Middle School Exploration
If you missed our Middle School Exploration on February 7th and would like to visit while students are in session, please contact our Associate Head of School, Lisa Gamble.
About Middle School at Friends
Friends Middle School offers a balanced curriculum for students in Grades 6 to 8, featuring vigorous instruction in core academic subjects, complemented by in-depth thematic studies. Students have many opportunities to explore and express their interests and ideas in the context of close relationships with teachers and a supportive school staff.
Our approach to education addresses the academic, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of the growing adolescent. During this time of rapid growth and increasing independence, our highly-experienced teachers facilitate and provide developmentally appropriate activities and projects that lead to self-discovery, skill building, and abstract thinking.
Our overall goal is to create a learning community that emphasizes Quaker testimonies, self-expression and connection to real life concerns. As older middle school students prepare for high-school, they leave Friends School confident in their capabilities and goodness.
Our approach to education addresses the academic, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of the growing adolescent. During this time of rapid growth and increasing independence, our highly-experienced teachers facilitate and provide developmentally appropriate activities and projects that lead to self-discovery, skill building, and abstract thinking.
Our overall goal is to create a learning community that emphasizes Quaker testimonies, self-expression and connection to real life concerns. As older middle school students prepare for high-school, they leave Friends School confident in their capabilities and goodness.
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Middle school students feeling free . . . to be a little silly. Play may look a little different for adolescents, but there is no absence of creativity, fun, and joy in middle school at Friends.
As a community, we celebrate the Quaker testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship. For more than 30 years, these values have been the foundation of or work, helping children to become successful learners who are confident, creative, and compassionate. Our teachers and staff model these testimonies and encourage students to embrace these fundamentals beyond the walls of school and throughout their lives.
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Every April I am so grateful for Friends School. While other children are taking practice PSSA’s and nervously working through those tests, our children are actively and passionately engaged in preparing their class plays. And what plays these are! |
“I've never run into a person who yearns for their middle school days.”
Jeff Kinney, author, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”
“Nothing could be as hard as middle school.”
Zooey Deschanel, actor
When asked by their teachers if these quotes mirrored their experiences in Friends Middle School: “Well,” said one, “the work is harder than in elementary school, but I would expect that.” Another student offered, “I think they’re talking about public school. I’ve been there.” Several nodded. At Friends, they agreed, you are known as an individual, and you don’t feel pressured to be part of a social clique. As one student said, in Friends Middle School “you just get to be who you are.” Teachers in the Friends Middle School work every day to make it a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space while maintaining strong, preparatory academics, and the students benefit.
Jeff Kinney, author, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”
“Nothing could be as hard as middle school.”
Zooey Deschanel, actor
When asked by their teachers if these quotes mirrored their experiences in Friends Middle School: “Well,” said one, “the work is harder than in elementary school, but I would expect that.” Another student offered, “I think they’re talking about public school. I’ve been there.” Several nodded. At Friends, they agreed, you are known as an individual, and you don’t feel pressured to be part of a social clique. As one student said, in Friends Middle School “you just get to be who you are.” Teachers in the Friends Middle School work every day to make it a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space while maintaining strong, preparatory academics, and the students benefit.
Middle School Curriculum Snapshots
History
Much of our Middle School curriculum comes from the Zinn Education Project and Zinn's award-winning text, A Young People's History of the United States. The Zinn Education Project describes its goal as introducing, “students to a more accurate, complex and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The empowering potential of studying U.S. history is often lost in a textbook-driven trivial pursuit of names and dates. People’s history materials and pedagogy emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements in shaping history. Students learn that history is made not by a few heroic individuals, but instead by people’s choices and actions, thereby also learning that their own choices and actions matter. We believe that through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students with the analytical tools to make sense of -- and improve-- the world today."
Watercolor painting by student Mattie Carey depicts a runaway slave's dream of freedom.
Much of our Middle School curriculum comes from the Zinn Education Project and Zinn's award-winning text, A Young People's History of the United States. The Zinn Education Project describes its goal as introducing, “students to a more accurate, complex and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The empowering potential of studying U.S. history is often lost in a textbook-driven trivial pursuit of names and dates. People’s history materials and pedagogy emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements in shaping history. Students learn that history is made not by a few heroic individuals, but instead by people’s choices and actions, thereby also learning that their own choices and actions matter. We believe that through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students with the analytical tools to make sense of -- and improve-- the world today."
Watercolor painting by student Mattie Carey depicts a runaway slave's dream of freedom.
English
Study after study has shown that readers become better readers by reading, and writers become better writers by writing. That belief underscores everything we do in middle school English. Typically, four classes per week are dedicated to writing workshop, and one class to reading workshop. During writing workshop days, we have mini-lessons which are often focused on a specific skill (grammar, editing, genre, conventions, etc.). The rest of the class period students engage in regular, sustained writing. Much of our writing work this year has focused on short story composition.
On reading workshop days, students read self-selected novels. They lounge around the room like cats, as Teacher Laura wanders between them having whispered conversations about what they are reading. Students are encouraged to read for at least 30 minutes every night.
Much of what we do in middle school English is inspired by the work of Nancie Atwell, who writes:
There is no more important homework than reading. Research shows that the highest achieving students are those who devote leisure time to reading, even when the school day and year are only mid-length and homework isn’t excessive. Recently, the largest-ever international study of reading found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books, more important even than economic or social status. And one of the few predictors of high achievement in math and science is the amount of time children devote to pleasure reading . . .
Study after study has shown that readers become better readers by reading, and writers become better writers by writing. That belief underscores everything we do in middle school English. Typically, four classes per week are dedicated to writing workshop, and one class to reading workshop. During writing workshop days, we have mini-lessons which are often focused on a specific skill (grammar, editing, genre, conventions, etc.). The rest of the class period students engage in regular, sustained writing. Much of our writing work this year has focused on short story composition.
On reading workshop days, students read self-selected novels. They lounge around the room like cats, as Teacher Laura wanders between them having whispered conversations about what they are reading. Students are encouraged to read for at least 30 minutes every night.
Much of what we do in middle school English is inspired by the work of Nancie Atwell, who writes:
There is no more important homework than reading. Research shows that the highest achieving students are those who devote leisure time to reading, even when the school day and year are only mid-length and homework isn’t excessive. Recently, the largest-ever international study of reading found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books, more important even than economic or social status. And one of the few predictors of high achievement in math and science is the amount of time children devote to pleasure reading . . .
Friday Afternoon Middle School Seminar
Every Friday afternoon, while K - 4 students are exploring small-group enrichment activities, our Middle School teachers host a 5th through 8th grade seminar-style program, where student-driven projects become the focus of learning. Whether its classifying fossils, launching a weather balloon, making sushi or terraforming Mars, Middle School seminar is a richly satisfying time for discovery (and fun).
Every Friday afternoon, while K - 4 students are exploring small-group enrichment activities, our Middle School teachers host a 5th through 8th grade seminar-style program, where student-driven projects become the focus of learning. Whether its classifying fossils, launching a weather balloon, making sushi or terraforming Mars, Middle School seminar is a richly satisfying time for discovery (and fun).
There's much more to share, and the best way to do that is to have your family visit with us to learn more about our curriculum and the culture of community here. Call Lisa Gamble, Associate Head of School at 814-237-8386, or email Lisa at lgamble@scfriends.org
Hands-on learning at the Wetlands Institute in Cape May, NJ brings greater understanding of concepts taught in the classroom at school.
Bailey Kellerman
Teacher Bailey Kellerman relies very little on textbooks to teach her students. Instead, she gives them daily opportunities for hands-on learning. For example, a lesson about elements and compounds becomes a game in which students take on the guises of elements and then search for partners among their classmates with whom to form compounds based on the numbers of electrons they each contain. Likewise, tasked with building a “confetti canon,” students learn about the laws of physics.
Bailey’s entire classroom reflects this hands-on approach, from the numerous animals—including fish, cockroaches, a giant African millipede, a ball python, and sometimes even a dog named Alice—that all require care, to the enormous map of the world painted on the wall which students reference regularly.
Bailey grew up in the small town of Tidioute, Pennsylvania, located on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest, where she enjoyed canoeing, exploring, and collecting insects. Bailey still loves insects, animals, and the outdoors. Much of her free time goes toward caring for her ever-growing menagerie, which has included Great Pyrenees dogs, cats, a hamster, fish and turtles, chinchillas, iguanas, mice, and a parrot. She earned a bachelor’s degree in forest science and a master’s degree in entomology at Penn State. She began teaching at State College Friends School in 2004.
Teacher Bailey Kellerman relies very little on textbooks to teach her students. Instead, she gives them daily opportunities for hands-on learning. For example, a lesson about elements and compounds becomes a game in which students take on the guises of elements and then search for partners among their classmates with whom to form compounds based on the numbers of electrons they each contain. Likewise, tasked with building a “confetti canon,” students learn about the laws of physics.
Bailey’s entire classroom reflects this hands-on approach, from the numerous animals—including fish, cockroaches, a giant African millipede, a ball python, and sometimes even a dog named Alice—that all require care, to the enormous map of the world painted on the wall which students reference regularly.
Bailey grew up in the small town of Tidioute, Pennsylvania, located on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest, where she enjoyed canoeing, exploring, and collecting insects. Bailey still loves insects, animals, and the outdoors. Much of her free time goes toward caring for her ever-growing menagerie, which has included Great Pyrenees dogs, cats, a hamster, fish and turtles, chinchillas, iguanas, mice, and a parrot. She earned a bachelor’s degree in forest science and a master’s degree in entomology at Penn State. She began teaching at State College Friends School in 2004.
Laura Beckley
Laura teaches English and History in the Friends Middle School. She has a BA in English and History from The College of William and Mary (VA), a MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews (Scotland), and a MA in Teaching focusing on poverty and at risk youth from American University (DC). Before joining State College Friends School, Laura taught in high poverty schools in Washington, DC and Richmond, VA.
Laura says that she was born under a wandering star and spent much of her youth and twenties living out of a backpack, talking to strangers and listening to their stories. She teaches history courses inspired by Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, focusing on the lives, art, and music of the disenfranchised: African Americans, Native Americans, women, children, immigrants, and the poor. She encourages her students to seek the stories left out of textbooks. In her classroom, students study the past to better understand the present; the Jim Crow South to understand Black Lives Matter, the Trail of Tears to understand Standing Rock. She also directs the biennial musical production King in Montgomery, a celebration of the Civil Rights Movement.
In Laura’s English classes, students divide their time between passionately arguing over books and discovering their voices as writers. Laura uses English instruction to build students’ empathy as well as their confidence to speak even when their voices shake. Students write short stories, plays, poems, speeches, even novels. They read everything. When asked for her favorite book, Laura answered, “All the books.”
When not teaching, she’s likely exploring the woods with her children and husband, befriending a stray cat, tending her garden, or reading a book.
Laura teaches English and History in the Friends Middle School. She has a BA in English and History from The College of William and Mary (VA), a MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews (Scotland), and a MA in Teaching focusing on poverty and at risk youth from American University (DC). Before joining State College Friends School, Laura taught in high poverty schools in Washington, DC and Richmond, VA.
Laura says that she was born under a wandering star and spent much of her youth and twenties living out of a backpack, talking to strangers and listening to their stories. She teaches history courses inspired by Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, focusing on the lives, art, and music of the disenfranchised: African Americans, Native Americans, women, children, immigrants, and the poor. She encourages her students to seek the stories left out of textbooks. In her classroom, students study the past to better understand the present; the Jim Crow South to understand Black Lives Matter, the Trail of Tears to understand Standing Rock. She also directs the biennial musical production King in Montgomery, a celebration of the Civil Rights Movement.
In Laura’s English classes, students divide their time between passionately arguing over books and discovering their voices as writers. Laura uses English instruction to build students’ empathy as well as their confidence to speak even when their voices shake. Students write short stories, plays, poems, speeches, even novels. They read everything. When asked for her favorite book, Laura answered, “All the books.”
When not teaching, she’s likely exploring the woods with her children and husband, befriending a stray cat, tending her garden, or reading a book.
Visitors are welcome to explore our small, independent middle school. Please contact Lisa Gamble to arrange a day for a visit.
