#30

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The topic on this week's Behind the classroom door are from Northern Illinois University
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College of Education is the junior high school purposes and
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practices.
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Here's the moderator Dean Robert asked top the junior high school
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is a unit by our public school system.
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Usually it encompasses a seventh an eighth and ninth grade but there are a variety of theories
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about this in a variety of practical reasons that cause the junior high school grades
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perhaps to include six seven and eight. Sometimes there are varied
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combinations but basically there is a philosophical
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structure for the junior high school. Why do we have them. When do they begin. And what is
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the history order these and where did the junior high school idea start
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raining.
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As far as our country is going CERN at least well in the early 1900s
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for its junior high school was established. However this concept of the
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junior high school did not develop rapidly until the early
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1920s and especially into the 1930s
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in 1924 the North Central Association
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developed. Guidelines that were called the standard
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junior high school program. And it's interesting that these guidelines
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are still the foundation for many frameworks
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developed at state levels. In fact just recently a book came
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out by Samuel Popper called the American middle school
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and organizational analysis that was published in 1066.
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And in that book Popper follows the
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proposed program of the NAR Central Association of 1924
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very closely.
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Well there were some special purposes and objectives of the junior high school or the
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middle school.
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At any rate were there not yet I think we can pick out some of these specific
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purposes of the junior high school movement for example one was to bridge the gap
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between the elementary school and the senior high school. And this went on because of departmental
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ization and yet her and to make it easier transition for the pupils.
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In some of the elementary schools for example they were self-contained. Classrooms right
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through the eighth grade and then they moved immediately into had senior high school. The ninth
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grade level where they had a different teacher for every subject and there was a problem but just not in
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the junior high.
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Likely each student is likely to have a few different teachers but not
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as many suddenly and it is true with a junior at the senior high level.
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Then there is another good reason I think and that was that back
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years ago when the junior high school movement started in let's say in the 20s or early
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1920s and 30s. Many states had compulsory
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attendance ages up to 14 years or through the eighth grade.
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And people they figured out if they could get a child started into a new unit
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for example they would be seven eight and nine that the child would be more apt to to stay
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in school be more encouraged to stay in school. I say to the ninth grade either way people
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would quit when this 14 or he would quit. Remember in those days I had more
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children quit school as soon as they could to write. Absolutely. And then another
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good reason was the richer curriculum I'd say or at least a more
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about choice studies for the student. And we also in
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included vocational guidance to at the high school level
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so there were at least four or five good reasons for the establishment of the junior
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high school.
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Lloyd another reason that what you neglected to mention was that the junior high school would be a
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special place were children would be under an ideal environment for
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making the change from childhood to adolescence. We know that this is
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one of the most difficult adjustments a child must make doing is entire life in a junior high
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school was to be a school where this would be done
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in a manner that would be least harmful to the child.
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Of course these are severe or just mental problems aren't they. And it takes a teacher
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in an administration that understands these and I think in a good junior high or middle
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middle school as it may be called a lot of attention is given to the social adjustment
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during those critical years. And some interesting problems develop too. For example the
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girls mature so much more rapidly than the boys and they're interested in
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boys when boys are still interested in baseball but the junior high teachers
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understand this and they arrange for social. Contacts dancing and so on so
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that this transitional period can be covered with a minimum of stress.
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I think that you know most of the studies indicate that.
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Educators did feel a need for separating people in early adolescence
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from the senior high school youngsters and those who were younger.
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However the first reason that Lloyd gave tends to be
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supported I think much more. By programs developed at the state level.
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For example in 1961 the state of Illinois through the Junior High School
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Association developed a book called The junior high school
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program in Illinois. And within that
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the idea of elementary school is being self-contained with a single teacher.
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And senior high school is having departmental ization with the different
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teacher for each class. Was given as the main reason for
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having the junior high school. That would gradually take the
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child from the self-contained unit into departmental ization. They
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recommended that at least 40 percent of the school day in the junior high school
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should be used utilized for a block of time in the seventh grade and then
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gradually this 40 percent would be reduced to 25 percent by the time the
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children reached the ninth grade. So that you have then a gradual
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transition from the so often teen to the departmental.
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Concept in education.
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Well this is in harmony in a way with human psychology
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too. During the primary grades the teacher one
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teacher is about all of the children can handle. Then in the middle
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grades four five and six. There can be more teachers brought into it. They
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usually have special teachers in music in art for example. But
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there's a gradual shift also in philosophy of education.
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Whereas the individual is a primary
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concern in the elementary school and perhaps they don't even give a
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report cards but write letters home or have conferences with the parents. In an
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effort to. Safeguard the child's
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self-esteem. And to let the parents know that their child
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may not have an easy time doing in doing school work or may be able to do it very
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successfully. So when the transition moves on up to the junior high
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where grades become important and where the child has to compete against standards
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expected in the various classes he takes rather than against his own ability
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and sometimes this is quite a shock to parents and children alike. When they moved
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from an elementary school where grades are not given on the basis of subject matter achievement
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but rather upon the ability of the child into the junior high school where all of the sudden
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he gets about 5 or 6 grades that are based on what is expected of that
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of that level.
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There are some arguments that are. Proposed in opposition to the
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junior high school and one of them is this that while Lloyd said that it
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is good as a place where the child can make an
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adjustment now. Those who oppose a junior high school say that
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what it does do is create two different adjustments that the
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child must make under the under the old plan where the child moves from the elementary
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school to the senior high school or to the high school he had one adjustment to make.
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But now with the junior high school he must make an adjustment when he enters the junior high school and he
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must make another adjustment when he enters the senior high school.
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Well of course Leo it is more of a gradual transition. But I will
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agree with you that there are real critiques of the junior high school
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program there have been since it started 50 60 years ago.
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I noticed that one of the arguments that someone has used is that
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the Seventh grader is at a stage in life where
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they may be quite. Different from let's
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say from the ninth grader. In other words and we know that's true we know that
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many 13 year old children for example in seventh grade may be quite immature as
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compared to ninth graders especially ninth graders who have been retained for a couple years along the
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way. There's quite a spread there in their development and then they go on to
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say that the Ninth grader on the other hand is at a stage of an development
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where they need the guidance let's say of the call for greater. So since the younger ones
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always want to imitate the older ones that create a problem and so I've heard that used as an
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argument against the junior high school.
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Well along with that Lloyd I'd like to point out this that the
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normal range for the beginning of adolescence for girls
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is from ages 9 to
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15. Well aged 9 would place a girl in the in the fourth
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grade age 15 possibly could place a girl in the 10th
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grade. Yet that would be the beginning of adolescence that would be the age at which a
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girl reaches puberty. Well for the girl who reaches
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puberty at age 9 while she's all done she's made
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gone through this change by the time she reaches the junior high school.
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So far as boys go boys reach puberty
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as early as age eleven which would place them in the sixth grade and other boys
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can reach puberty as late as age 16 or 17
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which would make them possibly juniors or seniors in high school. So it
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seems to me that so far as a junior high school goes just about
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50 percent of the children would having would be having this need
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met in this special situation that was created for them. That is
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a place where they can make this change from childhood to adolescence
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under the guidance of teachers who understand them better.
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I suppose a little with the vast range of individual differences it would be
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impossible to have a school that would take all people during early
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adolescence and put them into the same school. You said
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some girls have reached puberty at
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age 9 but they would be very few and a very small
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percentage. So that the junior high school plan that seems to be
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the most logical one and the six three three arrangement another and six grades
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in elementary and three in the junior high school and three in a senior high
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because. We do know that most people tend to
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reach early adolescence from ages 12 to 15.
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Therefore your grades seven through nine would at least cover the majority of the
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youngsters during early adolescence. But I don't think you can do from that
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program on that basis alone. The real
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advantage of the junior high school has is the curriculum advantage. But
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unfortunately studies made of junior high school curricula
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tend to indicate that there isn't any junior high school grade because
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in many cases there are no teachers prepared to teach specifically in the junior
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high school. And therefore the curriculum tends to be determined by
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whether the teachers and administrators of the junior high school. Are
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largely elementary teachers and other are prepared to be elementary teachers or
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reap where prepared to be secondary teachers. If the
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principal for example is an elementary person he tends to stress the
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self-contained classroom Gond Sept. If he is a secondary person
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there may be more departmental ization on the senior high school than is desirable.
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So that a problem and certainly an acute problem in Illinois is that
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our certification and enables an elementary teacher to teach through the grade
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9 and our secondary certification unable. The secondary person
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to teach down through from grades six through grade 12.
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So that we do not have people who really are well
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prepared to teach at the junior high school level.
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I think you pointed out one of the biggest weaknesses of the present day junior high school and
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that is the the lack of teachers who are trained and
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qualified to work with the adolescent and I think that
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our teacher training institutions must take this into consideration and that it is their
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obligation to develop specific programs for training
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teachers for junior high schools.
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Illinois has another very unique problem here in this 6 3
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3 Plan which by the way is the most common plan in United States but not in Illinois.
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And the reason for that is the way that school districts are organized in Illinois much your districts I
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think are like K through or K through 8 and 9 through 12
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which makes a 6 3 3 Plan and almost impossible in many tax
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base an immunity term and that that's right and the tax district
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includes the kindergarten through the eight and then right above that.
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So it's hard to finance a junior high school that overlaps. That's right
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not at night however districts can go together.
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Right. To develop one me Junior High School Association did
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recommend the six three three plan and the most logical plan of organization
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for the state of Illinois. However it's interesting that the same
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commission indicated that a junior high school should have at least three hundred
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and sixty students and not more than seven hundred twenty students.
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Well in our area that would be quite easy but if you go down the state
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would be very difficult to find three hundred and sixty youngsters in the three
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grades covered by their proposal in other words seven through nine.
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In many communities you know we should make the point that seems very
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obvious the junior high schools or middle schools are here to stay. In fact
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they're growing in number rapidly. And as we look at our
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secondary teachers that we're preparing half of them take assignments in junior high school
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and yet we we can induce very few of them to specialize in the
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junior high school because they think that it limits the scope of the possible
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assignments they can get when they go out to work.
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In other words they want to certificate that will extend their operations up through
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the Senior High School in addition to attracting teachers to the junior high
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school if a problem seems to exist and having them stay there. I believe that the
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teacher turnover on a on a junior high school level is greater than on any other
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level that we have. And I think the the
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biggest difficulty lies in the fact that these teachers lack special understanding.
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They do not know the adolescent. They do not understand the adolescent really
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adolescence is one of the most wonderful periods of life and it's often been said it's
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a shame to waste adolescence on such young people can appreciate
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it.
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We'll let you get into writing about the weakness we have in
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not preparing people to teach at the junior high school level
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because certainly you know I'm a person doesn't just you neatly understand
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the adolescent especially the early adolescent. And many.
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Behavioral patterns of the early adolescence can drive normal
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people somewhat insane in a hurry. Unless the teachers
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understand that these are normal behavior patterns where the junior high school youngster.
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The problem with preparing teachers however for the junior high school is
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that there is an orange junior high school pattern that is
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universally accepted and that's certainly true in Illinois as Lloyd pointed out pattern of grades
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remains so that as light indicated because of the rather unique
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method of stablish in school districts it is either elementary or secondary and the
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state many junior high schools are composed of the Grade 7 and
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8 some 6 7 and 8 and of course recently we have.
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A rather rapid growth of middle schools I'd have to
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say that my personal opinion is that middle schools are developing more because of
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the availability of certain buildings rather than
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any logical or rational need for middle
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school.
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And while it's true any school board that faces the need to build new buildings when they
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can use some other buildings by regrouping. And is liable to think of
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the cost and then the purposes and the philosophy of the junior high
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school can be lost as they combine A grades that don't belong together.
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But you know Ray earlier you talked about curriculum and then junior high
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as being distinctive and of course one of the qualities of that curriculum is that it should be
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exploratory because they're approaching that age when they should be analyzing
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themselves and their abilities and their interests and planning their pro programs for the
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future.
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And it's a course that requires a different type of preparation I've heard of the teacher and
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usually the junior high school teacher would then be expected to teach in more than
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one subject matter a field fact. The core curriculum
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ideas of the Herald will Bertie and Nelson bossiness are still widely
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accepted in many junior high schools. However more in a block arrangement
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rather than a core curriculum. What is this says when I tell you that
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common subjects agree and gather it teacher would teach two or more
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subjects as one field of English and social
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studies for example are the two most commonly taught. The idea
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is that the skills in English can be acquired just as
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easily through reading subject matter and social studies
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as it can as those skills can be acquired and in reading matters in English.
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If students in history for example are studying
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the French Revolution in the English classes the students at the
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same time a read tale of two cities so that the information is
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correlated. However this requires either a double major on the part
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of the teacher in other words the teacher who has majored in English and social studies
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or are as a Junior High School Association in Illinois I recommended
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three minors. For junior high school teachers no major but
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three minors so that the junior high school teacher then would have the breath
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and training to enable them to work in several exploratory
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fields and then through that junior high school students might very well
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take a series of short courses that would last perhaps nine weeks rather
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than a full semester to enable them to explore further. I think that somewhat
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innovative and has come in recently. Many schools are called many
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courses students sign up for courses that
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they would like to take for brief period of time as exploratory courses.
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The Student me for example go into metal worker. Would it
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work or some field sewing cooking something in home
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economics or even a foreign language your personal typing for a brief period
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of time often 9 weeks. This enables a junior high school youngster to
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determine what fields he tends to have the greatest interest in.
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And of course he can continue in these fields at a greater depth. In other words
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more intensively at the senior high school level.
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There was one important reason for starting in junior high school moving back in the 1500s and we didn't
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really bring out and that was that. During that same period we developed a new branch of
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psychology called adolescent psychology and it seems to
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mean to me that many of the reasons that we
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stated earlier for the development of the junior high school. Meaning to me grades 7 8
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and 9. Back in 1900 so would apply
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now to the development of the what we call the middle school which in most
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cases an hour I think would be six seven and eight. When you stop to think too that
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children develop.
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And if that I think they say that children develop a little earlier today than they did
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25 or genera years ago or a generation ago still you could
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just apply the same argument to date through the through the middle school.
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There is a book God came out in one thousand sixty seven called
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perspectives on the middle school by Ann grooms that
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grieve very much with what you said Lloyd. However
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it is interesting that even though many people are advocating the development of middle
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schools for that reason there is a reason that students are maturing sooner
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or earlier than they did in the past. That research doesn't tend to bear that out
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that it is true that children mature earlier.
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But if you take the vast majority of youngsters they still are in their early
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Alaska adolescence from ages 12 to 15 and yet the
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grooms recommended grades 5 through 7 as being the best
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arrangement for a middle school based on the idea that children from
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ages 10 to 14 have problems that tend to be
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unique for people in early adolescence.
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I could agree with that that he did. Ray however I feel that
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today there are new techniques in teaching that
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are being introduced in the middle of school that seem to be more appropriate for the middle
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school that say than the lower elementary and I think that's another good reason for
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the middle school idea.
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Oh yeah I agree. LLOYD In fact Graham's in the same book pointed out some
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of these techniques such as team teaching better staff utilization
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instructional aides that would tend to make
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learning situations common for students in earlier
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ages and in the past.
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I think it's another thing that we should remember when we talk about what study shill
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and that is that sometimes the results of the study do not
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chill all of the things that we like to include. For example many times when they
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say that students in a in one type of a school as
[25:04 - 25:09]
compared to students in another type of school didn't differ significantly. We've got to realize
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that some of the important outcomes I haven't been measured.
[25:13 - 25:17]
I think one thing that we have to address is that.
[25:17 - 25:22]
We've tended in to get the junior high school teachers are not prepared
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specifically to teach at the junior high school and the junior high school youngsters
[25:27 - 25:30]
often are very troublesome and yet it's interesting to
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talk with people who have taught at several levels and other elementary
[25:37 - 25:42]
and junior high and senior high. And ask which level they prefer.
[25:42 - 25:46]
And it seems to me that in the majority of cases
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the people who have taught at the junior high school prefer that level.
[25:51 - 25:56]
Well the enthusiasms are tremendous an individual differences in the five talents.
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And surely they're all different at that level.
[25:59 - 26:04]
There's one other advantage that we didn't mention and that is that many times you find
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more men. At the men in the middle schools and in the junior high schools and you do in the
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lower elementary school and I feel that that it's important in other words it's
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important to have the man in the school.
[26:16 - 26:21]
And it's easier to attract them to the middle schools and you know high school you know
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by whatever name we call it whether it's junior high or middle school it presents
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a wonderful opportunity to make an assessment of the child. You know we so
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often forget that the typical junior high school student typical there's no such
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thing that the range of junior high school students in reading for example might be
[26:40 - 26:45]
from fourth grade level through college level reading. And we have to
[26:45 - 26:50]
reassess this and re-examine it and plan accordingly. And there I cues will range
[26:50 - 26:55]
from 90 to 100 50. And during these three years we have an
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wonderful opportunity to assess a child to help with his plan his future. And one of
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the things that I think is important is that parents and teachers need to
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understand the adolescent and the purposes of the junior high school and to
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continue to communicate with each other to the end of the child can move ahead
[27:14 - 27:18]
into his higher education through high school and perhaps college
[27:18 - 27:23]
and make his contribution and secure the highest possible education
[27:23 - 27:26]
that he's capable of obtaining.
[27:26 - 27:31]
Behind the classroom door produced by WFIU Af-Am and
[27:31 - 27:36]
cooperation with the College of Education at Northern Illinois University each
[27:36 - 27:41]
week focuses its attention on one of the many challenging aspects of public school
[27:41 - 27:46]
education. The program is moderated by Dr. Robert F. top
[27:46 - 27:51]
dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Today's guest
[27:51 - 27:56]
were Dr. Raymond B Fox associate dean of the College of Education. Dr.
[27:56 - 28:01]
Leo Laughlin head of the Department of Administration and services and Dr. Lloyd
[28:01 - 28:05]
Leonard head of the department of elementary education. Next week the topic will
[28:05 - 28:10]
be. Why do some college students fail prevention and
[28:10 - 28:15]
correction. This program is distributed by that actual educational radio
[28:15 - 28:15]
network.