Bridget's This We Believe

Although growth during infancy and the growth change that adolescents go through are both very rapid and extensive, adolescents actually have the opportunity to watch themselves and their peers grow into more defined people. Due to puberty and the uniqueness of all students, middle schools generally have a wide variability between their students. Along with changes in emotional and intellectual growth, the physical aspect is mostly what makes adolescents who they are. It is during this time period where they become self-conscious of their own body and begin to worry what others may think of them and what they are wearing. Middle schools need strong educators who are willing to advocate for ts because this is the time in their lives during which they are trying to figure themselves out as well as their beliefs and set of moral standards. By having educators who willingly work with adolescents and are willing to be a positive role model in the lives of their students, the school will become a better community within itself. Adolescents need a supportive and safe school environment in order to get away from problems at home, or to just simply be in a place that accepts them for who they are and does not judge them for their dreams.

I fully agree with the information that was presented in the beginning of this book. Teaching middle school is hard work and it is definitely not meant for everybody, but for those few teachers brave enough to care about the well-being of the adolescents that they teach on a daily basis, the hard work will always be worth it. I think that in order to be a successful middle school teacher you need to believe in your students first and foremost but they also need to believe in themselves. If a middle school teacher does not believe in themselves, then the students will not want to look to them to be their role model because they are not confident enough in their own skin.

This section talks about what middle school students need in their school lives in order to make their school successful. Students need teachers who want to work with this age group, collaborative leadership, a supporting and safe environment, high expectations from every teacher on their team, and active learning. First of all, students need teachers who want to work with this age group because it's important for them to know that there are teachers out there who enjoy working with adolescents and are not just teaching to fill up time. Students need collaborative leadership from their teachers so that they know that they are getting the best education possible and are actually learning and retaining the information. Students need a supporting and safe environment so that they can look forward to coming to school every day. School should be the place where students can feel comfortable enough to go to with their problems if something is happening at home. Students need to feel as though every one of their teachers is holding them to high expectations so that they can push themselves into their learning and will become more active in their quest for knowledge. Finally, students need active learning becuase studies show that when students engage in active learning instead of just sitting in class and listening to a lecture, they retain the information more and for a longer period of time.

This section was interesting becuase it tells what successful schools need to have in order to have successful students. I agree with all of the things that the schools need because without any of these requirements, students may feel as though they are not the school's top priority, though they should be. If students show up to a school where they are being pushed to their intellectual limits every day by every teacher, then they will go on to do great things because they will learn from their teachers and will continue to push themselves into the life that they want to have as an adult.

This sections talks about what successful schools provide for young adolescents. In order to be considered a successful school, the school should provide a curriculum that is relevant to the students, challenging to every student, integrative, and exploratory. The curriculum should be relevant to the students because then they will be able to apply what they already know to the curriculum and they would be able to remember more information this way. The curriculum should challenge every student so that they feel as though they are not wasting their time learning the information. If the curriculum is too easy for a student or too hard for a different student, it is up to the teacher to modify each lesson so that every student can get as much from it as possible. The curriculum should be integrative because this way, students will be able to work on their skills in more than one subject area at a time and this may make things more exciting for a student, especially if their least favorite subject integrates their favorite subject into it. Also, by using an integrative curriculum, the students' new knowledge will be more rounded and they will be able to know how to use that information. Finally, the curriculum should be explorative so that the students get excited to learn about each subject. If teachers make it so that students have to explore the new information, then the students themselves will be able to decide how far to investigate into the subject. A successful school also needs different teaching approaches to respond to the students diversity, and assessments that promote quality learning. Teachers need to teach in a variety of ways in order to address student diversity so that no student(s) feel left out or as though they are not good enough to be taught properly. Successful schools also need assessments that promote true quality learning so that the students can prove that they know the material and can explore the material more while working on the quality assessment. By using quality assessments in the classroom, teachers will see that the students will retain the knowledge that they have learned for a longer period of time and would be able to apply it to their every day life.

This section was very important to read because without teachers knowing what they need to do in order to help the students as much as possible, the school would not be successful. However, if every teacher in the school uses the curriculum properly to help each student as much as possible, uses a variety of teaching strategies, and uses quality assessment, then the school and the young adolescents that make the school what it is will grow in leaps and bounds becuase the teachers are showing that they care about the students and take their jobs very seriously.

The final section of reading is split up into several smaller sections. In the 'Call to Action' section, the authors separated every group of people that are affected by the school and gives ideas on how to help both the school and the students better. The people are split into the groups of teachers, principals, parents, and superintendents. The last section is about the characteristics of young adolescents. The authors made categories about physical development, cognitive development, moral development, psychological development, and social-emotional development. In each of these catagories is a list of characteristics that young adolescents have in each of these areas. By looking at these lists, teachers should be able to see what the students may be going through and how to help them.

I enjoyed this last section very much because it shows how everyone in the community is affected by the school and how everyone can participate in making the school successful for the young adolescents that go there. It is also important for teachers and principals to know what their students are going through during this period in their life and to think about how they may help them to get through their problems without having it affect their school work.