Sixth Grade

EMILY MAUNZ AND I taught English at Baltimore's Northeast Middle School Wednesday.Actually, Maunz taught sixth grade most of the day. That's her job. I filled in for her for 45 minutes. It was Teach For America Week, described in a TFA news release as "a nationwide event that calls upon successful Americans to share their knowledge and expertise with pupils in the classrooms of Teach For America corps members."Corps member Maunz, 23, wasn't born when I earned a living as an English teacher in New York in 1963.

The middle school years are the most mystifying time. They enter middle school in the sixth grade as little kids and exit in the eighth grade well on their way to becoming young adults. In the years in between, they try to figure out their own identities, including who their friends will be. What do you do when you don't like the friends your child is hanging around with? I've been wrestling with this question. On the one hand, I think it is impossible to dictate to my son who his friends should and shouldn't be. He'll probably want to do the opposite of what I say anyway.

The kids went back to school the other day, thus ending a two-month period during which the house took on all the calm of Saturday night in Tijuana.Look, you can mark me down right now as favoring the concept of year-round school. In fact, I'd favor a bill requiring kids to put in a full day in class and then two or three hours on a loading dock before they're allowed home in the evening.My wife keeps whining that our kids are too young to be wrestling refrigerators into the hull of a freighter.

Central Library 10375 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia. 410-313-7800. •All Together Now. Saturdays, 10:15 and 11:30 a.m. All ages; 30 minutes. •English Conversation Club. Mondays, 10 a.m.; and Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Practice speaking and understanding English in a group setting. Register before attending. •Family Movies. Aug. 21, 3 p.m. "Charlotte's Web. " •Kindergarten, Here We Come. Thu., Aug. 16, 4 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 17, 2 p.m.; and Sat., Aug. 18, 2 and 3:30 p.m. Stories and activities to help mark the important first day. Registration required.

There's always hope. Sixth-graders, at least, still have common sense, as I learned recently when I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Cathy Walrod's class at Dundalk Middle School.The Baltimore County middle schools have a program called DEAR, an acronym for Drop Everything And Read. Time is scheduled each day for students to do just that. They bring their own books -- anything they want -- and at the assigned time classes and activities stop and kids just read for the pleasure of it.Sometimes a guest reader is invited to share a book.

The first sixth-grade class since 1978 at George G. Kelson Elementary School was formally celebrated last week at an event marking the completion of the first phase of a community-based renovation project worth more than $500,000. In order for more children from the West Baltimore community of Sandtown-Winchester to attend middle school in their own neighborhood, officials from The Enterprise Foundation and Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse paired to donate time, money and resources to Kelson to expand the school by three grades.

Woodbridge Elementary School will add a sixth grade next year, the Baltimore County school board decided last night, marking the first step in a broader push by parents to keep children in neighborhood schools through middle school.The action, which will keep about 60 sixth-graders a year at Woodbridge -- which now ends at grade five -- comes in response to a parent proposal to ease crowding at Southwest Academy and keep Woodbridge Valley children in their neighborhood through eighth grade.

Anne Arundel County sixth-graders posted a significant gain on reading tests this spring after the first year of an intensive language arts program, while county pupils continued to score above the national median in all subjects tested. Scores went up in all subjects except science on the TerraNova, formerly called the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. For the most part, the gains were slight - just a point or two - but officials said the county's efforts to improve instruction are paying off. "Anytime you show improvement you're pleased, because it's an indication that students are performing better and teachers are being more successful," said interim Superintendent Kenneth P. Lawson.

The private operator of three failing Baltimore elementaries wants to extend its reach by adding sixth grade at each school, a step the for-profit company says has been prompted by staunch support from parents. New York-based Edison Schools has asked to amend its five-year contract with the state to include sixth-grade pupils at Furman L. Templeton, Gilmor and Montebello, where the company took over in July amid some criticism from city education officials. The arrangement, if approved, would affect about 260 pupils who normally would enroll in regular city middle schools next academic year.

Now that it's over, sixth grade really wasn't so bad. Everyone agrees that Ms. Turner's class rocked. It's hard enough for a teacher to hold pupils' attention during a regular day when they are 11 or 12, but she did it even yesterday, the last day of school. Ms. Turner pushes all the desks out of the way and puts all the chairs in a circle, except one, which is in the middle. Everyone takes turns sitting in the middle while everyone else says nice things about you. Things like, "If you're yelling at me at lunch and I say something, you always have a great comeback" and "You have the biggest binder that I've ever seen, yet you can pull papers out of it and you know where they are."

The president has declined to talk about racism in connection with the carpet-chewers of the Right who are suffering road rage over his existence, and he's wise to turn that one down. The country doesn't need a sermon on race or civility right now. What it needs is to believe that our leaders are trying to do the right thing, no matter how inconvenient, and if they forge ahead and fix health insurance, then the ragemeisters of the Right will find other hobbies. Mr. Obama is a Chicago guy, and he doesn't wilt if some gin-crazed cracker from South Carolina calls him a liar, so don't trouble your pretty head about civility.

A sixth-grade girl at Perry Hall Middle School lied about being sexually assaulted this week in a school restroom, Baltimore County police said yesterday. Based on their investigation, police concluded that the incident did not occur, said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman. Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger said that prosecutors have reviewed the facts of the case and decided not to charge the 11-year-old girl. "The [girl's] family acted extremely appropriately," Shellenberger said, "and we've decided that the situation is better handled in the family and not in the criminal justice system."

Fourth-graders at Gamber's Mechanicsville Elementary are the first group in the Carroll County school system to report a 100 percent pass rate on the reading and math tests of the Maryland School Assessment, according to results released from the State Department of Education. "Obviously, we're very, very proud of the staff and students," said the school's principal, Robin Townsend. "If one grade can do it, our hope is third and fifth can, also." Test scores rose at schools throughout the county, with slight decreases only in fifth-grade reading and third-grade math.

DEAR CAL -- My daughter is in the sixth grade. In our state, they allow sixth-grade students to try out for freshman teams. What are your feelings on sixth-grade students competing against older and more mature athletes(in our case, girls softball)? Steve Shelton, Owensboro, Ky. DEAR STEVE -- Every young athlete matures physically and emotionally at his or her own rate. There may be some sixth-graders (about 12 years old) who are physically strong enough to compete with freshmen (usually ninth-graders who are about 15 years old)

Two years ago, when she started sixth grade at Mayfield Woods Middle School, Katelyn Haarer noticed that the outside of the school was marred by graffiti. Katelyn was in the school's gifted-and-talented program, and had to do a research project. She and six other kids decided to focus on the vandalism, said Charla Phillips, the school's gifted-and-talented-research teacher. Last year, the group, led by Katelyn, persuaded school officials to place lighting along the back of the school to discourage vandals.

After watching the recent television movie "Separate But Equal," oneof television's best efforts, some old memories and feelings came back to me.The movie was a docudrama based on the struggles of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, led by then-attorney Thurgood Marshall, portrayed by actor Sidney Poitier, to put an end to segregated schools in the 1950s. The film ended with the landmark 1954 decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found segregated schools to be unconstitutional.

Six students from St. Jane Frances School were selected from 18 participants at the school as winners of the Optimist Oratorical Contest.The students were asked to write an original four- to five-minute speech on the topic "Listen to Me." District winners will receive a $1,500 scholarship.The winners are:* First place -- Christopher Holub, seventh grade, and Lauren Hammond, sixth grade.* Second place -- Mary Margaret Kay, seventh grade, and Matthew Naylor, seventh grade.* Third place -- Mia DiBene, sixth grade, and Bradley Gannon, seventh grade.