Junior High School

EDSA UNIKAMA - Article Junior High School

An organized unit of two or three grades, designed especially to meet the needs of children in grades seven, eight, and nine. Once considered as a bridge between the elementary and senior high school, this intermediate unit has become a unique school in its own right. The typical junior high school is a three-year unit, but there are a number of variants. About 30 percent are two- or three-year schools, usually housing grades seven and eight or seven, eight, and nine.

Article Junior High School

Separate public junior high schools numbered almost 6,000 in 1982 or about 26 percent of all secondary schools in the United States. Another 4,200 schools take care of the six upper grades (seventh through twelfth) and usually include a type of junior high school for at least grades seven and eight. These six-year combined schools constitute about 18.5 percent of the total number of secondary schools. The older four-year type of high school (grades nine to twelve) has steadily diminished in numbers from 94 percent of total high schools in 1920 to 36 percent in 1981. In reference to the number of children served by the two chief types of reorganized schools, the statistics are equally impressive. In 1980, 33 percent of those enrolled in public secondary schools were either in separate junior high schools or in the combined junior-senior high schools.

Purposes. As previously noted, one intended function of the first junior high schools was to bridge the gap from elementary to high school. When this intermediate unit first began to appear about 1910, there were other purposes also. College officials believed that much time was wasted in the eight-grade elementary school and that preparation for college should begin sooner. Such leaders as Pres. Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University and Pres. William R. Harper of the University of Chicago advocated an earlier beginning of secondary education, largely in the interest of developing more able college students at an earlier age. 

Other reasons cited for the establishment of separate junior high schools were overcrowding of the high schools, and the realization that seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade students had some needs and characteristics which differed from those of older boys and girls. The first junior high schools usually introduced a departmentalized curriculum with each major subject taught in a different classroom, in grades seven and eight; electives, among which the student might choose; and promotion by subject instead of by grade.

Since 1920 at least three lines of investigation have helped to modify these initial purposes: 1) research has produced much new information about how we learn; 2) study of the stage called “early adolescence” has confirmed the be¬lief that there are significant, unique characteristics and needs during this period of human development; and 3) the basic goals of democratic citizenship have been increasingly clarified, along with their implications for education.

Many modern statements of the purposes of the junior high school reflect these three basic influences. Prominent among current statements are those made by Dr. William T. Gruhn of the Univeristy of Connecticut and Dr. Harl H. Douglass of the University of Colorado, which list  the following six functions of the junior high school: 

1) integration of general or basic skills and knowledge toward the goal of more effective behavior; 

2) exploration of individual interests and abilities; 

3) guidance in making more intelligent decisions; 

4) differentiation of the program to adapt to individual differences; 

5) socialization to assist pupils to make a better social adjustment; and 

6) articulation or transition from childhood to later adolescence. 

It is obvious that all these functions except the last one can be applied, with a different interpretation, to all levels of school¬ing. They become “unique” functions of the junior high school as they are applied to the unique needs and charac¬teristics of the twelve-to-fifteen-year-old child, and to the impact of his particular social environment upon him. What are the special characteristics of junior high school students? At the risk of oversimplification, the vast amount of research dealing with the special traits of these children may be summarized as follows: 

1) they are different from each other in height, weight, sex development, general maturity, mental development, and emotional adjustment; 

2) they are in a period of rapid and dramatic change, physically, emotionally, and socially; 

3) they have expanding and unstable interests, some of which reflect the earlier maturity of girls as compared with boys; there are also some common interests which are varied, lively, and susceptible to rapid change; 

4) children in these grades tend to withdraw from adults and conform to their own age 

group; they work hard to establish secure relationships with their associates, even when such efforts lead to rebellion or evasion of adult controls; and 

5) they have special causes for worry about phenomena of growth, about being liked, about being different, and about sex. It is clear from these observations that the road to maturity is not an easy one. 

The junior high-school teaching staff and the curriculum can be of great help in aiding this age group in the achievement of developmental tasks which are peculiar to this growth period.

ref. English Article