One year ago, I was sitting in these bleachers just like you, and just like you, I was excited, worried, sad, happy, terrified and everything in between. Now, I stand here before you, and guess what? I'm okay. These...

Many people have ambivalent to negative memories of their own middle school years, although there are exceptions. One of the authors of this article was in an "experimental cluster" within a traditional junior high,...

One of the worst assumptions I made as a young classroom teacher was that each and every student in my class would possess a fully developed framework for reading and writing in my class. Maybe this was because I had...

In the Association for Middle Level Education's This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (NMSA, 2010), there is an expressed commitment to helping young adolescents become successful, responsible, global...

One of the most frustrating parts of teaching for me has been assessments. There have been so many times when I've felt success in learning with my students throughout a unit only to realize they haven't learned what...

John Dewey (1959), a great philosopher and educational theorist of the 1950s, had already warned us about the importance of an educational focus on the student rather than on the teacher. He argued that classroom...

In her 1994 book of poetry, Something Permanent, writer/poet Cynthia Rylant gets inspiration from the photographs of Walker Evans, a photojournalist who documented rural America during the Great Depression in the...

Dopamine is known as the "feel good" neurotransmitter, and we crave it because it lets us know that predicted rewards are coming. That first sip of coffee that signals caffeine will improve your mood and energy level,...

"I can't believe what happened," Janine* said. Her daughter Greta's best friend overheard two girls calling her a stuck-up loser, so she secretly videotaped their conversation and texted Greta the evidence. Janine was...

A rite of passage for many students entering middle school is being handed their own cell phone. Chances are that parents of kids entering fifth, sixth, or seventh grades have discussed cell phones ad nauseum because...