Maturing with Excellence and Digital Responsibility in Middle School

Thinking about middle school is thinking about transitions and growth milestones. Fifth graders graduate from their elementary school as ‘grown ups’. They represent their school proudly because they have reached an important milestone but transitioning from such a familiar environment to middle school can be a challenging time. In 6th grade, students may feel anxious about entire new routines, apprehensive about making new friends or missing the ones they had to leave behind, concerned about their ability to respond to the expectations of an increased number of teachers, and worried about their physical changes. In addition, and according to a Pew Research Center conducted in 2019, 45% of all U.S. teens say that they use their phones and are on the internet almost all the time as a pastime and stay connected. The need for online teaching this school year, most likely has increased this percentage and therefore, the concerns from educators and parents about the amount of screen time and the proper use of technology by pre- adolescent youth and adolescent youth.

In this article, we highlight the value of a holistic teaching and learning approach that includes understanding digital responsibility to support the social-emotional development growth and academic progress of middle school students. We also encourage you to learn more about digital citizenship by attending an upcoming webinar that will be facilitated by Dr. Scharbach, principal of St. Frances de Sales Academy.
​
Developing Habits that Support Growing Adolescents
In her webinar, Dr. Eutsay distinguishes between acknowledging students’ maturity during middle school and a deeper understanding of this social-emotional and cognitive growth. This deeper understanding fosters students’ maturity ‘with excellence.’  

Middle school students who are at a crossroad with their social development at a transitional age, bring their own worldview and experiences into the classroom. Teachers who recognize the “myriad layers that shape these students’ worldview and behavior” (Eutsay*, 2021) can turn these developmental challenges into opportunities that will benefit students during their middle school years and beyond.  

This holistic approach values the importance of the whole and the interdependency of its parts and engages students through their social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. More specifically, an effective teaching plan considers that,

• Academic learning requires intellectual stimulation, which often may translate into presenting learning goals as problems to be resolved, such as performance tasks, and individual or small group projects on current events and/or trends.
  
  
• Social interaction is key for pre-adolescent and adolescent students. These students are ready for online interaction thus in a holistic approach, teachers incorporate short, self-guided activities that create a positive culture around digital learning and digital citizenship (See Upcoming Webinar below).
  
  
• Student Identity also shapes a lesson.  The way students see themselves and the way they see the world influences their evolving and growing identity. According to Dr. Eutsay, pre-adolescent students reveal a broad world view and a deep sense of the role of gender, and economics in their lives, and therefore strategies such as questioning techniques, Socratic seminars and classroom debates are valued strategies in the middle school classroom.
  
  
• “Leeway”, that is flexibility and freedom. Middle school routines need to include a degree of flexibility if we want to avoid creating ‘boring’ lessons (using middle school language). This flexibility is aligned to the development of time-management and study skills. Thus, the importance of using every opportunity to build the foundation for good study habits, a competence that will enable students to opt for challenging academic courses, make them curious about exploring extracurricular activities, college preparation, and a competence that will develop their own responsibility as learners. 

 

• Curriculum connections As mentioned earlier, one of the greatest concerns of middle schoolers is their ability to respond to more than one teacher and the academic expectations of each of them. Responding to these concerns, a lesson plan will include explicit cross-content connections. For example, making students aware that highlighting key words and key ideas when reading a text will help them when reading science articles as well as historical documents or a fictional narrative.
  
  

In this holistic classroom, Dr. Eutsay reminds us that teachers who have developed this keen understanding about their middle school students, enjoy and have fun themselves because they are open and able to appreciate the talents and interests of their growing students, engaging them at their cognitive, social and spiritual levels and as they implement rigorous academic content.

---