In the 1960’s, visionary leaders dreamed of schools that would provide a challenging academic program PLUS a developmentally responsive environment for young adolescents. Decades later, middle level schools and educators have an opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the courageous giants who paved the way for “the middle school movement.” In this session, participants will view contemporary videos of interviews with these visionary leaders, including their musings about the heritage of middle level education and their sage advice for its future.

1. Tracy W. Smith C. and Kenneth McEwin
Appalachian State University
North Carolina Middle Level Education Conference
March 18, 8:00-9:00 a.m.

2.  “One of the institution’s key functions is to conserve
the best of the past over time, serving as a collective
memory bank to protect us against historical amnesia,
cultural erosion, and the seductions of the merely
new.”
-Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc in The Heart of Higher
Education: A Call to Renewal

3.  “Fundamental change in institutions has always come
from planting small communities of vision and
practice within those settings.”
-Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc in The Heart of Higher
Education: A Call to Renewal

4. Legacy Project
 The Middle Level Legacy video series documents the
history of a major educational reform in American
Education – the Middle School Movement. The
Middle Level Education Legacy Project began in 2003
and included interviews with 18 prominent middle
level leaders who provided their perspectives on issues
such as critical incidents in the history of the
Movement, important research and policy, curriculum,
young adolescent development and identity, specialized
middle level teacher preparation, significant debates,
and challenges to the future of middle level education.

5. Book and Video Resources
 These interviews were completed in 2009. The Legacy
of Middle School Leaders: In Their Own Words, published
in 2011, includes extensive documentation, analysis,
and synthesis on the results of these interviews. This
Middle Level Legacy video series, also based on these
interviews, was released in November 2013. This series
is meant to provide a resource for middle level
educators and leaders to learn about the rich past and
legacy of middle school education so that its future
and the future of young adolescents can be vibrant and
promising.

6. YouTube Video Link:
http://www.amle.org/legacy
 Introduction to the Legacy Project
 Founders of the American Middle School
 The Middle School Movement (3)
 Foundational Beliefs Supporting Middle Level
Education (3)
 Keys to Achieving Full Success (4)

8. Community Walk
 Community Walk Webpage
 We need your help! If you have additional places that
you think should be added to the North Carolina
Middle Level Education map, please complete the
short form and leave it with us before you go.

9. Modest and Groovy
Beginnings

10. Practitioners have played
the lead role!
The Key to North Carolina’s Success

11. Examples of Model Schools Created
 Early Model Program Examples
 Western Alamance Middle School (1970s)
 William Lenoir Middle School, Caldwell County (1970s)
 Current Model Program Examples
 Ashe County Middle School (STW and NASSP
Breakthrough School)
 South Charlotte Middle School (STW and Blue Ribbon
School)
 Chowan Middle School (STW, Edenton-Chowan)
 Hendersonville Middle School (STW, Henderson County)

12. John Van Hoose
 Professor at UNC-G, 1983-2001.
 Served as President of NCMSA
 Received C. Kenneth McEwin Award for Distinguished
Service
 Author of Promoting Harmony: Young Adolescent
Development and School Practices
 Established Harmony Fund to provide enrichment
scholarships for middle school students

13. C. Kenneth McEwin
 joined faculty at Appalachian State University in 1973
 Summons from the Dean
 Attended first NMSA Conference and became a charter member
 The connections and friendships Ken initiated at the first NMSA Conference became critical
to the work he was to do back in North Carolina
 organized and began the first middle level teacher preparation program in North Carolina.
ASU’s program was also one of the first teacher preparation programs focusing exclusively on
the middle grades in the United States
 First executive director
 First journal editor of the organization.
 In 1988, the first award for outstanding service in middle grades education in North Carolina
was given to C. Kenneth McEwin and then named in his honor

14. Past Presidents of NCMSA
 Herb Tatum
 Pat Knight
 Julia Thomason
 Marie Rudisell
 Rebecca Stevens
 Barry Rice
 Gerald Patterson
 Anthony Sasseen
 Barbara Smith
 Jean Blackmon-Brauer
 Bill Rivenbark
 John Arnold
 Pamela Riley
 John Van Hoose
 Nancy Farmer
 Jeannette Beckwith
 Geraldine Ritter
 Janice Davis
 Ann Hutchens
 Steve Teague
 Elaine Boysworth
 Ginny Myers
 Theresa Hinkle
 Frances Reaves
 Beth Tyson
 Betty Terrell
 Rose Cooper
 Jackie Colbert
 Cecilia Gregory
 Harriet Jackson
 Jack Leonard
 Rick Singletary
 Jodie Graham
 Missy Gabriel
 Ran Barnes
 Tanya Turner
 Jodie Weatherman
 Cathy Tomon

15. Recipients of C. Kenneth
McEwin Award
 Kenneth McEwin
 Wilma Parrish
 Hardy Tew
 John Arnold
 Nancy Farmer
 John Van Hoose
 Janice Davis
 Bill Anderson
 Geraldine Ritter
 Tom Ragland
 Elaine Boysworth
 David Strahan
 Theresa Hinkle
 Frances Reaves
 Mike Ward
 John Harrison
 Joan Lipsitz
 Betty Terrell
 Maureen Furr
 Marvin Pittman
 Bobby Ashley
 Ran Barnes
 Missy Gabriel
 Jodie Graham
 Christine Waggoner
 Hannah Cabe

16. Joan Lipsitz
Started teaching junior high
when she moved to North
Carolina; went to work at the
Learning Institute of North
Carolina (Chapel Hill);
established the Center for Early
Adolescence in 1978

17. John Arnold
“Along with Ken McEwin, John Van Hoose,
Wayne Dillon and others, I helped develop
the North Carolina Middle Level Teacher
Certification and Licensure Program, which
I believe was the first or one of the first
such programs in the country. Again, the
level of agreement and pleasure that we
had doing something of this significance
was wonderful.”
Centennial Campus

18. John Harrison
 Executive Director of NCMSA
 Influential advocate of middle level
education at the state and national levels
 Recipient of the Kenneth McEwin
Distinguished Service Award
 Past-President of the National Forum to
Accelerate Middle Grades Reform
 Co-author of six million dollar i3 Grant

19. Theresa Hinkle
 Career-long highly successful teacher of young
adolescents
 First teacher president of NCMSA
 Past-President of the National Middle School
Association
 Recipient of the Kenneth McEwin Distinguished
Service Award
 Representative of the thousands of capable and
dedicated teachers in North Carolina who work
on a daily basis to assure young adolescents learn
what they need to know in a developmentally
responsive environment

20. Wilma Parrish
 Founding principal of Western Middle School in
Alamance County (late 1970s) which served was one of
four middle schools featured in "Successful Schools for
Young Adolescents” written by Joan Lipsitz
 Received the Kenneth McEwin Distinguished Service
Award
 Was always welcoming to those who visited her school to
learn how to make their schools more effective for young
adolescents
 Western Middle School continues to serve young
adolescents under the direction of Principal Liz Alston
and her faculty
 Representative of the many outstanding middle school
principals in North Carolina who work to provide young
adolescents with schools that are effective and responsive
to their learning needs

22. William Alexander
•Father of the Middle School
Movement
•Proposed the middle School at a
1963 Conference at Cornell
University
•Mentored Ken McEwin, Paul
George, Tom Erb, and others
•Was a featured presenter at ASU
summer middle school institutes
•Keynote speaker at first NCMSA
Conference in 1976

23. John Lounsbury
Taught Social Studies in
Wilmington, NC before
being promoted to
Department Chair when
he was appointed a
supervisor. One of his
first assignments was to
convert two elementary
schools to junior high
schools.

24. Nancy Doda
 1974
Undergraduate from
Wake Forest
University
 Keynote at NCMSA
conference in 1976
 ASU Summer
Institutes

25. Tom Dickinson
“…when I first started teaching, my doctoral degree was in
social studies. I wasn’t really working in the middle
grades, and it wasn’t until I had a job at North Carolina
Wesleyan in Rocky Mount, NC, that I started teaching
middle school courses.”

26. Gordon Vars
“I think North Carolina has been the model of a state where they did that
[established middle grades licensure] and as a result, all of the
colleges and universities, I believe, in North Carolina have programs
and they have support from the Education Department.”

27. “North Carolina Governor Hunt
was a strong advocate for
middle level education. North
Carolina is the only state I
know that has had a middle
school advocate at the
governor’s level.”
– Connie Toepfer
North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt

28. Chris Stevenson
An important figure in the
middle school movement and
author of Teaching Ten to
Fourteen Year Olds, Chris
retired to North Carolina to
live near John Arnold, his life-
long friend. They live in
Pinehurst near the NCMSA
Headquarters…and a
beautiful golf course.

29. Closing Thoughts
 “Movements for institutional change have always been
fueled by significant conversations.”
-Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc in The Heart of Higher
Education: A Call to Renewal

30. Random Closing Thoughts
 Pick your battles for young adolescents and middle level education
based on their importance, not their difficulty.
 We know more than we have ever known about young
adolescents, how they should be taught, what kinds of programs
and practices are best for their schools, and what kind of
curriculum and instruction they need.
 This knowledge must be shared and used in ways that both
enhance the welfare of this age group and assure that their
learning is maximized.

31. Random Closing Thoughts
 Be bold and courageous advocates for young
adolescents and those who teach them and serve them
in other ways.
 They are too young to be their own advocates in a
culture that often reduces them to stereotypes of crazy,
hormone-driven, trouble causing, kids.
 Do not allow their beauty, humanity, promise, and
potential be overshadowed by these stereotypes.

32. Random Closing Thoughts
 When you become discouraged, seek out like-minded advocates
and walk around your school, or some other school, and focus
intently on several young adolescents as individuals and ask
yourself if they are worth the fight.
 Do not retreat into your own world and give up on influencing
other stakeholders in positive ways.
 Encourage those who are barriers to successful change, seek out
their strengths and capitalize on them.
 Many times they just feel inadequate and are afraid of failing at
whatever initiative is being proposed.

33. Random Closing Thoughts
 Do not become discouraged. Look around this room,
at this conference, and in other environments and
know you are not alone in your advocacy.
 Take action because simply caring about something,
like young adolescents or the middle school
philosophy, is not enough.
 Never, ever, give up on doing the right thing for this
wonderful and promising age group!