Re: Looping

[Kruchma@aol.com]

Cari, Maribeth, and Interested Others,
 
One of the best parts of teaching middle school for me was being with and  
teaching students from one or more years to the next.  We did this in our  home 
base program, which was conceived in the 1980's by many of us on the staff  
who are now retired--and thus the class/program is no longer like this--but  for 
about six years we looped our home base classes, composed of  a total group 
of about 20 or less sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in a  mix.    So 
as the eighth graders finished the year and moved on to  h.s., we welcomed 
five to seven new sixth graders in the fall to start a new  year.  The students 
were wonderful at working with one another and learning  social and 
intellectual skills from their older and younger classmates.   This set-up also supported 
the students getting to know more students in the  larger community, the 
school.   Much of what will determine the  success of any new classroom set-up is 
the continuous community-building   you foster among the students--as well as 
your own positive attitude toward  the change. 
 
Best of luck as you try and tweak new classroom  arrangements! 
 
If you would like more information on this topic, check out Building an  
Effective Middle School by Lou Romano and Nick Georgiady (1994).
 
Mary Anna Kruch, Ph.D.
President-Elect,  Michigan Council of Teachers of English
K-12 Writing & Literacy  Consultant
kruchma@aol.com

P.O. Box 561
Williamston, MI  48895
517-655-1633

"If education is to be done expertly,  it must be done by the teachers 
themselves who as experts use their own  knowledge and understandings to define in 
particular pedagogic situations the  problems that are worth solving and 
soluble....education cannot be exercised  mechanistically or according to prescribed 
programs and algorithms." (p.  33)

Donna H. Kerr in The Ecology of School Renewal, John I.  Goodlad, Ed. (1987)



**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.     
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)