Middles: The Heart of it All

Beginnings and endings. Peruse any greeting card section and one is left with the directive to memorialize beginnings and endings: births and deaths, new jobs and retirements, first days and graduations. And it’s not just greeting cards. Listen to any biographical introduction, news story, or chronicle and you will find that the origin and resolution get the most airtime. Often, the middle of the narrative is truncated or, even worse, sanitized to the point where the heart of the journey—the stuff of grit, identity, tenacity and frustrated inspiration—is omitted. The result of such editing is a one-dimensional rendition of a course that was originally circuitous and ill trod. How unfortunate, for it is in the middle, between concept and final delivery, where a story unfolds, crossroads considered, and milestones met. It is in the middle that a story becomes calloused with the wear of living and laying the brickwork for an end to begin unfurling.
The heart of the Ellis journey occurs in our aptly named Middle School. Through a child’s eye, our youngest middle sojourners embrace the concrete foundations of our academic core-defining matter, identifying a theme, describing the natural world—finding solace in the relative absolutes of right and wrong, mine and other, black and white. Social waters are also clearly demarcated; adults are omniscient, children follow in stride. In other words, an ideal child’s reality is a safe, static, predictable thing so it comes as little surprise that our students in grades 5 and 6 escape this relative humdrum through active, imaginary play—wall ball, tag, and dodgeball being among the favorites. Our youngest Middle School girls remind us daily that there is nothing more simply delectable, and fleeting, than childhood naivete.  
 
In the midst of a girl’s middle years, childhood gives way to adolescence and with this milestone comes recognition of the infinite shades of gray that exist between arbitrary poles. “Right” loses its absolution, depending instead on perspective and context. The student in grade 7 or 8 begins to understand that reality is nuanced, varying, and personal; that one girl’s truth is another’s maybe. Where the child’s voice echoed those of her adults, the adolescent begins questioning what her voice should say. Reality is not so humdrum after all, so unstructured time is spent in intimate conversations with fellow soul searchers who are also making sense of it all.  
 
As is the case whenever the uncertain enters into the fold, doubt and hesitation are familiar accompaniments. Luckily for the Ellis girl, she doesn’t go it alone. In the classroom, our Middle teachers greet adolescence with their students, encouraging them to lean into uncertainty by providing a platform for strong inquiry and reflection. More to the point, Ellis girls are given the safe space to entertain contrary perspectives and uncertainty. Questions that once began with “How” and “What” transition to “Why” and “What if”, inviting young adolescents to peek beneath the obvious and question forsaken truths. Why are allies critical to international democracies? How do the other, secondary characters feel about the protagonist’s actions? What happens if a fraction’s denominator approaches infinity? Questions such as these require empathy, reconsideration, and changing perspective. They don’t have cookie cutter answers, and one’s answer may change with time and further reflection. And that’s ok. Within the halls and classrooms of Ellis’ Middle School, our middle learners are taught to greet hard questions—not shy away from them—thus beginning the process of lifelong learning and self-discovery.
 
Perhaps it is more than architectural coincidence that Ellis’ Middle School resides at the central heart—the middle—of our campus. While our Upper and Lower school buildings face proudly outward, their main entryways conspicuous, the Middle School World exists behind a door folded within the shade of an awning and the reach of branches. To get to this door, one must walk past our Upper and Lower School entrances by way of a meandering brick walk that scrolls through the greenery of our courtyard. I can’t help but think of Harry Potter’s journey to Hogwarts, and how his discovery of self begins by finding platform 9¾, a portal hidden among the obvious and visible only to those who believe in magic.
 
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