points out that the elementary school is the first part of nine-year system of the elementary education program, which has the duration of six years Sudijatno,
1995:128.
a. The Six Grade Students
The subject of this study is the sixth grade students of the elementary school, and they are considered to be in the middle childhood. Lefrancois 1986: 391 stated
that middle childhood is one of stages of child development. This stage rages from age seven to twelve. Therefore, it can be concluded that the sixth grade of
elementary school students belong to this stage. Children in this period of time also show many other characteristics in physical, emotional and social aspects. They are
in an intermediate social and emotional state between early childhood and adolescence. Children in the middle childhood are curious. They usually want to
make sense out of how things work, gain competence and control over them. They are open, receptive and perceptive Holt, 1967: 169. This means that it is very
important for a child in this age need to get all the information they need to fulfill their curious passions. However all the information they receive has to be selected.
Bleckie in Wasiati, 1995:41 says that children grow at different speeds even though the stages of growth are the same for all, the age at which they reach is
varies widely and the differences between them are the product of very complex interaction, which begins at conception between heredity at intelligence. Therefore
to see each student as an individual with hisher own ability in the speed to understand the material is needed.
The attention processes of the children in the middle-childhood change in four ways Faw, 1980: 229-230:
1 Tune out information: the child is better able than younger children to
ignore irrelevant information. 2
Selective attention: even when the child does not tune out incoming information, the older child is better able to respond only to those aspects
of the stimulation that are important to the solution of a problem. This skill increases with age. While a six-year old child is better than a four-year old
one at selective responding, a twelve-year-old is better than either of these younger children.
3 Flexibility: another attention characteristic which develops problem-
solving capabilities is attention flexibility, which is the extent that an individual can shift attention from one characteristic of a problem to
another in order to arrive at a correct selection. 4
Reduced perceptual dominance: a fourth change in attention is the child’s movement away from attention process dominated by physical properties.
Another important characteristic in middle-childhood is the development of social relationship. Children in the middle-childhood begin an involvement in the
world outside the family and immediate neighborhood Watson, 1978: 363. Children become less independent on their parents and develop a sense of
cooperation and self- control Bentley Glass. 1961: 98. Stone and Church 1973: 347 describe that children spend as much of their time as possible in the company
of their peers, about in-groups and out groups about leadership and fellowship, about justice and injustice, about loyalties, heroes, and ideals. The quotations
suggest that children in the middle childhood become less dependent on the family.
The development of social relationship in the middle childhood period consists of 3 stages. Leffrancois 1986: 320 – 321 states these three stages.
1 Dependent stage: the children depend on the family socially, emotionally,
and physically. 2
Conflict stage: the children find themselves between two forces. On the one hand, there is his former allegiance to his parents, his continued love for
them. On the other hand there is a newly found allegiance to his friend and his need to be accepted by his peers.
3 Independent stage: this does not mean that child breaks all bonds with his
family and ties himself irrevocably to groups of peers, but simply that he has achieved an independence allowing functioning in the milieu of peers that
becomes important to him.
b. How They Learn
