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.

Chapter 17: The Truth About Middle School Students

I think it is so cool what this teacher did with the paper on his wall for students to write down whatever they want to say. I hope to try this for my students someday. I think it gives them a chance to say something, even if they don’t want to say in out loud in front of classmates, or if they have trouble even speaking to me. By letting students write anything they want down, I feel that as this chapter showed us, these students can teach us just how much they know, we can learn to know our students better (which will help us teach them better) and I feel that this is a place where students could discreetly inform me of something that may be bothering them. For example: one of the responses in our book for a student was “I’m Marvin and I’m depressed.” This is a possible way that I could be informed that a student needs help before they do anything rash. This student may have just been joking around, or this may have been their way of saying “help” to their teacher. If this happened to me, I would see this as an opportunity to observe this student more and get them help or talk to them if I really thought something was wrong. Over all, I loved the remarks from students in this book. I think that if I did this myself it would allow not just an opportunity for me to learn about my students and this age group, but some of their responses could make me think deep of their inspirational saying that they posted and laugh at their humor.

Chapter 2: Motivating Young Adolescents

Just a few days ago I was told in my SED class that the key to getting students to do as you want is motivation and how are we going to motivate our students. Since I was just thinking about how I will motivate my students, this chapter was very useful in that it let me see ideas and tips for how an experienced teacher has motivated his students. This was great, it let me reflect on my thoughts and add to them. I really loved that the author provided one example after another. It gave me a better understand of many different ways I can try to motivate students. From reading this chapter and observing remarks of students in third grade and my classmates, I think I understand the biggest motivation for students: making class work fun. If what we are teaching them is boring and plain, they are going to tune us out!

Chapter 1: Stoking the Fires Within

I loved reading this chapter. I felt like what it was saying was all relevant to me, as if someone was right there giving me personal tips on how to teach. I also really liked how the author presented a lot of examples of different (fun) ways of teaching classroom material. I Hope to start an activity list for myself of different ways I can engage my students in learning and this chapter was filled with ideas for that list. I especially liked the idea of showing 2 minutes of a suspenseful part of a movie and then having students try to translate that suspense into writing. I totally agree with the author, Wormeil, that our students have so much they can teach us, just as we have so much to teach them. This chapter made me think about how I present myself to students and what I can do to change my attitudes and how I would respond to situations like the one where the author is confronted by a student. I hope I can handle it as smoothly as he did and I will be thinking about this chapter as I go and work with the third graders today.

Chapter 2: A Design for Improving Middle Grades Education

I Never realized there were so many interactions within a system that all rely on each other to make a Middle School function well and prosper. When this chapter mentioned that a school system can’t go half way, or implement one type of change that this system recommends I began to notice just how intricate the 7 parts to the system are. I really agree with the fact that parents and community must be involved within the system in order for students to get it full benefits. I feel that without involving the community or parents in their child’s learning, students tend to start keeping what they learned at school, just at school. The community world, and the school world become two separate places for students. By incorporating the community and as much parent involvement in the students education processes, I feel that students have a better chance at succeeding because they support system at home is not only linked with their support system at school, but students also can implement the skills they are learning at school in the community. I also found it interesting that changing classroom practices was described to be the hardest part of this system to change. I am curious to see what ways are mentioned at helping teachers reach out and practice better ways of teaching their students.

Chapter 1: A Decade Later

Reading this first chapter on School reform, I found Turning Point’s success with their program to be very interesting. The chapter mentioned that Schools in different states like Illinois and Massachusetts that have adapted Turning Point’s recommended practices showed that students were significantly improving and succeeding on assessment tests. I feel that this fact is extremely important to think about and understand what is causing these successes. The year I graduated, 2008, the news headlines were covered with the concerns of the very high failure rates around the country in middle and high schools. I am sure that failure rates are still higher than they should be, which means teachers aren’t doing something right if so many students everywhere are failing high school and dropping out. If Turning Point to have created a program that has helped many school increase their success rates due to effective instructional approaches, then this program must be working and I can’t wait to learn more about its processes. I also found it very interesting that this chapter defined a middle school student’s core values to be focused around “enabling every students to think creatively, to identify and solve meaningful problems, to communicate and work well with others…” pg 10-11 I don’t normally think of these as the focus of teaching, even at the middle school level. I think teachers are always caught up in the school work and what they need to teach, and yet I do agree with this chapter, that these are some core values that adolescents should be taught and practice. I think these skills would make school work become much easier to learn and complete.