绿帽社

By Shira Fagan, Class VI Dean

Inside a butterfly鈥檚 chrysalis, the caterpillar digests itself from the inside out, literally breaking down its body into slime at the cellular level. This transformation is messy, painful, and appears chaotic, but it is really their body doing exactly what it needs to do. And the thing that emerges sixteen days later, the butterfly, is truly a marvel. 

As Class VI Dean, I spend a great deal of time with middle schoolers, the chrysalis stage of a child鈥檚 school years. Shrouded in mystery and full of slime, middle school is a time of rapid change, social instability, and brave exploration. I frequently get questions about how the school supports the transition from Lower to Middle school. 

Lower School is a time for building good habits, and learning in close proximity to adults of influence. Class VI takes that powerful foundation, and asks students to apply it beyond the oversight of adults. Teachers lay out clear boundaries and expectations, and students have an opportunity to make their choices. As a parent, this is the scary part. Let鈥檚 take lunchtime as an example. The Class VI team teaches the rules surrounding lunch, makes sure every student understands the rules, and then gives kids the freedom to follow them. When students break the rules, which they will because they are children, we will be there to right the ship. Middle School is neither the locked, monitored playground of their youth, or the free-wheeling trip for fast food of their Upper School years. 

Our Class VI school day is set up for this. While students in classes VII-XII will need to navigate different teachers, buildings, rooms, and classmates in every block, Class VI has Humanities. Humanities replaces both English and History blocks, and students see their Humanities teacher during Morning Meeting as well. This model bridges the change from Lower to Middle School, and students come to see their Humanities teacher as their 鈥減erson.鈥� Humanities teachers walk students through as many of the new events as possible to set kids up for success. We teach them how to check Canvas, how to behave in an assembly, how to be a responsible locker user, how to ask someone to dance. We also help them learn the business of being a student; how to sign in or out at the front desk, how to visit the nurse, how to take responsibility for our mistakes, and how to put away our screens. I like to remember that they鈥檝e only been on this planet about a decade, and there are lots of new things to discover. 

A parent can support this transition in the same ways the school does: build independence, set clear expectations, and expect lots of mistakes along the way. More concretely, I recommend laying out your family鈥檚 rules surrounding language and behavior, giving students incrementally more freedom, and approaching the inevitable mistakes with perspective. Middle Schoolers can be prickly, messy and stuck in their own heads. They are also curious, creative, stubborn, passionate and even kind, with the guidance and support from all the adults who care about them. Just like the butterfly, this time is messy, painful and appears chaotic, but this necessary metamorphosis allows for the butterfly to emerge.

Shira FaganAssociate Dean of Students for Middle School

Shira Fagan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Grinnell College and an Masters of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She teaches Lower School creative dance, Middle School English and Upper School dance, as well as overseeing and teaching Lower School students in the Dance Academy after school. Her past responsibilities at 绿帽社 have included tutoring, care of the garden, planning formal dances, helping during Middle School lunch and attendance monitoring. Before moving to Sandy, she lived in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2007, she performed in the Florentine Opera Company鈥檚 production of the Merry Widow and with Danceworks Performance Company II. Her master鈥檚 thesis piece, collaborating with a fine-art quilter, was presented at Danceworks in their annual show Art to Art. Since arriving in Salt Lake, Shira has participated in two seasons of the collaborative dance company, co.da, based out of SugarSpace and has done two years of the Ririe Woodbury Dance Teacher workshops. Shira enjoys reading, watching terrible movies, roller skating, pretending to organize, baking and funny cat videos. She has two daughters here at 绿帽社 and her husband teaches in the history department. It makes the morning commute very efficient.

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