I am not going to go into too much detail about the schools where I live, except to say that I haven't known any children in any of our middle schools (neighborhood schools, public alternative or private) who spend that much reading in class or doing worksheets - reading is reserved for homework for the most part, and worksheets are not in vogue here. Class time is reserved for a combination of teacher lecture, group project work, and class discussion. The quality of any one class is usually highly correlated to the enthusiasm of the teacher, and is also influenced by having disruptive students in the class when that happens. Our public middle schools "track" all students into groups based on achievement (not ability), and the level of what is taught is determined by the tracking.
My kids are in a private school that is designed to be academically challenging and fwiw they have a small amount of reading time built into their day at school (quiet time after lunch), and they choose what they read during that time - it can be something that's required for school or something they are interested in. As mentioned above, they don't spend much time, if any, reading during their classes, and there is very little "lecturing" by the teacher - class time is a combination of class discussions, group projects etc. The science lab has microscopes as well as a wonderful teacher and the students have done quite a few dissections - I am not sure that the science classes in our neighborhood public schools offer the same level of learning or labs. Graphing calculators are incorporated into the math curriculum starting with Pre-Algebra, but they aren't replacing learning any concepts, they are an additional tool to use.
And way back when I was in middle school (I can still remember some of it lol!) - we had mostly lecturing from the teacher during class. There weren't any worksheets because I was in MS during the age when reproducing things like that cost $ and teachers didn't make copies of anything except for tests (my mom happened to be a MS teacher at that time to, fwiw, and she also only made copies of tests!). Our homework for things like Social Studies etc was to answer the questions in the back of each section/chapter etc in our textbook. In LA we had to learn how to diagram sentences. In science, we had labs every week, but microscopes and dissectiions didn't happen until high school biology class. In spite of that, I remember enjoying some of my classes immensely, and finding others so boring that all I did was daydream. Our school district didn't have a gifted program then, but they tracked students in MS the same way the district does where I live now, and I was in the highest level track. Then, as now, the difference was the teacher. It didn't really matter to me if I was in a class that was academically and intellectually challenging to me IF I had a teacher who had enthusiasm and could make me think. So that's what I remember about MS (not listing all the social/emotional stuff... or the incident that occurred when the school chose to close down the cookie line in the lunchroom!).
Just curious - are there any other school options where you live? Our public school district offers quite a few alternative programs and charter schools, and that's where you often find programs that get away from the types of challenges you're finding with your MS.
Best wishes,
polarbear
