Is it Time to Revisit Multiage Teams in the Middle Grades?

Abstract

For over thirty years, educators in America's middle schools have been making schools more responsive to the needs of adolescents. Interdisciplinary teams, advisory programs, active learning strategies, block scheduling, and more positive school climates are found in eifective middle schools. Although progress is being made and fewer students are falling through the seams, an observable improvement in academic achievement, has remained an elusive element. Until recently, there has been little to suggest that young adolescents learn more in a mid dle school. A recent longitudinal study published in Phi Delta Kappan clearly shows that functioning mid dle grade teams do result in significant student gains, both academically and affectively (Feiner, Jackson, Kasak, Mulhall, Brand, & Flowers, 1997). The definition of a well functioning team, however, is a critical issue. In addition to effective teaming, many reformers have stated that for academic achievement to occur, middle level educators must find a more meaningful curriculum. Beane (1990) stated, Persistent claims about the need for sensitivity to the characteristics of early adolescence have resulted in important organiza tional changes, but little has been done to answer the crucial question of what ought to be the middle school (p. 12). Designing a flexible and meaningful curriculum which meets the needs of young adolescent learners is desirable, but this task is daunting because of the diver sity among students. Additionally, there is a lack of drive to change the curriculum in significant ways. Teachers are already overburdened with daily teaming issues, such as planning field trips, preparing for student and parent conferences, getting ready for presentations, and completing administrative reports. While teachers may want to move past these immediate issues, they often give them a higher priority than curriculum changes. The result is a continuation of the same cur riculum delivered in essentially the same manner. To facilitate getting to curricular issues, one additional organizational change in middle schools needs to be reconsidered. This change is to create multiage or non graded teams in our middle schools. Nongraded teams are not new. They have been around since the early middle school reform literature of the 1960s. Eichhorn (1966/1986) called for them in his seminal work, The Middle School. As an administra tor in Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, he established schools structured along developmental characteristics of adolescents. Eichhorn concluded that schools orga nized by chronological age were based on a faulty assumption (Brough, 1994). Instead he advocated orga nizing team membership around student developmen tal stages. In an address to the National Middle School Association Annual Conference, Doda (1977) looked to the future of middle grade schools and declared, would like for you to consider what I believe to be a key ingredient in promoting human involvement—multiage (p. 8). She continued by stating that disci pline and vandalism problems decrease as strong roots are established for our kids who are struggling to be someone, somewhere (p. 9). Neither developmental nor multiage grouping have become the standard in middle school teams. Despite the successes of the two middle schools in Upper St. Clair and the advantage seen by educators like Doda, there has not been a widespread movement toward nongraded teams. Perhaps the reason for this