Building a Middle School Makers' Haven

Students listening to music to identify similes and metaphors. A child using a balance board to focus on a difficult Orton-Gillingham phoneme task. Kids engaged in deep breathing. This is a day in Anna Siegel’s 5th grade Language classroom.

Middle School Makers teacher Josh Mulready embodies a “let’s try it” attitude that permeates the Arts and Innovation (A&I) Center in Lincoln. Whether an idea for two popsicle sticks or a complex 3D printed object, students are encouraged to always try. “I tell students that their only limitation is how much they’ll allow themselves to imagine,” said Josh.

Inspired by her prior work at an expeditionary learning school, Middle School educator Nicole Jones began concepting and designing a yearlong curriculum around the “hero’s journey” literary genre in 2021, in partnership with co-teacher Tommy Cunningham.

When students arrive at Carroll, our first priority is getting them to buy in to learning. We start during the Admission interview. We tell students, “School until now has been a spectator sport, you’ve been watching your parents and teachers hash it out. That stops now. At Carroll, it’s between you and your teachers. You are in charge.”

When her son was diagnosed with dyslexia, Diane Hutchinson felt helpless. “Here, I am with a master’s in special education, a special education teaching license, and an elementary teaching license, yet I didn’t know how to help him.” Having heard about Carroll’s reputation and its Orton-Gillingham courses through the Garside Institute for Teacher Training (GIFTT), Diane was eager to sign up.

“We are data obsessed at Carroll,” says Allison West, Middle School Division Head. “It is a constant thread in the conversations among our teaching teams.” From the moment a student applies to the moment they graduate, student performance data are foundational to a Carroll education. A robust set of data informs how students are grouped academically so children with similar learning profiles are working together and feeling appropriately challenged.

Learning the values of being comfortably confident and thinking with an open mind are paramount to the Multis approach. Whether acting out an improv sketch, battling at badminton, belaying a friend up the climbing wall, sculpting a scuba diver, or soldering a lighting circuit, students are constantly exploring new interests, often uncovering talents, in a supportive and collaborative environment.

In her 23 years at Carroll, Sue Kingman has served this community as Director of Admission, Director of Secondary School Advising, and as the visionary Division Head of the Lower School. Read just one of the many tributes to Sue shared by our community as she neared her retirement.

Meet Senior Accountant, Nicholas Kieler, and learn about his journey to Carroll, what his day-to-day work looks like, and why he enjoys working at Carroll.