My Musing

I had the pleasure of visiting KLO Middle School this week. The information and opinions on middle schools that I had recieved before visiting the school was that the age group does not work well. The grade 9’s are mentally and sometimes physically not ready to be the leaders of the school and bear that responsability as well as the grade 7’s being too young and impressionable to be grouped with the older students. Luckily I didn’t experience this at all at KLO. Most of the morning we were escorted around the school exploring the different classes by grade 9’s that were registered in a leadership class. They took this role seriously and understood the role that they were asked to play. I had the chance to ask the Principal about the negative opinions that I had heard and how she dealt with her middle school. She said that as soon as you have the expectation that the students can’t handle the responsability then they won’t. Just because they will not go out of their way to aquire some responsability that doesn’t mean that they can’t bear the weight. Sure there will be some students that can’t but how will you know until you place them in that situation. I don’t believe I have enough information to say whether or not I think that the middle school system works but I have seen it work very well first hand.