Taking the time to help your students navigate the highs and lows of adolescence By the time Catie, 14, stormed out of her last class of the day, she felt disconnected from her emotions. She had no idea how deeply she’d been impacted by a minor fight with her mother on the way to school.
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Taking time to listen to and learn from students makes a difference Emily, one of my former students, was in seventh-grade when a close friend leaned over to share a secret. “I’m bisexual,” Alison* told her. “I like guys and girls” (from Emily’s blog at https://jwa.org/blog/risingvoices/education-allyship) After that, Emily suddenly noticed how often classmates insulted
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How neuroscience can help us connect with adolescents Reading about the teenage brain is one thing, crawling inside the mind of an adolescent is quite another. As a veteran of adolescence and a current scholar of teenage education, I can now look back at my own experiences with a different understanding. For the next few
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Why it’s not worth getting into a struggle with students It was the summer of 1998. I lived in a two room apartment with my now husband. The shower was in the kitchen. We drove clunker cars, scrounged change for take-out, and let me tell you, we were living our best life. We were young,
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A successful school year starts—and continues—with knowing well the students we serve One of the highest forms of respect around the world is to prove to someone that we really know them, and that we see them as worth knowing. We can connect with the grumpiest of individuals when we prove such things, and, of
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Students share about their engagement in and ownership of their own play time “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” —Heraclitus (554 – 483 BC) As middle school educators, we see a growing population of adolescents who struggle with executive skills and social problem-solving. We believe the
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