Musicals can serve as rich sources for student learning, especially when staged at your own school. While musicals are considered entertainment, they can serve as strong curriculum resources. Stage, film, and TV...

Middle schools and summer camps play different roles in society. Middle schools are a legally required step in a child's development meant to prepare them for college and career, while summer camps are often elective...

iGen, a term used by generational researcher Jean M. Twenge (2017), is used to describe children born between 1995 and 2012. In her book, Twenge analyzed large data sets to understand the struggles and hopes of this...

Exclusion, discrimination, bullying—all are in the headlines on a daily basis, but change is ahead. It is time for an inclusion revolution, and our middle level students can help lead the way by becoming part of...

Background For many years educators have used punishment, or fear of punishment, as the primary deterrent to student misconduct. We have tried zero tolerance, excessive use of in-school suspension (ISS) and out of...

As a building principal whose days are filled with countless observations, emails, and student interactions, it's easy to forget that there really is a world outside of my wonderful middle school. Over the last...

From our first days on campus, it was clear that the school had once been committed to an advisory program. There were dusty advisory binders in the corners of classrooms, and many teachers remained passionate about...

There is growing research demonstrating that students perform better academically, socially, and emotionally when they are meaningfully engaged, contributing members of a school with a positive, caring, equitable...

The faculty lounge crackles with disagreements about the new grading policies suggested by the standards-based grading committee. The English department debates whether or not grammar proficiency is a requisite for...

I bet you didn't know that you signed up to be a triage nurse now did you? Meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of middle school students is a lot like working the triage desk in a busy hospital. The...