Making it “Real” for the Middle School Mind

By Kiri Harris, Dean of Students and Sixth Grade Teacher at Greene Street Friends School in Philadelphia, PA

Our youngest students seem to slide so contentedly along the stream of Quaker beliefs shaping their days. They appear shipshape within the structure carved out by this stream, and they aren’t likely to question its direction or source. When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about “a willing suspension of disbelief,” he also called the concept “poetic faith” (1817, Biographia Literaria). To my imagination this is what carries our youngest students along – pure, poetic faith in wonders such as peace, equality, and Light.

Disbelief likes to make its entrance in middle school. You start to see faint flickers of skepticism, or eyes glazing over at the mention of peace. It’s a delicate entrance, because disbelief can easily be pushed into the wings if not encouraged to find its voice. For the middle school mind – ready to see all the gradations of gray – Quaker ideals on their own can start to seem airy, implausible, precious or childish. If we talk only peace without also exploring the shades of conflict, we risk losing our students’ full trust. My sixth graders recently floored me with their comments on the benefits of conflict. To their minds, at their age, “conflicts make you who you are.” Middle school kids need to see Quaker ideals in three-dimensions.

Last year, as part of a developing plan to teach Quakerism more completely at Greene Street Friends, we brought Quaker history to life for our middle school – one “Big Quake” at a time. Teachers researched and portrayed pivotal Quakers in a series of seven assemblies. During winter, we met George Fox, Margaret Fell, Mary Dyer, William Penn, John Woolman, Lucretia Mott and Bayard Rustin. As hoped, the messages pitched in first person (and in costume) by teachers were “made to stick” (Heath & Heath, 2007) because they were delivered as stories hinging on concrete details.

For example, students loved learning that Margaret Fell adored bright colors so much she had the dyer make custom sea-green and sky colored stockings for her daughters. According to one anecdote, when Fell wore a red dress to Meeting and was labeled “gaudy” by another Quaker woman for not dressing plainly enough, she retorted: “It’s silly, poor gospel to question my dress.” This feisty moment (not to mention Fell’s initial questioning of the Quaker dress code) instantly earned her “kindred spirit status” with our twentieth century audience. Once that personal bond clicked into place, students were more on board to cheer about Fell’s important, impressive work for women’s rights and freedom of conscience.

Last year’s series culminated in a “Quaker Olympics,” with mixed-age teams of students rotating through multi-modal stations, applying, connecting and synthesizing information about the seven “Big Quakes.” Introducing and celebrating these Quakers’ lives in this way has energized students and faculty alike. We’ll add a new series of speakers to match our testimony themes for each upcoming year. It’s a start. With enough three-dimensional examples, maybe we’ll even set the stage for a re-entrance of poetic faith.