Adolescence & School Curriculum

Any curriculum for middle school students must consider the unique conditions of their age. Between grade six (11 years old) and grade nine (14 years old) the child leaves childish things and enters puberty. Amidst these physical changes come changes in expressing emotions, forming friendships, and learning. Peter C. Scales in Educational Horizons (3) notes the emphasis on preparing elementary and secondary level teachers for the age group and intellectual level of their charges, but that only 17 percent of middle school teachers have been specifically prepared for teaching the young adolescents that are middle school students. Scales also cites the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development report "Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century." This report calls adolescence "the last best chance" (17) to prevent many of the social problems a growing number of young people fall victim to: school failure, adolescent pregnancy, and substance abuse. A key "protective factor" cited by the report is academic success.

Scales charges that if these young people think and act differently than their fellow students in elementary or high school, then the teacher should have the training to address those differences. One of the differences that needs to be addressed is the social interaction between students who are changing how they relate to each other. Irene Whitney and Peter K. Smith write in Educational Research about a study of 6000 pupils in 17 junior high

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The middle schools can counteract the negative interactions of peer groups by applying educational principles to the formation of these groups. Since the groups interact both on a group level and an individual level the curriculum should require both group and individual activities. Selma Hughes writing in Education Horizons notes that assessment is not testing, but that testing forms a part of any assessment. The activities need involve assessment, which will be some tests, some activities, and some interaction. Hughes notes that "Alternative Assessment is any method of finding out what a student knows or can do that is intended to show growth and inform instruction and is not a standardized or traditional test" (240). She compares writing programs, adding that a fourday program from prewriting to proofreading is performance based buy not "authentic" because it is not germane to the real life context the skill of writing will end up being used in. Hughes adds that an authentic assessment would be if the student were to confer with the teacher on his or her portfolio of work done over the months and chose that which best represented the student's progress in writing (241). However, both are necessary. Any curricul

Category: Psychology - A