When lifespan developmentalists describe the developmental tasks of the early adolescent, the list usually includes the following: handling major body changes, asserting independence from family, establishing sex role identity, dealing with peer group relationships, controlling emotions, constructing a values foundation, pursuing interest expression, using new reasoning capacities, and developing acceptable self-concept (Wiles, 1976).

While those of us concerned with Christian education might not seriously quarrel with the items on that list, the list is not complete. Students have a yearning to feel needed by others that carries with it a willingness to learn to be responsible for the learning, care, and nurture of others. Within the Christian context this need to be needed is appropriate for young people who are disciples of Jesus Christ. Self-concept for a Christian develops from a sense of the splendor of our worth because we are new persons in Jesus Christ. And we most feel the splendor of worth when we are fulfilling our mandate to take responsibility for others who are in need.

Using developmental tasks as the criteria for planning a school program helps us focus on possible roles of schooling. If it is the role of the school to help students become academically adequate, then the school must introduce new knowledge areas, encourage critical thinking, help students move toward taking responsibility for their own learning, help students achieve skills needed for continued learning, and help them think about how their gifts are to be used in their future lives. For that reason it is essential that the middle school place a strong emphasis on study skills integrated with every subject area and also provide exploratory units which will help them develop their career potentials.

If it is the role of the school to promote social development, then it must help students learn that they stand before God in relationship to others and must learn to take responsibility for others along with learning adequate communication skills. For that reason activities in which they will learn servanthood must be part of their instruction.

If it is the role of the school to develop self-concept and self-acceptance, then it must help students explore their values, expand their interests, and understand how humans stand before God in their relationships with him and w1th themselves. For that reason each student must be well-known by at least one teacher and should be able to rely on that teacher to help learn from his or her experiences in order to comprehend physical changes and changing relations with family and peers. Advisor-advisee relationships should be established, and the school day should be structured to provide opportunity for meetings between advisor and advisee to occur.

If it is the role of the school to provide aesthetic stimulation, then it must help students develop latent talents and aesthetic appreciation. If it is the role of the school to promote physical and mental health, then it must provide understanding that the person stands in relationship to himself or herself. It must provide instruction in conditioning and coordination, provide understanding of nutrition, and ensure that education about human sexuality is part of the student's instruction.

In keeping with the unique character of learning at this level it is far more important that the curriculum includes a large component in strengthening of skills for future learning than that it continues a forward movement with adding additional content (Stronks, 1984). Students at this level need careful instruction in study skills, reading to identify inferences, critical thinking, outlining, notetaking, and summarizing. They need guidance in different ways of thinking, and they need opportunities to become involved in their learning in a

variety of ways. Without such opportunities they will become bored with the program, resulting in a lowering of their expectations for themselves.

Research has shown that isolated instruction in these skills does not transfer to other disciplines, so an integrated curriculum must ensure that these skills are strengthened in every subject area. For example, while in language arts the students receive careful, step-by-step instruction in the writing of essays, summaries, outlines, reports, and short research papers, teachers in other subject areas must not only know what is taught and how it is taught in the language arts class but must consistently insist that students use those skills in written products for all classes. Instruction in math classes will be characterized far more by increments in already initiated skills than in acquisition of new skills, making certain not only that the students become completely competent with math skills but also that they understand how those skills apply to human problems: filling out tax forms, paying mortgages on homes, or determining whether a family could live from the interest of a specific sum. Again, an integrated curriculum will ensure that problems encountered in the social studies class would be worked out with skills learned in the math class.

In addition to making certain that skills for future learning are strengthened, it is important that middle school students internalize the tendency to take responsibility for the learning, care, and nurture of others. They must also be able to evaluate the actions of others as to whether they are morally right or wrong (Wolterstorff, 1980). Students at this age need to feel needed, whether or not that need is apparent to their parents and teachers, and this need can only be met by helping them learn to take responsibility for those who need their help. How do students learn to take responsibility for others? They learn to do so by engaging in responsible actions. Taking responsibility for others should be so much a part of expectations of the teachers and parents in the Christian school that it is not even a matter of choice on the part of the student.

In all areas of the curriculum emphasis must be on the students' responsibility to help each other learn rather than pitting their talents against each other in competition. Instructional strategies especially designed for helping students learn such responsibility through cooperative efforts will be an important part of the curriculum.

Since most of the instructional strategies which promote cooperation involve some kind of group work, it is important to understand effective small group arrangements. Teachers who have done a great deal of small group work at the middle school level have found that groups of four to six work best, although Vacca and Vacca (1986) suggest that teachers would do well to begin with groups of two or three. Small groups should be heterogeneous. In an examination of thirty-one specific pieces of research on ability grouping for middle grades instruction, Johnston and Markle (1986) report the following:

For me, small, informal groups have always worked better when they consist of one very capable student, one student who doesn't catch on so easily, and no more than one student with a behavior problem. The rest of the group members fall somewhere in between. Teachers who have allowed students to group themselves have run into more difficulty than teachers who use planned groups.

It is important that the teacher encourages a climate in which everyone is expected to participate in group work. This can be done by moving from group to group, carefully monitoring the activity of each group. If a student consistently tries to defeat the functioning of the group by inappropriate actions or comments, that student should be asked to leave the group and should be given an independent assignment (such as answering a list of questions on the reading material) which will be completed without the benefit of the group. Nagging and threatening by the teacher are counterproductive because they draw too much attention to the inappropriate behavior. Students will quickly catch on to the fact that group work is important and everyone must participate in a helpful manner.

One of the many examples of such instructional strategies which have been developed for this kind of learning Is Intra-Act (Hoffman,1979). Intra-Act is an appropriate strategy for use in grade five through college and Is used in situations where the goal is to help students learn to actively participate in a discussion, support their opinions with evidence, and actively encourage each other to do the same. This is the way I have adapted it for use in my classes:

7. The group members add up the correct predictions and divide that number by the number of possible predictions. This percentage score will help them determine the extent to which they are improving in their ability to support their evaluative statements with evidence and their ability to encourage each other to do so.

Intra-Act always works much better after the first experience with it because the students understand that their task in the discussion period is not only to state their own opinions and support them with evidence but also to encourage one another to do the same. If the groups stay the same, the group can keep track of its own progress in improving responsibility for discussion.

Strategies such as Intra-Act help students learn to take responsibility for stating the evidence on which they base their judgments. They also help students learn to encourage each other to state their evidence because without such participation the group cannot work effectively. Without the participation of each member the score of the group cannot be high.

Another example of an instructional strategy which helps students learn to take responsibility for their own learning as well as for the learning of others is REAP, developed by Eanet and Manzo

(Eanet & Manzo, 1976). The purpose of this strategy is to help students learn how to summarize content area textbook materials and journal articles in preparation for writing a research paper. Students often have difficulty with writing summaries because the skill of summarizing is different for different subject areas. Therefore, after summarizing has been taught in the writing class, the content area teachers will have to show how that instruction applies to their subject area. REAP should be used by content area teachers in grades five through twelve rather than by language arts teachers.

Begin by telling the students that they will be expected to write a research paper and show them that one of the skills needed in doing so is the skill of summarizing written material. Then go through the following procedure:

We have found that the dialogue in the small groups is extremely valuable in helping students learn. Those who have caught on to the procedure benefit by explaining what they have done so that the others will understand. Those who are having difficulty benefit from the extra instruction. In this way, students are taking responsibility for their own learning as well as for each other's learning.

Another instructional strategy is semantic mapping. Semantic mapping is a procedure that helps students work together to identify important ideas and allows them to explain to each other how those ideas relate to each other (Hanf, 1971). Before the students are assigned a reading selection, the teacher introduces the topic by writing it in the center of the chalkboard and then drawing a circle around it. The teacher then asks the students what they already know about the topic, and as they respond, lists the items of information on the chalkboard. When information is given which is incorrect, the teacher still lists it, without comment. The students look at the list and predict together what are likely to be the important strands of the reading assignment. The teacher draws spokes out from the circle, listing a strand on each spoke.

The students then read the assignment. After the reading is completed they close their books and decide together whether the information they have listed is correct. They must cite evidence for their decisions.

Next they decide together whether they have listed all of the important strands on the spokes. If not, they tell the teacher which ones must still be added.

The students together list the supporting details for each strand. They do the listing without opening their textbooks since this is a thinking activity. After they have listed all the supporting details they can remember, they open their textbooks and skim to see whether any have been missed. Then they close their textbooks and complete the map by listing the details which have been missed. When the teacher and students are satisfied with the semantic map they have created, the students copy it in their notebooks.

After the teacher and students have done this type of mapping together several times, the students will be capable of doing at least part of the procedure in small groups. The goal is that, with appropriate modeling and explaining, the students will soon be able to do the entire procedure in small groups, beginning with the step immediately after the teacher has written and circled the central topic on the chalkboard. The group products can then be compared in follow-up discussion.

Mapping is more than just another way of making notes from a reading selection. The group dialogue helps each member come to a clearer understanding of the relationships in the assignment. We also have evidence that the dialogue helps the weaker students more clearly understand terms such as "main idea" and "supporting details."

Descriptions of instructional strategies designed to help students work together can be found in many places. Journals such as The Reading Teacher, Journal of Reading, and the professional education journals in many content areas are full of such strategies. College textbooks on reading in the content areas are another rich source (Tierney, Readence, & Dishner, 1990). Usually the strategies which are described will have to be adapted for use in a particular classroom.

Teaching with these instructional strategies can completely change the environment of the classroom, especially when the teacher points out the reasons why such strategies are being used. Many students grasp the idea of responsibility quickly, even after having spent most of their earlier years in very competitive environments.

Because most of these students are at the concrete operational stage, instruction should make use of a great many visual aids and examples to ensure understanding. This is particularly true for instruction relating to the mental process of categorization, as in the areas of grammar, outlining, mathematics, science, and chronology. Visual aids are more effective when they are completed with the teacher and students planning and working together rather than being constructed by the teacher for the students.

Along with other methods for helping our students come to understand the global nature of our world today, it is essential that they have careful instruction in at least one foreign language. Research on the learning of foreign languages indicates that a second language studied before the age of twelve is more likely to be retained and used (Jansen, 1983; Butts, 1960). For that reason, a second language should be introduced into the curriculum at least by grade five and continue through secondary school. The initial emphasis in instruction should be on speaking, reading, vocabulary development, and patterned drills rather than on instruction in grammar. It is likely that a few students will need remedial instruction in specific areas such as reading and math, and this instruction could take place while the other students are receiving foreign language instruction.

With this curriculum, students who are gifted in specific academic areas would be given individual opportunities to move forward at their own pace, but they would also be expected to set aside time for helping fellow students who are struggling. In athletics, only intramural competition would be allowed, with students who excel in that area assuming the responsibility for helping those who struggle.

Another way of instructing students for servanthood is to have each student develop a helping relationship with one other individual who is in need. For example, in the middle of the week every student would spend at least an hour with either an elderly person in a rest home, with children in daycare centers, with a mentally or physically handicapped person, or with a younger child who has learning difficulties. The point of this experience would be that the student would help that person in whatever way was needed and would, in the process, develop an understanding and a concern for the welfare of others. The student's relationship with that person would continue weekly through one semester in order to develop empathy for the needs for human dignity in our society. We often make the claim that in our Christian schools we are instructing for servanthood in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, but too often our instruction takes the form of telling the students what to do. Students learn servanthood by doing acts of service for others and by learning to care deeply for those they are helping. We need to arrange instruction for such learning.

At the end of the semester, each student would be assigned a new person to help. This activity would help to counteract the imaginary audience and personal fable aspects of egocentrism along with the need for peer approval which is often so detrimental to learning during the period of transescence. A design for this part of the curriculum will be more clearly described in Chapter 10. We should not excuse or explain away sinful actions on the part of the early adolescent by saying that it is a normal occurrence for that particular stage in development. Rather, we should arrange instruction that will move students away from sinful attitudes and toward lives of service.

The integrated nature of the curriculum would ensure that students express themselves in a variety of ways concerning these relationships. Oral histories would be taken and presented in written form, poetry would be written about the feelings and lives of the individuals or about the relationship, discussions and debates would center on care for those in need in our society. And the emphasis in the language arts class would be on such written products. Art projects would include sketches and paintings of the individual or of the setting. New cognitive information would be taught in relation to these activities and would supplement the student's total growth in ethical responsibility to society and to individuals. Social studies and math classes would provide the facts needed for solving societal problems and ensuring dignity in human existence.

Evaluation of the student's progress during this period should include teacher-made tests along with a careful examination of achievement test scores to make certain that gains in factual knowledge and skills are being made. But evaluation should also include a three-way conference two times during each academic year. The parents, the teacher, and the student should discuss the student’s willingness to take responsibility for his or her own learning as reflected in use of study skills and in academic strengths and weaknesses. They should also discuss the student's willingness to take responsibility for the learning, care, and nurture of fellow classmates and of other individuals.

1. Is it the task of the Christian middle school to develop self-concept? To provide aesthetic appreciation? To promote physical and mental health? How does your school go about working toward such development?

2. In your school is the focus on strengthening of skills for future learning or on a continued forward movement with additional content? What skills are taught? How do you make certain they are maintained?
3. What difficulties have you encountered when working with small groups? How might those difficulties be overcome?
4. Do you use ability grouping in your school? Does the use of ability groups help or hinder the caring spirit you are trying to promote in your school? Considering the results of the research on ability grouping, do you think it is profitable to do so?
5. Do you believe that teaching for responsible discipleship necessarily means that students should be involved in servanthood activities in the community outside of the school? If not, how could such learning be accomplished?
6. Some schools arrange for students to have walkathons, during which payment is made for charitable causes, based on the number of miles walked. Do you think students learn as much about servanthood in such situations as they would if they really did acts of service for others as part of the school curriculum?
7. Would it be helpful to have parent-board- teacher discussions of these matters?

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