Madly in Love with Middle School: Jennifer Haines Butler, ED.M.'94
Jennifer Haines Butler
by Lee Fuoco
"I am madly in love with middle school," says Jennifer Haines Butler, Ed.M.'94. "Head over heels, no bones about it, in love with middle school. I love the volatility of it. I love that [the students] have short attention spans. I like that there are so many challenges in middle school."
Butler should know. Since graduating from the Ed School, she has taught middle schoolers at various summer camps and private schools in Massachusetts, including Dedham Country Day School, The Rivers School, and Shore Country Day School. "I was certified to teach middle school English, but when people asked me, ‘What do you teach?' I would always say--and I continue to say--‘I teach middle school,' rather than, ‘I teach English.' Because so much of middle school teaching is about life, and growing up, and how to get along, and how not to hate your mother forever, and how not to be obnoxious in a clique, and all that kind of stuff."
This holistic approach will serve Butler well in her latest endeavor. She left Shore Country Day after six years to join forces with Cambridge Montessori in July 2005. There, Butler serves as elementary and middle school director. "In the public schools, I guess you'd call me an assistant principal. In a private school I'd be a division head," she explains. In this position, Butler will be one of the key players in chartering a brand-new Cambridge Montessori middle school. She and her team plan to have a seventh grade functioning by 2007, with an eighth grade and a ninth grade to follow in 2008 and 2009, respectively. "They didn't hire me because I was an elementary guru," Butler insists. "They hired me because I know middle school and because I know independent middle schools. So they were thinking I would be a pretty good fit to help build this program."
Building the program will be a multifaceted endeavor, consisting of various educational and marketing efforts. Beside Butler's idealistic principles is the undeniable business side of the undertaking. "I don't like to think of school as a business, because it's not. Kids are not products that you're churning out," she says. "That being said, [with] independent schools there's a money piece and there's a business piece."
Butler is consulting her Ed School friends and other peers for ideas. "I was talking with a friend of mine who's opening a school down in North Carolina and he was giving me lots of good ideas, such as offering the parents who are signing on for that first year a ‘pioneer discount.' You give them a little financial incentive to sign up."
Cambridge Montessori is currently shopping for properties that will enable the pre- and elementary schools to join the middle school in one site. The building itself will be a vital component of this venture. Plans are in place to build an environmentally friendly, sustainable building and campus, an idea that is central to the teachings of Maria Montessori. "[The] Montessori [philosophy] is global and into sustainable building. Something they're really interested in with the middle school is having the kids learn from the building what it means to be sustainable, including farming and composting," Butler explains.
The other key facets of the Montessori philosophy, such as peace education, the mantra "follow the child," and teaching to kids' "sensitive periods" (special windows in development that are the most suitable periods for learning), will be played out within the schools' walls. "Kids learn to hate and learn to be unpeaceful," Butler explains. "The whole idea was to ultimately change the world by having peace education and teaching kids how to get along and deal with one another and understand their environment."
About the Article
A version of this article originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of Ed., the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
