Steph's This We Believe

Middle school is the time for change in every students life. They change emotionally, cognitively, and physically. This is the time when they begin to think about who am I? Where do I belong? What group do I fit in with? Physically, especially with girls, maturation is happening in the body. A lot of the time there is a stereotype of middle schoolers being walking hormones, which this comes from all of the hormonal change going on in the young adolescents body. Girls are growing hair in "different places", developing in different areas and starting to gain weight. Boys are getting bigger, voices are getting deeper, they start to grow body hair. Emotionally students still are figuring out who their role models are and what group they want to be with. Cognitively students are going from concrete thinking to abstract thinking. They are starting to look past what is right in front of them which is crucial to students at this age level. This We believe discusses the the culture of what the classroom needs to be like in order to teach this diverse population of students. There are eight facets, that This We Believe, considers to be important for the classroom. The first one is that the people teaching middle level students, need to want to be a middle level teacher. Teachers at this level need to be ready to be versatile in order to teach these students integrative lessons and interdisciplinary units. Another facet is that there needs to be collaborative and courageous leadership. The leaders of middle schools need to know that there needs to be teamwork with in the school, amongst the teachers and the students. The leader needs to be gutsy and able to go out on a limb and be open minded to new ideas of teaching the students so that the students and staff can be successful. The other facets are: the vision which comes from a mission statement that is to the point; a supportive and safe environment that encourages students to learn; high expectations for everyone in the education community; active learning is taking place; a mentor to every student; and a partnership between the community, family and school. Other aspects that are important include the curriculum. For a middle school this needs to be ever changing in someway. The curriculum needs to relate to their interests, it needs to challenge their minds, integrate their different subjects together and helps students explore the world around them. Other important charactersitics of a middle school need to meet the fact that middle school students need the relationships with and adult in the school. They also need a structured curriculum based on learning about their health and wellness.

REFLECTION:
I believe that this is the most crucial part in any ones life. This is where you start working on figuring things out about yourself. It is a time when you start thinking of a few things on your own, not everything, but some. This is when the identity factor really comes into play for the young adolescent. I know from experience that I went from being a total girly girl to a complete jock. This is also the time when students are most vulnerable to experiment with different things, so I believe that it is crucially important for a young adolescent to have someone to look up to. I believe that middle schools need to have all of the characteristics that This We Believe discusses. The two that are most important to me right now is making the environment have a comfortable feeling for all of my students, because I beleive that the room/ environment is probably one of the most important factors on how many students learn. I also believe that it is important for the students to have those relationships with an adult in the school because that way they have guidance and have someone to go to in the school when they need help.
The last part of this book I thought was awesome to have as a middle level educator because it shows me just exactly what all of my students will be going through developmentally. This is why students at the middle level are called walking hormones because they are changing so much. The biggest part that interested me was the moral-reasoning development. This is one of the developments that I believe grows the most at the adolescent level. I also believe this is one of the most fragile parts of development because at this time students are looking up to adults to figure out how they should act, but if they don't have that adult mentor there to guide them, then they may not develop the way they sould morally.