Three Day WeekendFollow

Auto diesel college, of course.

Friday my dog and I headed out to Fargo first to my friends, then drove up to the lakeside property that her parents own outside of Park Rapids, MN. It's a luxurious area, with only a few vehicles ever passing by (mainly the people who live 1/2 mile away). Her parents bought the place in 1995 and are having thier log cabin built this summer, so it was actually our last chance to have a huge camping party out there as well.

My dogs wildlife capture status is still 0.

Edited, May 27th 2013 2:51pm by Dyadem

This weekend, I moved from the suburbs to Chicago proper. Which constitutes my first time living in the big city, and first time living sans-roommates.


Edited, May 27th 2013 9:49pm by trickybeck

This weekend, I moved from the suburbs to Chicago proper. Which constitutes my first time living in the big city, and first time living sans-roommates.

Cities with more than a million people are seething hell holes. What's wrong with Jolliet, eh fuccker? Too good for it, are you? Is their riverboat casino not to your liking, is that it? Do you not own a blue crushed velvet tuxedo within which to ply your trade bilking sucker on the mighty Des Plaines river? Are you fearful that Louis and Claire Jolliet, who are clearly immortal demigods hiding out on Anticosti Island will return to wreak mad havoc on the unsuspecting population? Huh? Well, you might be on to something there you magnificent *******. Let's not let on to the others though.

All cities with over one million people are seething hellholes. Not all seething hellholes are cities with over one million people.

The first two have nothing to do with standards, as standards change throughout time. The last one not only makes no sense but wouldn't prevent a more prevalent standard, but a reason for the few exceptions.

Mine was the best, spread over five states...What I actually attended was:

K-6 - Elementary
7-8 - Junior High
9-12 - High School

The only reason it was the best was because I got to be a Freshman, Sophmore, Junior and Senior in High School

I recall having very little interaction with the older grades when I was in Kindergarten, 1st & 2nd grades.

Like Nads my school district at the time was K-6 (elementary), 7-9 (Junior High), 10-12 (High School). That's old school (pun intended) though. They've invented middle school since then.

I like the middle-schoolers having their own space - they're so freakin emo at that age.

My K-6 school was pretty well segregated. The bottom level (it was sort of a split level, built on a slope) was the kindergarten, gym and music rooms. The upper level had a 1-3 wing and a 4-6 wing. The bottom level and both wings had their own entrances. So if you were in 5th grade, you never really saw any 1-3 graders except at the very start or end of the day outside the school. Even lunch and recess times were broken up so you didn't have sixth graders whipping dodge balls at the second graders.

I can see this working. As mentioned (or at least I think I mentioned), my high school segregated the 9th graders from everyone else.

Not only that, but the one big school mentality would literally have to encompass a lot. More subjects that are taught at higher levels would mean more teachers and resources. Those resources extend beyond just books and traditional learning. The cafeteria for elementary school students should not be the same as middle/high school. There should be less playgrounds and more gyms in middle/high school than elementary school. The size and furniture for a 6 year old would greatly be different for a 13 year old. Overall freedom, rules, regulations and security will vary as well.

Although it could be done, it just seem more efficient to segregate! lol

It's probably very heavily dependent on the environment, too.

When my brother was working in a charter school, the amount of time that younger kids spent with the older kids actually was a serious issue (vastly increased rates for them acting out, undesirable learned habits where teachers were concerned, etc.). And they only really shared the buses. But that was an extremely underserved community, and the behavioral gap as ages increased was huge.

For an average community, I doubt it's nearly as important.

And in the context of controlled interactions, like book time, I see no issue with it.

It all really comes down to the teachers' ability to control their students environment. Younger students require far more control than older ones (who flourish with less control, assuming it's handled appropriately). If you can't accommodate those two needs in one building, you need two. If you can, I don't see much reason you would need to separate them.

This.



Or this.

I didn't move around as much as some, but the four schools I attended from K-8 all separated the grades. In Kindergarten, I don't recall having any interaction with older kids at all (which was at a public school, cause the parochial school didn't have a kindergarten back then). The next school was a 1-8 parochial school, and I know for a fact that the 1st and 2nd graders were in one section (both their classrooms and play/lunch areas). I believe they also divided the other grades into 3-5 and 6-8 in terms of where classrooms were, but the playground was more shared (but each group pretty much stayed in their area IIRC). From 4-6 grade I was in a public school, and I remember there were two different playgrounds on different sides of a row of buildings, with different grades in each (can't remember the ranges though). 7th and 8th grades were at another parochial school, and in this one, the playground areas were separated between the higher grades. There was an upper yard and a lower yard, and 1-5 stayed down below while 6-8 were up top. I seem to recall there was a bid deal about the younger grades not being allowed to come up the stairs to the top area. That school also had a uniform switch at that grade split for girls. Up to 5th grade, they wore jumpers, while 6-8th they wore skirts and blouses (yes, Catholic school uniforms, I know you're all jealous). It made it pretty easy to tell who was allowed "up top" and who wasn't. I honestly have no clue how or if they segregated the younger grades though.


There's a hell of a lot of back and forth in the education community about the whole middle school vs junior high vs something else. The tricky transition grades tend to be 6th and 9th, and most ideas tend to revolve around how to deal with that age range from others that may be problematic for them, or vice versa. The most common adjustment is to lump the 6th graders with the 7th and 8th graders into a middle school, so as to put them with the rest of the kids going through puberty and otherwise acting up and being demon hellspawn. Problem being that kids aren't all the same age in 6th grade, so now you've got "kids" in a small school environment (just three grades) with 9th graders. Another proposed solution is to keep the 6th graders in the grade school, and have just 7th and 8th in middle school (or junior high, or whatever they call it where you live). This is a pretty common solution, although more schools are going to 6-8 middle schools instead. A less common solution involves the problem of 9th graders in high school. There's a *huge* maturity gap between them and seniors, so the idea is to make middle school be 7-9th. Tons of resistance to this though, since the whole 4 year high school thing has become a pretty strong cultural thing.


About the only thing everyone agrees on is that 7th and 8th graders more or less need to be separated from everyone else. You know, cause of the whole demon hellspawn thing.

This is definitely doable, especially if those students were "raised" there from an earlier age. However, as long as there exist problem kids, there is always that risk. I think the reading buddy program is a good way mitigate that risk. My middle school would send over 6th graders to the 5th graders in the elementary school to discuss middle school. Even though it isn't the same thing, the concept of mentoring is the same.