Today was the first of the cohort’s Middle School tours. In groups of 7, we spent the morning in one of the following Coquitlam schools:
- Hillcrest Middle
- Minnekhada Middle
- Montgomery Middle
- Scott Creek Middle
After lunch, the entire cohort gathered in Room 220 at Montgomery Middle – a space we’ll use over the course of the year when we need to get together as a whole group – to debrief the first “practical” experience of the year. After a 5-minute write to get re-focused, Shep and I asked you to give us a tentative answer to the focus question for today’s tour, “What is a Middle School?”
Many interesting answers were shared. In the end, we teased out 4 pillars of middle years education:
- Teaming
- Flexible Block Scheduling
- Advisory
- Explorations
Next week you’ll be at a different school and will be able to compare how that group of staff and students work with these pillars.
In the meantime, you can take a video tour of Daniel Webster Middle School in Los Angeles, California to see how it compares with the middle school models you’ve seen and envisioned to this point:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH5OtEOKqmw[/youtube]
Cheers,
Lawrence