On Friday morning, the Stoneleigh-Burnham School Board of Trustees came over from the main building and visited the middle school classroom. The girls had prepared a series of talks on the various parts of their school day, including all classes, sports, and community service. All of them had augmented their talks in one way or another, whether with a PowerPoint presentation, a video, a DVD clip, or examples of student artwork and writing, using the Smart Board to aid in their presentations. They spoke for a total of just over half an hour, and when they were done one of the first questions out of the trustees' mouths was "The year is only a month old. Where did you find time to do all this?!" One of the 7th graders responded, "Oh, we did all this in a week and a half." Another trustee asked if they had always been this comfortable with technology, and after some of the students said that yes, that was true for them, another girl said she had never really used technology before. Asked why she had used and learned more about technology here, she said"basically because it's mandatory." She seemed initially a bit taken aback by the laughter that ensued, but one of the trustees quickly put her at ease by saying "No, that's honesty. That's good."

While the girls obviously get the vast bulk of the credit for performing this well under that kind of pressure, some of the credit must legitimately be shared by all the teachers and coaches who bring their classes and sports to life each day, and additional credit should go to Martha Shepardson-Killam, our Head of School, who did a great job of helping the kids feel comfortable in front of this unfamiliar group. She began by talking briefly about how inspired she was by what these girls were accomplishing, and then asked the trustees to introduce themselves and talk a bit about what they do for the school and why. She also let trustees and students know they were invited to mutually seek each other out at lunch and ask each other questions (one of the trustees said, perhaps only half-jokingly, "Please don't make them too hard!"). A number of SBS administrators who also attended the session were nearly moved to tears at how well the kids presented themselves and their ideas, and all in all we couldn't have been prouder of them.

That afternoon, three scant hours later, we had a team meeting wherein we struggled with several difficult issues, discussing how most appropriately and respectfully to handle a social problem involving three of the girls, and trying to figure out how to help all ten of them get ready for the fast-approaching student-led conferences when so much time had been given over recently to preparing for the presentation to the trustees. At one point, during a long and suspense-laden break in the conversation, I looked across at my colleague Katherine, who looked absolutely exhausted, and commented "You know, after all we went through to get ready for this morning, you'd think we'd get more of chance to sit back and relax and just enjoy the feeling of accomplishment." Her eyebrows rose expressively, her eyes widened, and she nodded slowly and said "Uh-huh." We mulled over that thought for a second, took a deep breath, and resumed the conversation where we'd left off, eventually developing two action plans to handle the two situations. We'll track their progress through the course of this week, and revise as needed. No rest for the weary! The kids' needs are just too important.

P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that much of New England is more than a little weary these days... and, as of this past Friday, the World Series hadn't even started!!! Go Sox!

Today was our fourth visit to the animal shelter, and before we even left the school I could feel something was different. At 1:25, I asked the girls to close up, put away and lock up their laptops, and meet me downstairs in 5 minutes. I went and got the key and drove the blue Suburban out front, where Julia and Tadea were already waiting for me. Kathleen and Kate, reported Julia, were in the school store grabbing a snack, and the candy Julia was holding suggested she had already made a similar stop. Laura showed up moments later and we headed off down the driveway.

At the shelter, miracle of miracles, there was an obvious place to park, and on our way up the hill we paused to look at the dogs in the big outside pen. In the front office, we greeted the latest litter of kittens awaiting the results of their medical exams before they could be made available for adoption. They were curled up together in a basket, and leaning over them, Tadea commented that it would be best if they could be adopted together. Mentioning that her family had recently suffered the loss of a cat, she squared her shoulders and set off to sign in with a purposeful air that suggested her parents were going to hear about these kittens at dinner tonight. Everyone else was already signing in and finding their volunteer badges, and as soon as we were all ready we headed off to check out the list of possible jobs.

Today looked simple. Most of the cats needed attention and brushing, their carriers needed disinfecting, the indoor dog pens needed to be set up with blankets, toys and treats, and there was poop to be scooped (my specialty!). After a short discussion, we agreed the girls would take care of the animals and I would start working through the other tasks and they would join me when they were done with the cats. However, when they came outside, they told me they had been granted permission to go into the outdoor pens and "socialize the dogs" as they say, especially the puppies and the retired greyhound racers. I finished my work with about 20 minutes to go, and got a turn to snuggle with a Labrador puppy that crawled into my lap as well as one of the greyhounds.

We gathered in the front lobby, signed out, and headed for the parking lot. On the way back to the school, we talked about vegetarianism, and as we arrived they thanked me for driving. Moments later, I was filling up at the local Mobil station and thinking back over the afternoon. On the surface, everything was the same - and yet, as I said, everything felt different. I thought back to that first day just about a month ago, remembering all too vividly the sudden panic I felt as we first opened the door to the front office. It is easy, I thought then, to talk about community service as a theory, an ideal, something well worth doing. It is quite another thing to be physically there, facing the unexpected, wanting to help but having no exact idea what that entails. Facing my own nervousness, I was stunned by the enormity of what we were asking these kids to do.

And then it came to me, what felt different about today. Everything was now routine, from the moment I announced I was leaving the classroom to the moment we pulled back into the driveway. We knew what to expect, and we felt confident that we were good at what we needed to do. And this was after only four weeks, with many months yet to come. How powerful an effect will this service work have over the course of a year? I am so excited to find out!

Tonight we had the first parent-teacher meeting of Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School. It was a great hour, a chance for a group of adults who care deeply about a group of kids to talk about how what needs those kids have and how best to meet them. Martha Shepardson-Killam, our Head of School welcomed the parents and I read an emailed greeting from Chris Toy (consultant on our NMSA grant),from which the following quote is extracted:

"As individuals and as a group, parents are the key partners with the school as it works toward its vision of what all students need in order to be successful now and in the future. It is very true that you were your children's first teachers. You know them best as individuals. The teachers know your children in groups better than most parents. Your knowledge and the teachers' knowledge combined is a very powerful body of expertise focused on success for all your children. As you and your children's teachers embark on this adventure we call middle school please remember that working with young adolescents is a very special calling. This is true for you as parents, and for the staff. I don't think it's possible to do this unless we really love being in their world."

Two of my colleagues, Rebecca Dickinson and Katherine Harcourt, and I then used PowerPoint presentations to help explain the 14 principles outlined in "This We Believe." As part of our NMSA grant, we bought copies of the book for all families, but we were realistic enough to know that not all copies may have made it home in the girls' backpacks in time for their parents to have been able to read them, and we wanted to be sure that everyone understood what the middle school model is all about.

Finally, we borrowed an idea from Chris Toy which he had outlined in an online diary for MiddleWeb about one of the Parent Team meetings at Freeport Middle School. We gave paper to all the parents, and asked them to write down what they wanted to have happen for their daughters this year - not the specific issues which could better be handled by talking to advisors, but more general thoughts which might apply to all the girls. Unfortunately, I was not clear that there should be only one idea per piece of paper, which meant I had to do some quick copying of each individual idea onto separate pieces of paper. I've never written so neatly and quickly at the same time in my entire life! The good side to this is that we probably got many more ideas than we otherwise would have. The parents were then given five smiley-face stickers, and after looking at and reading over all the ideas, placed their stickers under the ideas they felt were the most important. We will be compiling this data over the next few days to determine what are the top priorities of the parents, and we will be able to use this in our planning through the year.

While the parents were placing their stickers, Katherine and I were commenting that working with the parents was just like working with their daughters - you try an activity to see what you get, and they respond with this explosion of wonderful, thoughtful, insightful ideas. It was an inspiring evening, and a great start to our parent-teacher partnership and this aspect of our work on the grant.

It doesn't feel like that long a time since I've written in this blog, probably because I've been working on an article for NMSA's "Month of the Young Adolescent" which I've just submitted to the local newspaper. It's been fun remembering and choosing among so many possible good examples of what middle schools can be. Even though I decided it would be best not to draw on my own experiences for this article (too much risk it would be seen as just P.R. for my school rather than a piece meant to focus on the middle school model itself), images of moments spent with so many classes and so many students have been flowing through my mind. Not a few of them have been from this year's group, although we've only had five weeks of classes. There's so much to catch up on here... the first days of community service... the experience of working with the students to prepare a presentation for the Stoneleigh-Burnham School Board of Trustees... working toward student-led conferences... finding ways to build on the solid relationship of trust and the work ethic that we have established, and begin to more actively push the kids to stretch themselves further and further.

For now, let me just borrow from a posting I made to the MiddleWeb listserv in response to a question asked by Linda Emm. It touches on several of the above issues:

"As one of the parents said, 'It's better than a dream.' All of the 10 kids in the middle school program are happy and engaged and excited about what they are doing. Today marks two straight days they asked if they could work into their break period. They are also getting along extraordinarily well, even when they start arguing politics. Lots of adults could learn from these girls... What have I learned? I've learned at least a part of what makes each of my students special. I've learned that running a Readers and Writers Workshop takes extraordinary intellectual effort. I've learned that I am really good at scooping poop (the Wednesday community service group goes to the animal shelter). I've learned that inquiry-based teaching is definitely the way to go, at least for me in this school with these kids."

More soon...

Martha Shepardson-Killam, our Head of School, had written an email to the girls asking them if they would be willing to make a 20-minute-long presentation at the April Trustees meeting, with about 10 minutes afterwards for Q & A. The girls were composing an email accepting the offer, and very quickly brainstormed ideas like doing a PowerPoint, reading their original writing, and making a video of their typical day. Then the most innocent of questions caused an uproar. "How shall we end the letter?" I asked them, and when one girl said "I suppose 'the middle school girls,'" the room erupted. As it turns out, many of them had been upset for quite some time about a few key points where they felt we were treating them like babies, and the phrase "middle school" had come to symbolize that frustration for a good sized group of them.

As we focused in on a discussion, four key issues arose, mostly around terminology. One, the use of the word "cubbies" to refer to the area where they keep their stuff. Two, the use of the word "recess" for the 20-minute break they have daily. Three, the use of the word "Pals" to refer to the program where they are paired with an upper school girl for periodic activities. Four, the use of the word "middle" as in "middle school." There were easy fixes for three of the issues, which we worked out in a joint advisory meeting with both groups. We agreed to use the term "locker room" and "break" and to reprint the schedule. No one could come up with an alternative to the name "Pals," so they refocused their energy on looking for more opportunities to do things with their Pals, and since then we have been able to schedule the next activity, a dinner for them on the evening of October 7.

The discussion on the term "middle school" was a little more complicated, because after all we are, by design, a middle school. I shared some educational history with them, where the term "junior high" came from and how the middle school movement got started. They acknowledged that they appreciated the way they were being taught, and really just didn't want the term "middle school" thrown in their faces at every opportunity. I told them how much I love working with middle schools in general and them in particular, and that if I use the term "middle school" all the time it actually comes from that love. We also told them (which most of them didn't know) that we do use the term "upper school" quite often for grades 9-12. In the end, we all agreed to keep using the term "middle school" but to try to cut down on the frequency of its usage.

When I wrote up the minutes for this advisory meeting, I added the note "It was good to hear your voices speaking out, expressing your different opinions on these different issues." My colleague Rebecca, the middle school coordinator, added "I was so glad to have a chance to join your advisory discussion on Friday. I can't tell you how often I brag about the ten of you (and Bill and Katherine) to the other teachers and students. Let's continue to make all our discussions so productive." Parents who have heard about the discussion are pleased that the girls spoke up, pleased that they were listened to, and pleased that the conversation was handled in such a respectful way by everybody involved.

By the way, the class never did decide how to sign that email to the Head of School, so I made the executive decision that evening to sign all of their names to it. The power of this group comes from the collective wisdom, experience, thoughts and talents of each of the ten girls, and hopefully this kind of group signature reflects that. Next time we write a collective email, I'll find out for sure what the girls think about that.

It is hard to believe that tomorrow we begin our first full week of "normal" classes at Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School. So much has happened already, and the girls are already so comfortable that in some ways it feels like we have always had a middle school program. However, even with this level of comfort, there is a strong undercurrent of excitement, some of which must be due to this being the Founders' Program, but much of which is no doubt intrinsic to SBMS as a part of the larger whole of Stoneleigh-Burnham School.

Certainly you could not ask for new students to settle in more quickly - it was exhilarating to see the difference between that first Humanities class on September 8 and the very same kids just 24 hours later. Though they were certainly excited about learning, kind and enthusiastic right from the start, by the morning of their second day they had clearly decided it was okay to really be themselves, and they had also clearly decided that they all liked each other and wanted to get along. Last Monday, on an overnight trip to Camp Becket for teambuilding, leadership training, and time on a high ropes course, I commented to our counselor Elizabeth that I had been worried the kids would take a little while to settle in together but that they seemed to be doing amazingly well for just their fourth day together. She made a face that suggested "amazingly well" was, if anything, an understatement.

From the start, SBMS was supposed to be about helping middle school girls preserve their voice and their excitement for learning, and judging from the cascade of opinions as they faced each new challenge together on their overnight trip, not to mention the constant questions and proposals flooding the Humanities class, their voices and excitement for learning are certainly intact! Their instincts are also clearly toward including everyone. The trick will be, as they continue to grow ever more aware of their each other's personal styles, to come to terms with the fact that different girls will have different ideas of what it means to be included, and to figure out what that all is going to look like in the end. Since they are smart, aware, sensitive, and caring, they will certainly get to that point. How that will happen, and what exact role we adults will be called upon to play, remains to be seen. What is certain is that the journey will be a major part of the work - and fun- involved in creating a new school.

"First day jitters?" asked one of the mothers as she shut the car door and prepared to follow her daughter who was already pulling her backpack on wheels toward the twin front doors of the school. I smiled and told her about the time I phoned my mother, then an established and experienced physics teacher at Smith College, and asked if I would ever outgrow first-day jitters. "No," she told me, "I still feel that way, and I think most teachers do." Of course, there was a special quality to this particular set of first day jitters; this was no ordinary first day. In all the 135 years since Prospect Hill School (one of the schools whose mergers produced Stoneleigh-Burnham School) was founded, never before had 7th and 8th graders walked through the front door as enrolled students. But on this day Alice, Alicia, Bryna, Haley, Julia, Kate, Kathleen, Laura, Tadea, and Tiffany gathered by the Reception desk and waited for one of the teachers to bring them up to the classroom where they would officially join together and become the Founders' Program of the Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School. Up until this day, SBMS was a dream. At 8:00 a.m. on September 8, 2004, just like that, SBMS became reality.

As we began to get to know each other, we learned (among other things) that Laura is already an aunt 11 times over, that both Kate and Kathleen are emphatically not Kathys, that Alicia can touch her tongue to her nose, and that no one was left-handed. When asked to form and then untie a human knot, the girls dove into the problem without hesitation and unraveled themselves with impressive speed. They brought the same energy, spirit, and willingness to get right down to work into their classes, and as the day progressed and I moved on to help the new upper school international students with their orientation, many many people came up to me and said how happy the kids looked, how nice they were, how it brightened people's days just to see them walk by. You could not ask for a better first day or a more auspicious beginning. Up to now, it was all just a wonderful dream, all our preparation was just work-in-waiting. This is better. Now, the real work begins. Now, the real fun begins.