Little Red School House
and Elisabeth Irwin High School

A Pre-K-12 Progressive Education

Our Program

Middle School

Morning Meeting

Ana

Morning Meeting

A middle schooler’s day starts and ends in their homeroom. It’s their base of operations, where their locker is, and where they will see their advisor each day. As the middle school advisory program has expanded and matured, so these bookends to the day have taken on more varied and meaningful uses. This year, the middle school team is piloting a more robust version of homeroom called morning meeting.

Between arrival at 8:15 and the start of classes at 9:00, the three advisors plan and facilitate activities that touch on areas outside of the planned curriculum, but that are in some ways just as essential to helping each middle schooler thrive. These run the gamut from social emotional to personal organization, from identity and equity to current events. Below is a sampling of the prompts your child might hear (and respond to) as they start their day.

Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness and Talent. If you had to choose one quality in a friend, which would you choose and why?
What is impeachment? How does it work? Which presidents have been impeached and why?
Find someone in the room who has the same number of letters in their name as you do. Shake hands, or wave. Say “Good morning” to each other.
Which identifiers or descriptors do you use for yourself? How does this match (or not) how other people identify you?
Trivia: Work collaboratively with four classmates to give your best answers to the following ten questions.
Which living person is a hero to you and why?
Why do we procrastinate? (New York Times article)
Student-lead current events, such as: What is the argument for changing the name of Columbus Day to Indiginous Peoples’ Day? Why is this question important to you? How is this a "call to action?" What do you hope your classmates will do about this issue?
Autograph hunt: Find the person in the room who has each of the following skills/hobbies.
Do a guided mindfulness exercise. Focus on breathing; set an intention for the day.

It is thanks to the groundwork laid during these morning meetings that we are able to have deep curricular conversations, problem-solve social challenges, support students’ identities and grapple with the news so successfully from day to day. Just today during middle school meeting, I talked about impeachment. I asked who among the middle schoolers have talked about it at home - about half. Who had talked about it in morning meeting? About three quarters. We answered a few questions (how is impeachment different from removal from office? Can the vice president be impeached?), made a few observations, and I encouraged everyone to continue following the news and asking questions, as these are unusual times and a rare learning opportunity.

Among other things, our morning meeting structure is a springboard for this: talking about the news. I encourage you to take advantage the way I did today. If you're ever curious about what has come up in these morning conversations, you can always ask your child's advisor or read the updates from the student reps on the middle school news page (on Connect).

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