(Age 11 to 15) Middle School
It is important to emphasise that the whole concern of education is the deepening and maturing of attention and sensitivity. It is a mistake to assume that the primary years are for the maturing of attention and the later years for building on this. Therefore, throughout the school years, there has to be the concern with attention, in providing spaces for it to deepen into itself. That being understood, we can examine what is appropriate in the middle years.
Certainly the intellect is ready for a greater degree of conceptualization and abstraction and this is reflected in the expansion of the academic subjects that the student is exposed to. Each subject has its particular discipline and a mode of enquiry which is relevant to intellectual development. The rigour of science is different from the rigour of history and both are necessary, though the degree of exposure varies from student to student.
This is also the stage when there is a greater growth of autonomy in the student and this has to be respected and made part of the learning about relationship and responsibility. The student is encouraged to take greater responsibility for his/her academic work and other activities and the teacher increasingly becomes a partner and a support rather than an initiator of activities. These are the years when the student needs to get grounded in taking care of the body, exercising and stretching the limits of one’s own physical stamina and capacity, beginning the discovery of what one’s particular talents are, and taking on responsibilities for tasks in the community, and learning to move around independently in the city and elsewhere. Sexuality becomes an important aspect of the student’s life. To help the student to meet it factually and sensitively without letting it overrun into the psychological realm, creating complexities and confusion in identity and relationship, becomes the responsibility of the adult community. Particularly for boys, physical desire can be a tremendous burden leading either to coarseness, suppression and feelings of guilt. To help the student unravel the associations between the biological movement of sexuality and psychological movement of thoughts, with its creation of images and the obsessive seeking of pleasure, again, becomes the responsibility of the adult community.
Teacher assisted individualized learning continues in vertical groups. The building of basic skills in the core subjects becomes more formalized with the use of graded material for the different levels of learning. Projects and field work are part of the curriculum, as well as activities such as drama, music art and craft. Students are introduced to a wide variety of reading material in the areas of, for example, science, literature, and the social sciences. Workshops, exposures and apprenticeships form an important part of the educational programme.
>