Creating Developmentally Responsive Middle Level Schools

What is developmental responsiveness? What do developmentally responsive middle level schools do? What are they responsive to and how are they responsive? These are essential questions in defining fully this fundamental aspect of the middle school concept.

Developmental responsiveness is the knowledge and ability to develop schools and programs that take into consideration the full range of the needs and characteristics of human growth and development, particularly the stages, tasks, or challenges that human beings negotiate from birth to adulthood. For middle level schools that means that every aspect of the school program—curriculum, instruction, assessment, organization, and grouping issues, for example—is influenced by what research tells us about young adolescent students’ needs as a result of the unique changes they experience from ages 10 to 15 years. The concept of developmental responsiveness appears in most descriptions of schools for young adolescents (Eichhorn, 1966; George & Alexander, 2003: Jackson & Davis, 2000), and this concept is well recognized. However, it is also one of the most misunderstood concepts for educators and noneducators alike, due primarily to the perception that middle level schools have promoted development in all areas except academic achievement.