This We Believe

Page 1- 26
When reading about the “essential attributes and characteristics” for adolescent learning, and viewing the chart that broke these attributes down into different categories, I completely agreed with the model that was being presented. I feel that so much focus is always centered around the first section: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, that the other categories of learning are disregarded and not really focused on by teachers. I feel that a lot of times the social and community aspects of learning are hinted at, but not really focused on by the majority of teachers.
I loved the concept in this chapter of teacher and student coming together for a better chance of learning. Hands-joined activities instead of hands-on activities sound like a great way to make student feel proud of creating class activities and then performing them. I think that instead of teachers always trying to guess what students are interested in doing, by giving students the chance to have a say in what is learned and the activities used to learn the content, that burden is taken off the teachers shoulders a little. This idea totally ties into another tip that was mentioned in the reading. By giving students so say in what happens in the room, giving them a chance to contribute to their own learning and education, they are practicing taking ownership of their learning. Adolescents want to be independent, why not give them the opportunity? I really agree with the idea and feel it not only gives more freedom to students, but by doing this students are practicing more of the 16 characteristics: leadership, organization, and community/ social building skills which are also important to their growth and learning but are sometimes overlooked by teachers. I think that as teachers, we could develop a system that easily incorporated all the essential attributes into our teaching methods and at the same time could make some aspects of our planning and teaching easier for us teachers.


pages 26- 33
I never realized how important teaming seems to be to making the Middle school system work its best. I knew that teachers work together as a team, but I never realized just how important leadership roles and teams are to the system and student learning.
I loved the point about teachers are always learning, just as students are. It is a good reminder that our learning doesn’t stop as we begin teaching. In order to perform our best, we must always learn, from each other and from our students. If we stick to just one model and never learn from it, adjusting as we go, then our students won’t benefit at all from us as the world grows.
It is amazing how much our leadership system and our leadership will impact students. If we don’t have everything together, and a concrete effective plan for learning, and cant work with each other and the community, then what hope is there for the students.


pages 33-42

While reading this section on school culture and community, I kept thinking back to my own middle school. I felt that my school did well at implementing a lot of the suggestions that were mentioned in this section. For example, my middle school has a great program that introduces the new, upcoming students slowly to the new building by having multiple gatherings between the current 7th graders and the upcoming 7th graders. The two grades go hiking, swimming, tour the school, and play activities together. All these experiences make the transfer easier for upcoming 7th graders and give them familiar faces and a familiar building to come to on the first day for school.
I also liked the system that this section presented for middle school models because I felt that it was proactive, preventing problems before they start, instead of fixing problems after they happen. This model seems to be one that would be very successful. But what if the Guidance counselor or another member of the school system is not effective or does not do their job well? What if students don’t feel like going to see certain faculty does any good when something is bothering them? I think the key this chapter seemed to hint at was that a very successful school system means all faculty are effective at their part of the job and all members are contributing to make the best environment possible.


pages 42- 63

Research that supports This We Believe seems to clearly show the benefits of creating a middle school system that focuses on the points laid out in this book. Team teaching, community based involvement, and a positive school atmosphere seems to be the key to making a successful Middle School and I am glad so many schools seem to be catching on to this idea. I liked how this section provided multiple examples of research that support this mode of teaching, showing that this system is working and not just written down in a textbook. One quote that really stuck out at me when reading, was the culture and community section which had a line that said: " Parents' involvement effects students engagement and performance". This seems like a no-brainer, yet the more I think about parent involvement, the more I realize how critical it is. If a students parents don't care at all about what is happening at school and the learning process, then why should the student put forth effort and see the learning opportunities available? Also, just as important is knowing that any issues going on at home carry over to school and that student's learning performance. The home situation seems to matter so much and affects each students learning capabilities more than most other factors.

I also liked how this section of the text ended with a close look at different characteristics of this age group in general. Although I knew most of the characteristics anyways, it is a good overview so that I can keep these thoughts in mind as our teams begin to create our unit. Working in these characteristics will add to the effectiveness of capturing the students attention and helping them comprehend the information presented, which ever way I present it.