Young Adolescent Development

Don’t Pick Up the Rope

Why it’s not worth getting into a struggle with students It was the summer of 1998. I lived in a two room apartment with my now husband. The shower was in the kitchen. We drove clunker cars, scrounged change for take-out, and let me tell you, we were living our best life. We were young,

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Getting to Know Our Students

A successful school year starts—and continues—with knowing well the students we serve One of the highest forms of respect around the world is to prove to someone that we really know them, and that we see them as worth knowing. We can connect with the grumpiest of individuals when we prove such things, and, of

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Middle Schoolers Must Play

Students share about their engagement in and ownership of their own play time “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” —Heraclitus (554 – 483 BC) As middle school educators, we see a growing population of adolescents who struggle with executive skills and social problem-solving. We believe the

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Making School Work Right

An update on a district-wide transformation of middle level education and technology for learning In our article titled “Transforming Middle School Practice Through Instructional Technology,” we shared how our district has approached systematic growth by intertwining twin focuses on middle level education and leveraging instructional technology for learning. The first steps of that process began

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The Young Adolescent State of Mind

What neuroscience reveals about our students and how we should respond In This We Believe, the Association for Middle Level Education stresses the importance of understanding the unique developmental needs of our middle level students in designing appropriate learning environments and for understanding how those environments can contribute to or interfere with our students’ learning. Researchers

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Four Ways to Help Students Be Their Best Selves

How educators can help students repair damaged relationships and make behavioral changes The eighth-grade girl approached Tom Adams in the cafeteria. “Dylan just asked out Samantha as a joke,” she said. “Now he’s laughing about it with his friends, and Samantha is sitting at our table crying.” Adams, the principal of Newfane Middle School in

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