WHAT IS THIS Team I KEEP HEARING ABOUT?

We have eight teams in our building, two at each grade level. Students loop from 5th to 6th on the same team and then from 7th to 8th on a new team. The team is an important element in the physical design of our building, but please understand that the team space is not an instructional philosophy or a schooling concept. East Lyme Middle School is built upon a sound understanding of the best educational practices for students between the ages of 10 and 14, and one of the most significant of those practices is the formation of learning teams. Our school is built upon the teaming philosophy, and the team space is one of the rooms assigned to each team of students and teachers. 

It is a space other than a classroom, large enough to seat a whole team. It is flexible enough so that when not being used as a formal meeting area it may serve as a team commons area, breakout space, or simply an open and inviting area. The rationale for including the team space in our school is two-fold. We want to emphasize the smallness around each team, and we want to maintain multiple uses for various spaces throughout the building.

In a school of nearly 700 students, the team space is essential to creating an identity for each team. It is important that every middle school learner feel a part of a small, intimate group, not a member of a large, faceless crowd. Even within our largeness, we want each of our students to have the sense that he or she is an important member of a small community, and every small community has its central meeting area. The team is very much like the center green in a small town. It is the heart of the community. In the team we post student work and notices, hold meetings and celebrations, relax and interact, learn and debate, explore and explain. It is an active learning center. The teaming philosophy itself is not new to East Lyme Middle School , however, and is not reliant upon the team space. We have created teams and small learning communities at East Lyme Middle School for more than 15 years, long before the physical space in this building became a part of our lives, and we have done so because we know it is the right way to teach our students.

The team space also assists us in providing a developmentally appropriate degree of freedom for the individual student, while maintaining discreet control over each small, manageable group. By circling classrooms, offices, lockers and lavatories around a team space, we can allow the students to move freely throughout the team area without having to worry about lost time or inappropriate interactions. Every space within the team becomes a supervised workspace, allowing the developing adolescent to experience a sense of freedom and responsibility as well as safety and security. We know that this design restricts unstructured social interactions and that is a conscious decision on our part, one that we feel is working well. Since our move into the new school with the team space design we have seen a decrease in behavioral concerns which occur in the hallways or in the lavatories within our school. Structured social interactions are embedded into every school day, however, so that students have opportunities every day to meet and interact with other children outside of their team, their House and their grade level. These opportunities occur every day in our Life Arts classes, lunches, and in our club and athletic activities.