The Middle School at Princeton Montessori School supports the sensitive age of early adolescents by offering a program designed specifically for their academic, social, and emotional needs. Learning is organized through eight International Baccalaureate (IB) subject areas that promote interdisciplinary study. Students analyze complex, real-world issues and develop the habits of mind they need to thrive in our increasingly interconnected world. Through these dynamic experiences, students become knowledgeable, critical thinkers; articulate communicators; and open-minded, principled, and caring young people who are positioned to do their best in high school and beyond.
In the first months of school, Middle School students have been engaged in a unit designed to help them think critically about ideas they get from media. Students read the novel “The Wave”, which is based on an experiment a teacher conducted in a California high school in 1969 to help students understand how people can get swept up in popular movements. Alongside the novel, students also explored, through discussion and writing, authoritarianism, freedom of speech, the impact of propaganda on citizens, and techniques to try to discern factual information from “fake news.” The students have gotten so involved in this work that some are voluntarily writing a collaborative script based on “The Wave” over their days off for conferences.
