High School Freshmen

One of the big arguments I have made over my years as a high school teacher is that we set up incoming freshmen for a very difficult adjustment from middle school to high school. At the school where I teach, I feel we do just about all we can to try and educate these flesh-and-blood masses of raging hormones to understand exactly what they are entering into. We meet with both students and parents in the spring prior to high school enrollment and we offer a specialized orientation a couple of weeks before school starts in August. Unfortunately, attendance at both the parent night and the summer orientation is well under 50% of the incoming freshman class. And a result, many of our freshmen enter high school in August absolutely clueless to the significance of what they are here for. And by the time they figure out that, "Oh snap! My grades here really do count!", for many it is already too late. The academic hole they have dug for themselves is too deep to climb out of.

When I say "setting students up for a difficult adjustment," in no way am I dissing on middle school teachers. I know the middle school teachers at our feeder schools are well-qualified and are providing quality instruction. I am more commenting on the "middle school philosophy," which in my opinion sets up students for complete acacemic culture shock once they reach high school. Let me expand on this ...

1) I was informed by one of the assistant principals at one of our middle schools that promotion from 6th to 7th grade, 7th to 8th and 8th to 9th has absolutely NOTHING to do with grades in classes; it is all based on the CRCT standardized test scores (except for social studies, and that is only because the state of Georgia is currently revamping that part on the CRCT). So students get conditioned for THREE years that grades mean absolutely nothing and then get thrust into a system where grades mean absolutely EVERYTHING. Duh! No wonder these students start off their high school years not worrying about their grades.

2) The feedback I have gotten from high school students is that in middle school, if they didn't finish a test within a test period, they were allowed to be held into the next period until they finished. Up here, when time is up, it's up. That being said, I have given assessments that have run longer that I expected, and if I see many students racing to finish just for the sake of finishing, I will give them some time to finish in class the next day. But that is the exception, not the norm. Like it or not, the reality of major assessments is that there are time constraints. I know in my department we are very conscious of creating tests that focus on the quality of questions and not the quantity, so that time-stress on the student is limited. But again, when time is up, it's up.

3) Deadlines for work being due in middle school appears to be non-existent, as both students and middle school teachers have told me work can be turned in pretty much anytine throughout the grading period. And a teacher told me this message comes from his superiors; it is not his choice. I know of what he speaks as I taught middle for two years in the same school system in the mid-90s and that policy was prevalent then as well. We do not accept late work. Why have a deadline if it is not to be enforced?

4) "Do overs" on tests appear to be common in middle school, and I know of some middle school teachers that think we at the high school are heartless to those students that show on tests that they are clearly not understanding the material. Contrary to what some of my middle school colleagues think, we are sensitive to students who aren't "getting it" and we do have a system in place to provide remediation and "do overs" on assignments and assessments leading up to the unit test. But there reaches a point to give a cumulative unit assessment, where that grade stands. As a student, you have had your (numerous) chances to get things "fixed." That being said, in our department, we do also allow students to replace their lowest test grade of the semester with their score on the final exam, to account for that unit that they just didn't get at the time or maybe they were absent for an extended time and were never able to get caught back up by the unit test.

5) This one has nothing to do with academic philosphy, but the high school day begin two hours earlier than middle school (7:20 vs. 9:20). So basically, students have become accustomed to going to bed at a certain time for three years to get ready for a school day that begins at 9:20; then, all of a sudden they are having to get up two hours earlier. I speculate that many students do not adjust the time they are going to bed, because of what they have become used to for three years, and as a result, they are operating on two hours less sleep. That makes a HUGE difference.

I could make many more points, bu these are my major ones. So what can be done to help alleviate this situation? Many education "experts" advocate a 9th grade academy setting in high school, which essentially isolates the freshmen and works on transitioning them in to the high school setting. I'm all for anything to help with the transition, but I think this should take place in an 8th grade academy, rather than waiting until 9th grade. My simple argument here is that by waiting until 9th grade for such a program, while students are adjusting to the system and possibly still struggling academically, the grades they are racking up still count. If something can be done in 8th grade to shift the emphasis to the importance of grades, then maybe studnets can be reconditioned to the importance before they enter high school.

In a future post, I will lay out my blueprint for the 8th grade academy. I need to do some more thinking about it.

Peace.