroll through today’s Wednesday Notice, you’ll notice three posts about recent winners at Crossroads: Mock Trial, Middle School Chess, and American Mathematics Middle School Winners. You’ll also see an invitation to Middle School Authors’ Evening. In recent weeks, we’ve also announced Poetry Out Loud winners and other successes. I am very proud of these successes and seeing the middle school represented so well in this Wednesday Notice has prompted me to brag about our middle school program a bit.
When upper schoolers talk about their experience as middle schoolers and with middle school students, listeners are always impressed. I like that our middle schoolers and upper schoolers share the building space and pass one another on the way to class and sit with one another at lunch, announcements, and other events. We also know that students who attend middle school at Crossroads are the most prepared to engage in and leverage our upper school program. This makes sense, of course, and is also very much by design.
On our website, we share some of what makes the experience of our middle school different. You can read the whole of it here and will see that our middle school program is based on some clear beliefs and understandings about middle school-aged students. We know that middle school students
- are energetic, enthusiastic, and eager learners.
- are beginning their journey toward independence and making their own decisions; they desire to be seen as young adults.
- want to feel safe to express themselves.
- need time to reflect on their learning, build good academic habits, and develop strong relationships within the school community.
I believe that our middle school provides a rigorous academic experience as well as a space to build community, to practice good learning and relationship habits, and to internalize what it means to be a student at Crossroads. Teachers of middle schoolers design classroom, middle school colloquium, camping, and other experiences with these things in mind.
I spent 11 years as an administrator in middle schools, and I have not experienced middle school students as lively and curious, as giving and humble, or as smart and good as ours.
With great expectations,
Jason