Chapter 12:Teacher Advisories--A Proposal for Change

Chapter 12 was about the different things that we as teachers can do with our students to help make the connections that kids need to succeed. I agree with he Gatewood's criteria for the best advisory programs. The criteria includes making the programs a full-day, make them monthly and include a time where the teachers and the students are eating at the same time, and having teachers talking independently with each student. In one of the schools that I attended, the principle would schedule a lunch with each student every day. This made many of us feel like she cared about each of us as an individual. I also believe that the lists of potential activities was really helpful, however I think that the best possible activity would be one when teachers can combine the three types. If we could make each activity physical with reflections, and have it be a service activity everyone involved would make out better.

Chapter 11: Extending Our Professional Practices Teaming

This chapter was all about the positive impact that team teaching has on your students and the way that they learn. In my own middle school experience my teachers team taught, and not only did they split us up into teams within the grade level, they made units around the learning results. I remember in seventh grade doing our China unit. This was a big deal in our school, we read Chinese imspired books in Language Arts and did a huge project in Social Studies, and was connected through word problems in math and different science concepts. This made the whole unit more powerful to all of us students at the time. We then had "China Connections Night" where we would present the projects that we had worked on in all of the classes. It was really powerful. Another thing that the book points out is that when you teach in teams all the teachers share the core values. This make the teaching setting stronger as well as the message that the students recieve from the school as a whole.

Pages 1-62

Pages 1-26:
In these first few pages there was a lot of information covered. In the very first pages they covered why they believe that middle grades is the key time for kids to be influenced. They discussed young adolescents as a group, the changes they go through and the risks that they are open to trying. It also has a list of what they consider a "fully functioning, self-actualize person" which is what they are trying to make the young adolescents. Through all of that I still found the chart on page 14 was the most illuminating thing in this reading. This chart really broke down their goals in a manageable way even though they have many goals for their middle schoolers. They broke it down really well in the four different sections: Essential Attributes, Curriculum, Leadership, and Culture.
Pages 27-33:
These pages cover a variety of topics. It goes from talking about visions and mission statements, to the type of leaders that are needed in middle schools, to who needs to be involved to make the vision of the school happen, to keeping teachers up-to-date with research and education, to making teams within the schools. This, needless to say, was a very important section in this book. One of the parts that impacted me the most was on page 29 when it said "The entire staff is involved in creating a learning community that places top priority ont he edu. and healthy development of ever students and adult within the community." I've always thought that this was one of the most important thing that a school could do. I do have one issue with how it is written in this book. I beleive that it is just as important to have students involved in this process as the adults. If these changes are going to impact the students then they should also be involved. The other part of this section that made me want to cheer about was when it said that the pricipal needs to advocate for the students. All of us teachers need to advocate for our students because in some cases we are the only ones who are.

Page 33-42

This section was all about how building a community based school helps make the students more likely to believe in education, and stay out of trouble. Almost everything they say in this chapter I agree with. In the very beginning they say "Interactions among staff members and between students reflect fairness and mutual respect." I really believe this and have been told numerous times that I'm dumb for believing this. When you demonstrate what you expect and truly believe that is what you will be shown. This chapter writes this again when it says "The school emphasizes lifelong physical activities such as aerobics, dance...In such schools every student has an increased sense of well-being, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of his or her academic success." Although I agree most defiantly with the previous things the most important thing that they write in the chapter is not about the comfort of the school, but of advocating for your students. This is the most important thing we as teachers can do for our students.

Page 43-62

This last section of the book was completely designated to the research behind This We Believe books. It covered Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, Leadership and Organization, and Culture and Community. It also recapped the way that the different changes that are occurring to young adolescents changes their behavior. One thing that I really liked in this section was when it said that all of the dimensions are intertwined, each affecting and being affected by the others. The rest of this section is the specific characteristic of physical development, cognitive-intellectual, moral development, psychological, and social-emotional development.

Final Recap:

Out of all of the education books that I've had to read in my education classes up to this point in my college career this one has been my favorite. I feel like this book has been the most relevant to me, as well as the most accurate. When I was reading this book I didn't feel like it was old retired teachers, or heads of departments writing for the students, I felt like it was an accurate representation of the students. The combination of the science that is behind how young adolescents mature and the research that the This We Believe community has done makes this book ring true. I also very much believe that the way middle schools are being run needs to continue changing to form their own communities based on the needs of the students. The best part of This We Believe is the fact that they continue to do research on young adolescents.

Chapter 17: The Truth About Middle School Students

This chapter beautiful talks about the different things middle school students are, and they were never described as annoying or hormonal. They were described as caring, talented, and brilliant. The quote in this chapter that really said the most to me was "Either they {kids that caused frustration} weren't ready to receive what I had to offer, or I wasn't offering what they needed." Middle school students are so much more than pre-teens who don't know how to control their hormones or how to dress they're new body, they are the next generation of adults and the most we can do is offer them the best we can.

Chapter 2: Motivating Young Adolescents

This chapter is pretty self-explanatory given the chapter name. This is the one thing that is going to be a constant struggle no matter how long I've been teaching, or how confident I am about what education is and what it can do. One of the first thing this chapter says is "Young adolescents are moving through one of the most dynamic stages of development of their lives." This is going to me the main reason that my student didn't do they're homework, forgot they had a test, or show attitude in class in an inappropriate way. Their lives are changing, their physical beings are changing. I think that the biggest thing that we as teachers can do according to the book is to immerse ourselves in finding out what their interests are. When we figure that out we need to keep finding ways to be supportive, not just in our classroom, but also in that interest.

Chapter 1: Creating a Culture of Learning Stoking the Fires Within

What I took out of this chapter was a reminder of how important teachers are to this world. I always hear people say that teachers are overpaid, they get the vacations off with the kids, and they have the whole summer to themselves. Teachers deserve all they're paid and more, and if we were paid less the passionate teachers would still be there to continue to change the world. I really liked the suggestion for clarifying what we stand for. If we identify our hero's and strive to be more like them then we will become better role models for our students. This chapter says that listening well helps clarify messages, diffused anger, and solves problems, but we need to remember that our kids will always look at us for a model/guidelines.

Chapter 2: Turning Points 2000: A Design for Improving Middle Grades Education

Chapter two is completely about the ways that schools should alter their design as well as their mindset about middle schools. There were seven major recommendations for teaching middle schools. They are: Teach a curriculum grounded in rigorous, public academic standards for what students should know and be able to do, relevant to the concerns of adolescents and based on how students learn best, use instructional methods designed to prepare all students to achieve higher standards and become lifelong learners, staff middle grades school with teachers who are expert at teaching young adolescents, and engage teachers in ongoing, targeted profession a development opportunities, organize relationships for learning to create a climate of intellectual development and a caring community of shared educational purpose, govern democratically, through direct or representative participation by all school staff members, the adults who know the students best, provide a safe and health school environment as part of improving academic performance and developing caring and ethical citizens, and involve parents and communities in supporting student learning and healthy development. I think it is really sad that a study had to be done to see that these seven steps should be taken to create a comfortable middle school atmosphere. I feel like this should just be done without question.

Chapter 1: Turning Points: A Decade Later

In chapter was all about why the Turning Points study was originally done as well as the outcome. The chapter then goes on to discuss the outcome of the study, and what to do about the results. From this study Turning Points offered eight essential principles for improving middle grades education. A couple of these are families are allied with school staff through mutual respect, trust, and communication and schools and communities are partners in educating young adolescents. This chapter says "It focuses on the characteristics and needs of young adolescents. It creates a community of adults and young people embedded in networks of support and responsibility..." I liked that this study was done as well as the outcomes of it. The results and the proposed action steps are what we should have been doing the whole time.