Hey, what grade are you in?
Do you like the fourth-grade?
I mean, I guess…
Wow. Thanks, kid. Mind if I ask your class a question?
Who here feels like you ?
So, like, feeling respected by other students and supported by adults?
Well, feeling like you belong is really important. It helps you feel better and do well in school.
Let’s ask the fifth graders the same question. Who here feels like you belong in school?
Actually, the faces here represent about 40 million students surveyed in the past three years.1
I’m gonna ask a few more questions, OK?
Who here has a good ?
Who has —teachers, family members, and friends?
OK, last one.
Who frequently experienced in the past week? Feelings like excitement, happiness, hope, love, and safety?
Could I just talk to fifth-graders for a second?
I just want you to know that a lot is going to change in your lives in the next year.
True! In fact, most sixth-graders in the US attend middle school.
But some kids actually go to something called “junior high,” which starts in 7th grade. And some kids stay in one big school for kindergarten to 8th grade!
But actually, your school isn’t the only thing that will change next year.
No, no, the biggest changes will be in your brain…
About the time you enter middle school, your brains will enter a new era of development. Your brains will become more malleable—that means they’ll be like a block of clay softening up so they can be resculpted. Scientists call this “brain plasticity.”
The first period of brain plasticity is from ages 0 to 3, when our brains grow rapidly. We create billions of new brain cells and neural connections. But this second period of plasticity, often between ages 11 and 14, is when our neural connections are reorganized.1
The brain reorganization happens because your brains become highly sensitive to what we experience, both good and bad.
One experience that is especially heightened is social interactions. During this period, we are more sensitive to social acceptance and rejection. So hanging out with friends feels better than it does at other points in our lives, while being rejected or bullied feels worse. These experiences rewire our brains; some neural connections get stronger, while others are cut off.
Meanwhile, your brains will also develop a greater capacity for self-direction. So you’ll want more autonomy on what to wear, what to say, and how to spend your time.
Hey, fifth-graders, let’s take a trip to middle school to visit sixth-graders.
Hey, sixth-graders—how’s it going?
Hmm, OK. Well I asked fifth-graders how much they feel like they . How are you doing in sixth grade?
Whoa.
Sixth-graders feel way less . What’s wrong?
Those are really common complaints about middle school.
But now let’s see how seventh-graders are doing. Who feels like they ?
Oh. Things don’t get better for seventh graders.
Can I ask some more questions?
Who has a good ?
Who thinks the is good? As in, your teachers are excited; the physical space is nice; and the rules are fair?
Who has ?
Who frequently experienced in the past week?
That’s a really good question.
About 120 years ago, there were no middle schools. Most school districts had one school for kindergarten to 8th grade. But those schools were getting overcrowded.1 This was especially true in cities because those areas had new jobs for adults, and immigrants also came from other countries and moved to cities. Meanwhile, everyone from college presidents to the National Education Association argued that seventh and eighth graders should attend a school that prepares them for high school, rather than going to K-8 schools with young kids.
So the solution for districts was to open “junior high schools,” which would cater to the needs of kids this age.
Education experts had a pretty good idea of what junior high kids needed. But when they went back and studied junior high schools, they found that the schools were actually just copying what high schools do. For example:
So in the 1960s people who studied education proposed that we replace junior highs with something that actually gives students what they need, rather that copying high schools. They called it middle school.
Slowly, more and more districts adopted the middle school model.
But did middle schools actually help students?
Researchers had a really smart idea: What if we compared how middle-school kids are doing versus kids who still attend K-8 schools?
What they found across the country was that 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who attend middle schools learn less, while feeling lower levels of belonging and self esteem, when compared to kids who attend K-8 schools. One 2010 study of New York City students found that, when kids transition to middle school, their parents feel like the quality of education and safety of the schools is worse compared to the parents of students who still attend K-8 schools.
So, yeah, transitioning to middle school really does suck!
But in the chart above, notice how parents of 5th graders in K-5 schools actually think education is better than parents of 5th graders in K-8 schools. Researchers wondered whether being the oldest kid in a school—the “top dogs”—actually helps students, while going to school with older kids hurts them. A few studies found that the benefits of being a top-dog in the 4th and 5th grades at a K-5 elementary school actually makes up for the amount of learning you’ll lose in middle school.
So if we got rid of middle school, that might actually make 4th and 5th grades not as great as you remember. But at the same time, you wouldn’t be going through the middle school pain you’re experiencing now!
I mean, not always. It gets…
Sorry to break it to you. But your stays low through eighth grade and then high school.
I mean, it actually does improve a bit, especially later in high school.
I’m gonna go back to middle school.
OK, I’m back.
I know, I know. But I wanted to tell you…
These days, adults are thinking about the bullies that now have a lot of power in our world.
I’ve been thinking about where these bullies come from—and why they never learned to be more empathetic.
I read a book about middle school by a school counselor named Phyllis Fagell. And she wrote, “This phase is the last, best chance to raise thoughtful, ethical, kind, responsible people.”
This part of your life restructures your brains. It changes the way you think about the world. And I suppose I want you to experience a world that makes you feel like you belong—a world that makes you feel like you’re wanted.
That’s how I first got interested in this topic. But then…
Honestly, no. But at the time, I thought something was wrong with me.
Yes. I loved Pokemon, so I guess I spent most of my time thinking about how to evolve my Bulbasaur.
This was before most people had the internet… actually, nevermind. Yes, I was a nerd.
I used to think you were a pre-evolution adult, and that your brain just needed to mature. But all of us are constantly evolving.
So I think we should care most about who you are right now, rather than focusing entirely on who you’ll turn into.
Well, we—adults—aren’t putting you in the best environments.
Sorry.
Well, the data says no. These charts show how things change during grades 6 to 8, and then during high school.
But the research says that your brain keeps developing.
You’ll get better at making decisions with long-term consequences in mind, so you’ll do fewer dumb things.
Speaking of, you’ll also get better at understanding who you are—outside of what your friends think.
If your friends are mean, maybe they’re not actually your friends.
I know. But it’s scarier to not stand up to bullies, and let them run your life.
I really wish that’s what we did.
But, no, we don’t.
We often let the bullies run our lives. And sometimes, I’m afraid we’re too late to change.
I guess that’s why I’m thinking about you.
Methodology and more
Data for this story is from Panorama Education, a company that helps schools survey students, staff, and family to understand how they’re doing. Panorama surveyed nearly 40 million students from school years 2021-22 to 2023-24. Panorama shared anonymized data with me. I created a synthetic sample of students that reflects the overall proportions in the data. Notably, surveys were conducted in districts that have varied grade spans for the middle grades—K-8 schools, middle schools, and junior highs. But the large majority of students attend districts with middle schools.
Several books and research papers were critical to building out this piece. Focus on the Wonder Years from the RAND Foundation, A Historical Overview of the Middle School Movement, 1963–2015 (Schaefer 2016), and education scholar Judith Brough’s work were critical resources for understanding the history of middle schools. Age of Opportunity by Laurence Steinberg was a fantastic distillation of brain science as it applies to middle school kids, and supplemented nicely by The Promise of Adolescence from the National Academies of Sciences. Other informative works included Importance of investing in adolescence from a developmental science perspective (Dahl 2018), Reexamining Middle School Effects (Weiss 2006), and Middle Grades Research: Not Yet Mature, but No Longer a Child (Mac Iver 2006). Middle School Matter by Phyllis L. Fagell is a wonderful book for parents wanting to best support their middle school kids. Lastly, two fantastic stories from the Hechinger Report’s Kelly Field are a must-read on this topic.
Thanks to Amanda Sakuma for editing support.
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