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What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know
The first edition of What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know helped tens of thousands of preservice and inservice educators find new, energizing ways to think about their practice. Now Dave Brown and Trudy Knowles present a second edition with 40 percent new material that includes the latest research about middle schoolers development, deep explorations of why true middle school structures strongly support young adolescents learning, and ways to combine these findings to optimize students in-school experiences.
320 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 10, 2009
This book is an essential read for anyone who cares about Middle School Education. The authors offer a thorough but accessible overview of early adolescent growth and development touching on everything from physical and emotional development to intellectual and cognitive growth during the middle school years. They then build on that knowledge to address what responsive curriculum, instruction, assessment, and school structures that support young adolescents would look like. All of it is useful, practical knowledge that can and should inform the development of any Middle School.
However, the authors lean heavily on democratic classroom models centered around student voice in curriculum and instruction. While I agree that it is probably necessary to be a strong advocate for a model which allows for student choice, I disagree in the strong opposition that the authors perspective and tone places on traditionally defined curriculum characterized by standards.
Ultimately it all boils down to outcomes. The authors argue that the outcomes that we want for middle school students are centered around developing social skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, what authors Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane would call expert thinking and complex communication skills. I agree that this is a large part of what we want for our students. However, we want them to have the foundation of a core set of knowledge and skills as defined by traditional standards as well. The reality is that these basic skills and knowledge don't always integrate nicely into other subjects when students are cognitively ready to learn them, and they don't always back up the direction of curriculum that is founded on students questions. In other words, there are things that I want Middle Schoolers to know, be able to do, and to understand that don't necessarily come up on the radar screen of things that Middle Schoolers want to know, be able to do, and to understand. While the authors do acknowledge grudgingly the place of standards, they clearly don't like standards but they do find ways to explain how standards can be integrated into a student-centered approach to the curriculum.
Regardless, I still feel that this book is an important resource for engaging in the ideas about Middle School reform, and for that alone this book is worth reading.
However, the authors lean heavily on democratic classroom models centered around student voice in curriculum and instruction. While I agree that it is probably necessary to be a strong advocate for a model which allows for student choice, I disagree in the strong opposition that the authors perspective and tone places on traditionally defined curriculum characterized by standards.
Ultimately it all boils down to outcomes. The authors argue that the outcomes that we want for middle school students are centered around developing social skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, what authors Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane would call expert thinking and complex communication skills. I agree that this is a large part of what we want for our students. However, we want them to have the foundation of a core set of knowledge and skills as defined by traditional standards as well. The reality is that these basic skills and knowledge don't always integrate nicely into other subjects when students are cognitively ready to learn them, and they don't always back up the direction of curriculum that is founded on students questions. In other words, there are things that I want Middle Schoolers to know, be able to do, and to understand that don't necessarily come up on the radar screen of things that Middle Schoolers want to know, be able to do, and to understand. While the authors do acknowledge grudgingly the place of standards, they clearly don't like standards but they do find ways to explain how standards can be integrated into a student-centered approach to the curriculum.
Regardless, I still feel that this book is an important resource for engaging in the ideas about Middle School reform, and for that alone this book is worth reading.
November 25, 2013
As a middle school teacher in NYC, I felt that the author's idea of a "Ideal school and Perfect student" were a bit delusional when it comes to reality in a city school setting. His philosophy on paper is brilliant, however realistically, there are so many facets that teachers, students and administrators are faced with on a daily basis.
August 18, 2014
A great resource that covers many of the physical changes behind student behaviors, interests, and abilities.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews