Week 2

The readings in Week 2 were interesting, This We Believe, began to go into more detail and descriptions regarding the characteristics of curriculum, instruction and assessment.  These goals are very inspiring and are high ideals for teachers of middle school.  The first characteristic is vital, that instructors enjoy engaging young adolescents and understand how to work effectively with them.  There are too many instructors and administrators that exude distaste for middle school students.  One principal that I spoke to regarded middle school as a wasteland, full of hormone ridden kids focused on just one thing, not exactly the inspiring mission statement containing high ideals of education.  The school she worked for decided to let her go, probably due to her personal educational views.

I am particularly drawn towards other characteristics too, that was discussed in the text, that curriculum should be be challenging, relevant, exploratory, that is active, engages students with multiple learning and teaching styles accompanied with ongoing and varied assessments.  As a future teacher this sounds like a tall order, impossible to accomplish, heavy expectations with very little support.  Then I think back to some of my middle school observations.  I was very impressed with the science educators that I observed, upbeat, inspiring and tireless.  However, there was a difference between the two schools, one middle school was much more high achieving in science than the other, even though both educators were putting forth Herculean efforts. 

In the higher achieving school there were built into the classroom much more support for the instructor and students.  The classes were co-taught with two full time licensed teachers, another class had a special education instructor and paraprofessionals, all working in the same classroom.  The planning periods were also coordinated with other science teachers in the middle school to design lessons and assessments together as well as to plan unit lesson plans.  The school had created a team approach that enabled the instructors to be more effective than they could be on their own, and the lessons and assessments were designed with purpose.

This observation of a true team approach to middle school instruction was also discussed in the online article, Middle School, Are They Ready to Move Up?  Approaching middle school with a team approach enables instructors to address the social and emotional needs of the young adolescents that they are teaching, as well as improving on the delivery of the content.  As I mentioned earlier, the teacher that was on her own, while impressive as an individual teacher, she seemed to care so much about her students education and emotional state but she was left frazzled and exhausted every day.  The higher achieving middle school had supports built in to the structure and curriculum, the instructors still seemed passionate, but quite a bit more energetic and less stressed.

Engaging and inspiring young adolescents with relevant and active curriculum does seem to help set their future success in high school and college.  If these students were allowed to truly be exploratory in real life situations, in the sense that they are enabled to see doctors, lawyers, carpenters, plumbers, computer analysts, scientists, pilots and mechanics in action, to taste and see, it might give these young adolescents the "why" they need to keep studying.  Experiencing real life, not simulated or diluted disjointed explanations of how the world works may help students discern what they would like to study towards becoming.  Historically apprenticeships in the crafts used to begin in this age group, maybe long-term projects and unit studies might be the modern equivalent.  Students may benefit from trying their hand in different arenas, seeing the integration of all the subjects they study in school.  This could help them find their niche instead of guessing at career choices, judging using the images of erroneous Hollywood productions and other misleading perspectives.