Category: Teaching the Whole Adolescent
Students in the middle grades think in polarities and will go to great lengths to avoid embarrassment, writes author and school counselor Phyllis Fagell. But with the right supports, they can learn to take risks – asking questions, joining discussions and learning more.
It’s hard to strike a balance between nurturing a middle schooler and fostering independence, but they need both from adults in their lives as they toggle between childhood and adolescence. Author and middle school counselor Phyllis Fagell shares 10 ways we can help.
Young adolescents need classrooms designed to meet their unique physical, intellectual and social-emotional needs, says middle school veteran Cheryl Mizerny. Her spot-on advice can help educators develop a teaching style that maximizes tween achievement.
After a decade teaching third and fourth graders, Patti Grayson ventured into middle school this past year. She has come away from her first year in the middle with several gleanings about the most effective ways to work with unpredictable, sensitive tweens.
In her valentine “to those volatile adolescents and the educators who cherish them,” veteran middle level teacher Beth Morrow highlights six good reasons to spend your days with “the wonderfully rough and resilient gems that are middle school students.”
Middle school students are a unique breed, says educator and consultant Jennifer Gonzalez, and they need teachers who are tuned in to the intense dichotomies of adolescent life and learning. She offers teachers new to the middle level eight helpful tips.
As he contemplates his new role as middle level division leader, Charlie Gramatges considers the middle school essentials that best serve young adolescents.
Eighth graders present a video and describe the creation of their “I AM Wall” – part of a project on stereotyping that included reading S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. “It seems that we keep discovering things about ourselves every day, so all we need to strive for is to be ourselves.”
The developmental needs of tweens are unique, and flourishing as a middle grades teacher requires special skills. Teaching expert Rick Wormeli offers five customized strategies that are attuned to the particular requirements of the adolescent brain!
Teacher Mary Tarashuk says The Walking Classroom podcasts make it easy to combine skills and goals that meet CCSS & other standards across multiple content areas.