I know, you expect this to some kind of profound query, and perhaps even a disquisition, into some cosmological conundrum.

No, I just want to know when and where the term "middle school" came into vogue. When I was a young lad, we went to elementary school through grade six, then we went to junior high from seven through nine, and then high school was grades ten, eleven and twelve. I never heard of "middle school" (which apparently encompasses six through eight) until I came to California.

I will confess that there was always something a little weird about the setup where I went, because in high school, we had sophomores, juniors and seniors, but no freshmen. The freshmen were the seniors at the junior high, though they didn't call them that.

But still, it worked, and we all knew what it meant.

So is it a regional thing, or has the terminology changed over the past three decades? If I went back to Flint, MI today, would they be calling it middle school there as well?

If it's a new thing, what was wrong with "junior high"? Too rough on the young adolescents' self esteem?

Frankly, "junior high" sounds more high-falutin' to me than the bland "middle school." With junior high, it gives you something to aspire to, to practice for. Once we make it through "Junior" high, will be ready for the real thing--senior high school.

But "middle school" sounds like a Goldilocks kind of deal. That one was too young, and the next one is too old, but the middle one is juuussst right. Booooring.

Anyway, just curious. Inquiring minds, and all that.

The move to middle schools is just another education fad. There's nothing inherently Right about any particular division, of course. But those who are always in search of the Next Big Thing or Now We've Discovered the Magic Bullet are, equally obviously, not interested in saying, "How 'bout if we try sliding Jr High down to grades 6-8 for a few years, and see how that works?" Nope, a Magic Bullet requires a Magic New Name.

I also grew up in the midwest (Wisconsin) and finished high school in 1960. I spent a good part of my 20 year military time overseas and really didn't notice the transition from Junior high to middle school. I thought that it was an attempt to emulate the sophisticated Europeans but that's just a WAG.

Up in Traverse City (a bit northwest of Flint) we had a junior high, and the surrounding rural communities had middle schools. Unfortunately, I associate "middle school" with "hick town" as a result (not that Traverse City was all that big or sophisticated).

That was fifteen years ago, and I'm not aware that any of the schools in the area have changed names/formats since then.

I'm a Midland, MI, native, even closer than TJ-our high schools play in the same league as the big Flint schools.

I was in a "Intermediate" school in the Junior High Format (K-6 elementary, 7-9 JH, 10-12 HS). Midland switched to the middle school format (K-5 Elementary, 6-8 MS, 9-12 HS) a few years ago, as has Flint.

Some places move the sixth graders into the old Junior high to get the pubescent kids out of the grade school, while others will have an overload in the elementary school and need to shift everyone up a year.

In north Jersey, I went to a junior high school which encompassed grades 7,8 and 9 thirty years ago. We moved to central Jersey when I was in the middle of the 8th grade, and the new school system had a middle school encompassing grades 7 and 8, with a 4 year high school.

In the two different towns in north Jersey I have lived in for the past 15 years, my own kids attended a middle school with grades 6, 7 and 8 and a 4 year high school.

I think the 6-7-8 and 9 thru 12 divisions make sense. 9th graders are way too immature to put at the top of the social ladder. As a general rule, they need to be ground under the heels of their betters (seniors) for a year in order to be adequately socialized. They then have a chance to become fit for human company.

The same is true for sixth graders, although to a lesser degree.

My understanding is that a Junior High School usually includes grades 7-8 or 7-9, while a Middle School includes grades 5-8 or 6-8. It would seem odd to have a fifth or sixth grader in Junior High, so the new term was coined after WWII.

I attended 7th and 8th grades at Kit Carson Jr. High in Sacramento, early to mid 1970s. During my 8th-grade year a new school facility was built on what had been KCJHS's big PE yard, and when it opened the year I started high school (9th-grade) the new Kit Carson Middle School opened, grades 6-8.

By then the trend toward going "middle school" rather than "junior high" had to have been well begun somewhere, since Sacramento wasn't a big national trendsetter...

BTW, even when we had JHS's, I think high schools in Sacramento went 9-12. I went to a private high school though, so I can't say for certain. I'm not sure how the overlap would have been handled.

I went to school in a small suburb of Fort Worth. We had a middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12). The Fort Worth ISD (I think) had a junior high and high school system. Based on my experience, I believe 9th graders fit better into a high school where they can be suitably stepped on and molded by the upperclassmen. **g**

I went to High School in the *gasp* Mid 90's. So I thought I'd chime in here.

In the suburb of Chicago that I lived in, we had 3 school levels before High School. It was basically divided K-3 Elementary, 4-6 Middle School, 7,8 JH, 9-12 HS. Now, I'm not entirely sure on this, since I was in catholic school K-8. To me, that was Grade School. Then, HS 9-12. But the Public School system was divided into 3 tiers, with the one before High School being Jr. High.

In any case, I'd have to agree with Carey and Sandra that 9th graders need a little "hazing", as it were, by being on the bottom in high school. After all, that's usually around the time or shortly after that kids become "Teenagers", and they need some social-ordering to help curb the "I know everything" attitude that teens get.

By the same token, College starts around 18 or 19, when you're becoming a legal adult. Seems rather interesting that each time someone reaches an age-related "milestone" in their life (13-teenager, 18-adult), they're put right back at the bottom of the totem pole by the structuring of the school systems. It seems fitting, though.

Hmmm . . . when I went through the system in upstate NY (late 70s/early 80s -- graduated HS in 1984) it was elementary 1-6, middle 7-8, high 9-12. And the "middle" was officially called the Middle School, not Junior High. But I just Googled my old district and the Middle School is now grades 6-8. Interesting.

Junior high in my town was grades 7 and 8.

In my senior year, the Tacoma public school system switched from junior high to middle school. Aside from the advantage that upperclassmen got to pick on two incoming classes at the same time, the change appeared then?and still appears?to be entirely superficial.

I went to Shands Elementary grades 1-6, then onto Ed Vanston Middle School 7-8, and then North Mesquite High School 9-12. But I'd have to say that I often heard of Vanston Middle School refered to as a Junior High. Which makes me particulary confused about the whole distinction between the two. I wonder if the terms are interchangeable like Douvet/Blanket.

http://www.mesquiteisd.org/vanston/

Agree with several comments above, appears to be a change in stages. I went to JH early 70s (7-9), changed to 7-8 when I was a senior in HS (HS went to 4 year). Several years later, they moved 6th graders to JH and started calling it middle school (not sure just when, but it was late 80s or early 90s).

As an aside, I have no real comment on 3 vs 4 year high school, but my observation is that 6th graders generally should not be in middle school. Yeah, yeah, all kids are different, etc., but I was a volunteer math counselor and my wife works for the middle school. That cutoff just seems too low.

Hey, Kyle, I was going to mention the Tacoma situation, but ran out of time. But it perfectly illustrates what I was talking about way back in comment #1. I wasn't in Tacoma at the time of transition, but my very best friend was teaching at one of the Jr Highs that was going to transition to being a middle school.

Now, the advent of the Middle School idea was a godsend for Tacoma. In a period of declining school enrollments during the Baby Bust, it neverthess was considered politically impossible to close any of the district's established high schools. Moving to middle schools increased the high school population by 33% at the stroke of a pen. Problem solved.

Except for one thing--admitting to such a motiviation was just too tacky for the educational leaders, so the entire district, but especially Jr High teachers like my friend, were subjected to the silliest and most time-wasting internal marketing blitz, with rah-rah meetings and all kinds of bogus (or maybe not-so-bogus) references to research, etc, having convinced TPTB that Middle Schools were The Way to Go and the kids would all be so much better off.

The reality? The week before school started, my friend still hadn't been informed what his new class assignments were going to be. Educational excellence, or even adequacy? Fugeddaboudit!