Gadsden Middle School’s Microsociety Confronts Real-Life Challenges in the Community

Learning is being made relevant at New Mexico's Elev8 schools through efforts like Microsociety, a national program that allows students to build and administer their own societies. In Microsociety, students produce goods and services, establish laws, arbitrate disputes and report the news. All citizens earn wages in the school's "Micro" currency, invest in product ideas, deposit and borrow money from "Micro" banks and pay taxes, tuition, and rent.

But at Gadsden Middle School, Microsociety students are not just creating a microcosm of the real world inside their school. They are working to build a better community in the surrounding town of Anthony, NM.

"Young people are having to carry adult worries," said Victor Montoya, who, since joining Elev8 as an afterschool provider in September, has raised the school's four-year-old Microsociety program to new levels.

He recalled the Microsociety's work recently with one of its 8th graders. "Her anger was spilling over.... Her father's in jail, her mom works all the time. She had no structure. We had to let her know that she needs to be concerned about herself first. The group in Microsociety centered her again. It's been a complete 180."

With the involvement of Microsociety students and the Advocates for Anthony community group that Victor previously organized, improvements are being seen in the community, too.

"I've been bringing in new elected officials from Anthony...and talking to students. What the students are learning is a new style of conflict resolution, where they hear each other's ideas without being critical. We're setting up a police and community advisory group within our Microsociety. Our judge loves the idea of that, (and is now) asking (students) if they'd like to participate in some of the laws of the municipality through a youth policy council."

Victor's long-term vision is to have Microsociety "installed within the community... (with) students learning there and in the schools."




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On average, students’ GPAs drop a full letter grade between eighth and ninth grades. Students who experience this decline in GPA are by no means doomed to failure, especially if they live in neighborhoods where they can access support services. However, for students who are already struggling and lack access to help (a common scenario in low-income neighborhoods), a decline in grades during this transition makes it even harder to get on track toward graduation.
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