Why Beaver’s Middle School Is No Ordinary Place
She tentatively raises her instrument to her chin and readies her bow. She takes a deep breath and begins to play as her audience listens attentively. The girl, an accomplished violinist, is not in music class. She has authored a response to a book she has read in seventh grade English. The assignment encouraged creative expression, and the student has chosen to apply her talent across disciplines. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever written,” she admits as class ends.
Four eighth graders in business attire propose designs to make Beaver’s library wheelchair-accessible. Armed with models, blueprints, and a PowerPoint slide show, they are competing with three other groups before a panel of teachers and administrators to see whose plan meets the dual criteria of being up to code and cost effective. This is math in the Middle School.
An Incubator of Ideas
Examples of such innovative intellectual challenge abound in the classrooms and hallways of the Middle School at BCDS. It is no ordinary place. Long respected as a model of progressive teaching, the Middle School is a learning laboratory for faculty and students alike. Our teachers are encouraged to create original approaches to lesson plans that will engage all kinds of minds from all kinds of lives.
A Curriculum That Fosters Personal Growth
Our carefully crafted humanities curriculum begins in sixth grade with an emphasis on world cultures, focuses in seventh grade on immigration and the Constitutional rights that make the U.S. a magnet for immigrants, and narrows in the eighth grade to explore individual identity and personal responsibility.
A building block approach that emphasizes the repetition of vital academic and real-life skills marks the signature projects that are rites of passage in each Middle School year. The same competencies are nurtured in The Biggest Dig, which produces an epic volume called The Sixth Grade History of the World, in the seventh grade’s Cultural Heritage Project and its investigation into the immigration story of each student’s family, and in the eighth grade’s thesis-based Creative Scholars Project, which culminates with the creation of museum exhibits about a topic inspired by each student’s unique interests. The emphasis on time management, research skills, writing, oral presentation, and graphic display that permeates these long-term assignments does more than make project-based learning a reality; such comprehensive projects prepare our students for success in high school and well beyond.
A Student-Centered Approach to Teaching
Student-centered is not just an idea at Beaver—it is a living and breathing reality. The administration and faculty at Beaver’s Middle School work tirelessly to constantly hone their craft to offer students a challenging, diverse, and unique experience. Beyond that, they commit to knowing and connecting with students both inside and outside class. Walk the halls with a Middle School teacher and watch the interactions. Students rush up to share the news of the day; others ask if their paper has been graded, and more just want to talk about last night’s ball game. Kids know and trust the adults in the friendly Beaver community, often forging relationships that continue throughout their Upper School years at the school.
Preparation for Success in High School and Beyond
Middle School students flourish in Beaver’s Upper School. They star in the plays and musicals, become deeply involved in community service and social action, are elected to leadership positions in school government, and earn academic commendations like honor roll and Cum Laude in great numbers. Their success is no accident. It speaks to the commitment of our teachers, the depth of our program, the creativity of our approach, the vision of our administration, the diversity of our student body, and the belief that each child has a special and unique path to success.
A girl stands alone before her grade, her teachers, and more than a few parents, dressed as an old man. She delivers a monologue chronicling “his” experience as a human guinea pig in the Tuskegee experiments. It is clear that her five weeks of research has produced more than a catalog of knowledge; she has absorbed the emotion and injustice of the tragedy. Her audience is silent as she concludes her presentation, the usual applause replaced by a palpable empathy. The girl is in sixth grade.
This is the Middle School. It is no ordinary place.
