BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
"REINVENTING THE MIDDLE SCHOOL"
DISCUSSION
Editor's Note: In mid-December 2001, MiddleWeb sponsored a week-long
conversation about the future of middle school and the need for middle schools
to live up to the original premise upon which they were founded. Here's
some background about that conversation. To read the complete chat, follow
the "Running Record" link below.
Thomas S. Dickinson and Deborah A. Butler stirred up the middle school community
with their article "Reinventing the Middle School" (Middle School
Journal, September 2001), suggesting that many buildings were "middle
schools" in name only. The authors included criticism for the National
Middle School Association, which -- to its credit -- published the article
anyway.
"At least six factors have contributed to the arrested development
of middle schools," reads the article's teaser. "To reinvent such
schools will require an understanding of the ecological nature of the middle
school concept, one that includes profound curricular change." The
MSJ article is drawn from the
recent book of the same name, where you will find essays on the future
of the middle school by more than a dozen prominent middle grades scholars
and advocates.
We began a weeklong chat around the article "Reinventing the Middle
School" on Friday evening, December 14th. Tom Dickinson and co-author
Deborah Butler joined us for the chat. We also heard from Hayes Mizell,
a nationally known middle school reform advocate and director of the Program
for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. The conversation
continued through Saturday, December 22th with about 40 participants chatting
or listening in. The audience was diverse -- teachers, principals, staff
developers, district administrators, and college faculty, including John
Lounsbury, one of the "parents" of the middle school movement.
The conversation was deep and passionate -- a thoughtful exploration of
what it means to "be" a middle school, and how the middle school
philosophy -- as imagined by the founders of the movement -- can be applied
successfully in today's high-stakes policy environment.
RESOURCES:
"Reinventing
the Middle School"
By Thomas Dickinson and Deborah Butler
Middle School Journal
September 2001
(PDF File)
Background about the authors
"What Works? Who
Cares?"
Speech by Hayes Mizell
July 24, 2000
National Conference on Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
in the Middle Grades: Linking Research and Practice
Background
about Mizell
SEE THE
RUNNING RECORD OF OUR CHAT
Background about Tom Dickinson and Deborah Butler
Tom Dickinson teaches at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Deborah Butler teaches at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Tom
and Deborah, who are married to each other, have two grown daughters (and
a new grandson who just turned one!). They live in the small and cozy town
of Greencastle, Indiana with their three cats. Both began their careers
teaching young adolescents and while they are now college professors they
continue to focus on middle schools and young adolescents.
Background about Hayes Mizell
Hayes Mizell is director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna
McConnell Clark Foundation, where he has led the foundation's efforts to
support middle grades reform for more than a decade. He's a founder of the
National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, which also supports the
(Middle) "Schools
to Watch" website. Before joining the foundation, Mizell was a
school activist in the Southeast for 20 years and chaired the National Title
One Council during the Carter administration. He also served two terms as
a school board member in Columbia, SC.
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