Katie's This We Believe Blog

"This We Believe" starts out by stating that all middle school students deserve schools and teachers that support them during a difficult time in their life. In order for this all to happen the school's organization, curriculum, pedagogy, and programs must be based on the needs of the students in the school. In order for all of this to be effective, middle schools have to follow 14 characteristics that are interdependent and must be implemented at the same time. These characteristics are split into two categories, characteristics that the culture of the school must have and characteristics that need to be provided to young adolescents (p.7). Young adolescents go through a lot of changes during their middle school years and they need the support of their schools and teachers to help them succeed.

Successful schools for young adolescents are characterized by a culture that includes educators that enjoy it and are prepared, collaborative leadership, a shared vision, a supporting environment, high expectations for everyone, active learning, an advocate for every student, and family and community partnerships. Middle school teachers have to be prepared to teach young adolescents, developmentally they are unique to other age groups. Not only do teachers have to be positive in the classroom, but they have to be positive role models in the hallways, in the cafeteria, and at recess. If students see positive relationships between adults and see adults working together, they will start to do the same, not only with teachers but with their peers. Young adolescents are more mature than a lot of people give them credit for, so also having high expectations for all students will help them succeed in middle school.

Successful schools for young adolescents provide a curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative and exploratory, multiple learning and teaching approaches that respond to their diversity, assessment and evaluation programs that promote quality learning, organizational structures that support meaningful relationships and learning, school-wide efforts and policies that foster health, wellness, and safety and multifaceted guidance and support systems. Young adolescents will not respond to a curriculum that they don't find relevant or challenging. It is the teachers' job to make the connections for their students, and allow them to explore different aspects on their own. "They need, for instance, the chance to be a member of a musical group, though never destined to become a professional musician, to have a part in a play, though never to become an actor, or to create visual images through drawing and painting, though never to become an artist" (24). Young adolescents need the opportunities in the classroom to see which way they learn the best, and this can only happen through multiple teaching approaches. A good way to do this is through technology. Technology opens up new learning opportunities for students, and new teaching strategies for teachers. Finally young adolescents have to be graded on assessment and evaluation, not just one or the other. Teachers need to see how much progress is being made and what the level of achievement is.

In order for middle schools to become successful middle schools, there are a lot of people that need to support the school during the transition. Firstly, the teachers have accept the new methods of teaching and use it in their classrooms. Principals have to make sure that it is being used properly by all teachers. Parents need to become familiar with the changes going on in their child's school. The first step to becoming a successful middle school is the simplest - read This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents. Creating middle schools that can handle all the responsibilities that are talked about in this book takes a lot of work, and to start the transition everyone needs to be on the same page. Young adolescents have different characteristics then students that are younger or older than them. They are going through periods of physical development, cognitive-intellectual development, moral development, psychological development, and social-emotional development. Young adolescents can't be successful during their middle schools years by themselves, they need support in and out of school. This We Believe can teach us not only how to teach them, but how to help them succeed.