Students today are faced with global issues that impact their lives such as bias, political divisiveness, injustice, and mass shootings. These students have the potential to become a generation of leaders that improve...

There are a number of lessons I have learned in my 20 years as a teacher of American History. Appreciation of history is like a fine wine … the longer you let it sit (the older we get), the better...

In This We Believe, the Association for Middle Level Education stresses the importance of understanding the unique developmental needs of our middle level students in designing appropriate learning environments and...

When I taught middle school language arts, one of my students, Matthew, would complain that he was not able to give an explanation about or summarize the poems we were reading in class. However, every Monday he would...

Ok, so before you start freaking out and telling me how important curriculum is in a school, let me preface this whole article by saying that yes, curriculum is a very important part of a school's program. The purpose...

IMHO, LOL, OIC, OMG. If you've recently graded middle school or high school writing, chances are you've read terms like these; or my favorite, "wtf - idk" which also happened to be an answer on a student's quiz. As a...

We've all had those days when technology doesn't cooperate, leaving that innovative lesson plan we've worked so hard on to fall apart. I crafted a differentiated lesson using a popular web-based educational technology...

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." – Victor Borge In my first year of teaching, I taught kindergarten. There are moments from that year that parallel later moments teaching middle...

One of my favorite days of the year is when I give students their first independent reading assignment. I believe the best way to keep the love of reading alive is for students to read what they love and share their...

The eighth-grade girl approached Tom Adams in the cafeteria. "Dylan just asked out Samantha as a joke," she said. "Now he's laughing about it with his friends, and Samantha is sitting at our table crying." Adams, the...