A balance of social-emotional learning and challenging academic content is best for middle school students.
One of my most memorable experiences as a preservice teacher occurred during my rotation in a 7th-grade honors English class. I passed behind a student’s laptop screen and saw him using an indecipherable cursive font. Curious, I asked him to explain.
“It’s Redacted Script. See? I downloaded it along with all these other fonts. It’s designed to be illegible but when you change the font” — he highlighted his text and set the font to Arial — “you can read it again.”
“Oh, cool,” I told him. “Why are you writing in Redacted Script?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s fun.”
“Aren’t you afraid you’re going to spell things wrong?”
“Nope,” he said with absolute certainty. Then, he showed me that he had, in fact, spelled every word correctly.
This was not the first time this student had surprised me. Throughout the semester, he independently increased his assignments’ complexity, not because the assignment required it, but because he enjoyed it. For example, he modified a simple, 300-word persuasive letter-writing assignment into an independent study on the history of child labor in the U.S. Consistently, this student transformed simple assignments into complex, thought-provoking explorations.
While he was the only one in this class repeatedly adding such depth and rigor to his assignments, he was not the only student who would benefit from a more challenging middle school education. Research consistently demonstrates middle school students’ desire for academic challenge. For example, a student in one study reflected on how their academic needs were met in middle school and before:
“When you are really good in a subject, you feel like you only learn about the surface of the subject. It is way too slow . . . Slow on the surface. You are in a way just rowing in a canoe on the surface without any oars, and you need to use only your hands to get forward. It is too slow.” (Smedsrud, 2018)
In addition to affecting students’ motivation, a lack of rigor in middle school can leave students unprepared for subsequent educational stages (Snyder & Garcia, 2013). Reading skills significantly stagnate in middle school, especially for the most advanced students — approximately 7-8% of 4th-grade students score at the advanced level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress; however, that number drops to 2-3% in 8th grade (Plucker, Hardesty, & Burroughs, 2013). Middle school is a particularly vulnerable time for students, as they are preparing to transition into high school while experiencing the physical and emotional changes of puberty. If middle school students begin underachieving, they are likely to struggle to reverse that pattern, affecting high school, college, and career success (McCall, Evahn, & Kratzer, 1992; Peterson, 2002).
Our middle schools often struggle to provide students with the necessary academic rigor to promote growth. While some students create their own rigor, like my former student, students should not have to manufacture rigor when schools fail to do so.
The purpose of middle school
One potential factor leading to academic stagnation and underachievement is the debate on the primary purpose of middle schools. Leaders have vacillated over whether early adolescent education should focus more on social-emotional learning (SEL) or academic achievement.
Those who believe middle school should focus more on SEL stress the importance of creating a supportive environment because early adolescent students need such environments to learn academic content. Strategies like creating interdisciplinary teams or including culturally responsive pedagogies promote a supportive learning community for all students (Anfara & Waks, 2000; Cook, Faulkner, & Howell, 2016; Ellerbrock & Kiefer, 2013). To further promote this supportive atmosphere, some districts have reduced grouping students by ability (Burris, Welner, & Murphy, 2008; George, Stevenson, & Thomason, 1992) and prioritized community-building.
While proponents of a focus on academic achievement support SEL approaches, they believe middle schools should put more of an emphasis on providing rigorous school curricula, instruction, and assessment (Blazer, 2008; Lipsitz & Mizell, 1997; Williamson & Johnston, 1999).
A rigorous curriculum challenges students at all levels to think in innovative ways and develop more sophisticated understandings of important ideas.
Those on both sides of the debate base their values on The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) position paper, This We Believe (Bishop & Harrison, 2020; National Middle School Association 1995). The 1995 edition of This We Believe highlights the importance of employing committed educators who hold a shared vision of middle-level education, upholding high expectations for all students, ensuring family and community partnerships, and cultivating a positive school climate. While the document names a challenging curriculum as one important element of a middle school that responds to students’ needs, the bulk of the items listed focus more on social-emotional needs. The imbalance has led to an epidemic of non-rigorous curriculum and chronically underchallenged students.
How researchers and organizations express their priorities are not simply ivory-tower discussions: They affect how middle schools function. For example, the shift toward organizing students into interdisciplinary teams to support their social-emotional needs has meant many more middle school classrooms are grouped heterogeneously. In 1991, the average Massachusetts middle schooler attended schools offering at least two to three distinct tracks for each individual subject. However, as the practice of teaming grew in the 1990s and early 2000s, middle schools became increasingly likely to offer a single, heterogenous class for English language arts, history, and science (Loveless, 2009, p. 26). As of 2018, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) reports that 48% of middle schools assign students based on tracking (Standing & Lewis, 2021). Half of our middle schools do not group by ability. Moreover, even if half the population assigns students based on tracking, that does not necessarily mean that every teacher is differentiating their instruction. I personally experienced this during my practicum. Despite having two separate tracks for 7th-grade English, the honors class shared an identical curriculum with the traditional class and rarely received differentiated instruction.
The heterogenization of middle school classrooms offers benefits, yet it requires already overworked and under-supported educators to differentiate their lessons for an expansive range of ability levels. For example, 5th-grade teachers may have to design curriculum for students whose reading comprehension skills encompass as many as 11 grade levels (Firmender, Reis, & Sweeny, 2013). Under those conditions, middle school teachers often provide more attention and support to students requiring remedial education than they do to students requiring additional challenges (Moon, Tomlinson, & Callahan, 1995). Even when educators understand that they need to differentiate their instruction for all ability levels, they often struggle to translate those ideas into practice (Smit & Humpert, 2012; Whipple, 2012). Thus, prioritizing social-emotional needs has the unintended consequence of leaving many students without a curriculum that responds to their academic needs (Buehler, Fletcher, & Johnston, 2015; Snyder & Garcia, 2013).
The effects of neglecting academic rigor
These structural and pedagogical practices have significant effects on middle school students. One study found that less than 6% of observed middle school lessons were devoted to the most cognitively complex tasks, those involving hypothesis generation and testing (Marzano & Toth, 2014). Middle grade students of all ability levels have shared in other studies that their academic needs are not being met. For example, in one study, only 31% of middle and high school students described receiving even moderately challenging social studies instruction (Saye et al., 2018). Students have reported that slow-paced curricula and repetitive content are boring, and high-achieving students feel overlooked by teachers focused on remediation for students who are struggling to master the content (Adams-Byers, Whitesell, & Moon, 2004; Little, 2012; Moon, Tomlinson, & Callahan, 1995). This explains why many high-ability students prefer homogeneous classrooms. Students have explained that, when they are in homogeneous classes, “You’re not held back. Teachers have quality time for all and not just those with a problem” and “The teacher doesn’t have to slow down for slower learners, my teacher trusts us . . . to do more” (Adams-Byers et al., 2004, p. 12).
A rigorous curriculum challenges students at all levels to think in innovative ways and develop more sophisticated understandings of important ideas (Sztabnik, 2015). Without a curriculum that engages them in new and interesting ideas and requires them to work to maintain high grades, students are more likely to become unmotivated, unengaged, and achieve less academic growth (Gentry, Rizza, & Owen, 2002; Little, 2012; Marzano & Toth, 2014; Williamson & Johnston, 1999). These students remain firmly in their comfort zone, creating the illusion that they do not have to push themselves to succeed.
This dynamic, in which students do not have to work hard to achieve high grades, may lead some students to develop an artificially high academic self-concept and unrealistic expectation for success (Snyder & Garcia, 2013). After repeated easy academic success, students may connect their self-worth to achievement with minimal effort and may not be psychologically prepared to tackle challenging tasks when they do arise (Snyder & Garcia, 2013). When facing academic risks or potential failures, these students could develop maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as procrastination, perfectionism, and purposefully sabotaging themselves (Snyder & Garcia, 2013).
As a preservice teacher, I noticed that many students were afraid to take risks and step outside their comfort zones during classroom activities. For example, one student consistently asked me insightful questions demonstrating significant critical-thinking skills, yet he struggled to start writing. When he did choose to write, he often produced simple sentences with underdeveloped ideas. He rarely participated in class activities or completed assignments. Although the reasons for this kind of behavior are complex, he was certainly capable of accomplishing the assigned task. He just seemed reluctant to try because of the possibility of failure.
Balancing SEL and academic rigor
Given these potential negative effects, middle schools need to promote both SEL and challenging academic content. Two programs, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID; Huerta, Watt, & Butcher, 2013) and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM; Renzulli & Reis, 2021), provide examples of how districts can make changes to improve rigor at the middle school level. The AVID program offers elective courses that help students, especially those who will be the first in their family to attend college, build academic and social-emotional skills that will help them as they enroll in more advanced courses. AVID also offers training for teachers in how they can make their curriculum and instructional practices more challenging and engaging. One study found that schools with the AVID program increased their offerings of courses such as pre-Advanced Placement (AP) language arts and pre-AP science and were more likely to make these courses open to every student on campus (Huerta, Watt, & Butcher, 2013). In addition, students enrolled in AVID in both middle and high school earned a significantly higher overall grade point average than those who enrolled in AVID only in high school (Huerta, Watt, & Butcher, 2013).
Another option to foster academic rigor, the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), promotes student enjoyment, engagement, and enthusiasm for learning — all of which contribute to academic achievement (Renzulli & Reis, 2021). The program has a long history of success, with many studies demonstrating its efficacy. For example, Carla Brigandi and coauthors (2018) examined whether, and in what ways, students’ participation in the program relates to their perceptions of school and home events, teacher and parent expectations, and interpersonal relationships. Students attended an 84-minute self-contained enrichment course that met every other day for one semester. During the course, they engaged in activities to discover personal interests, talents, and abilities. They used that information to design, with their teachers, an individual strengths-based educational experience that enabled them to investigate a question of interest and practice skills outside their comfort zones. At the end of the semester, many students reported a sense of pride resulting from successfully engaging with challenging coursework and maintained an overall positive perception of the program itself (Brigandi et al., 2018).
Middle schools must be able to integrate rigorous learning opportunities with supporting students socially and emotionally.
Both AVID and SEM reflect similar core values: respect for students’ academic capabilities, social-emotional support, and responsiveness to students’ needs. And both programs employ multiple strategies that treat middle school students as practicing professionals and scholars. For example, student-centered learning strategies, such as project-based learning and problem-based learning, enable students to collaborate to solve contemporary problems or provide authentic answers to ongoing questions, much as adults do in the workplace. These strategies permit differentiated, interest-based student-led exploration, as students use critical-thinking skills to answer important questions with engaged and motivated peers and mentors. Educators can include formative assessments, such as reflections or check-ins, to establish a respectful structure that acknowledges students’ abilities to drive their own learning while still providing much-needed academic and social-emotional support.
Schools seeking to balance academic challenge and social-emotional support might look to the three principles that undergird self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2020) for a framework: autonomy (i.e., feelings of agency over one’s decisions); competency (i.e., the ability to develop one’s skills and knowledge); and relatedness (i.e., the feelings of connectedness). These elements are tied to positive academic outcomes and student growth (Ryan & Deci, 2020) and thus are important qualities for middle schools to promote in their students.
Looking toward the future
Middle schools must be able to integrate rigorous learning opportunities with supporting students socially and emotionally. When district leaders, administrators, and teachers acknowledge that students have deep needs in both areas, we can better implement programs that target both areas. We don’t need to choose one over the other. But if we are not careful to review our curricula with both needs in mind, students will continue to experience boredom, achieve below their potential, and fail to see the value in the content they’re asked to study.
If the goal is to provide an equitable education for all, we educators, administrators, and others in the education field need to come together to provide academically rigorous and cognitively demanding work for all students. This work should nurture their feelings of connectedness, autonomy, and competence as they develop the authentic skills that will serve them in their future academic and professional lives.
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This article appears in the October 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 2, p. 11-16.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dani Tinkel
DANI TINKEL is an undergraduate in the Department of English Education at Ball State University, Muncie, IN.
