Blog #5: Middle Schoolers

While reading Chapter 3 of "What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know" I was really caught off guard with the amount of scientific knowledge that backs up why students struggle so much during these years. While reading, I couldn't help picture my little sister. Currently, she is a freshman in high school, but not too long ago she was in the prime of her middle school and adolescent years. As I was going through the chapter, I tried to recall the ways that Abby acted during that time. In the chapter it said, "Middle level students are certain that no one has ever thought the thoughts they are thinking or felt the feelings they are feeling" (p 31). I remembered this exact event. It seemed that this almost happened over night. Abby went from my little baby sister to this moody, sassy, know-it-all middle schooler. When I would try and relate to her or talk about her day the answers were almost always, "well you just wouldn't get it" or "you don't understand." I couldn't stand these responses. I was in high school. I had lived through middle school. I understood the emotions and the feelings, but to her no one had every been in the place that she was right now.

I felt helpless. I could no longer communicate with my sister. Our conversations always ended in fights and we were unable to agree on anything. I finally realized that there wasn't much that I could do. My mom taught me different ways to talk to her. She showed me that I needed to listen rather than speak and when I do speak I would have to keep calm and show that I am understanding of what she was going through. This was tough because in the past when Abby would tell me things, if I didn't agree I would let her know. Now I needed to take on a new role as a listener and a support system for Abby.

These same ideas reflected all throughout this chapter. Some things that were new to me was the idea of "pruning". I had heard that if you don't practice things you will loose them, but I had never thought of pruning as a good thing. Being able to rid your brain of the information and practices that it no longer needs allows for a more critical brain development to take place. Now students are learning how to think more critically, create better short term memories, and work on better life and problem solving skills.

The idea of "multitasking" also stuck out to me. I remembered when I was a kid and I would see my mom 'multitask' around the house. She would clean, talk on the phone, cook dinner, grade papers - she just seemed like a super woman. I thought that I could do these things as well. At a young age, I would try to multitask with my work. I wanted to get my homework done as fast as I could, so that I could enjoy my evening. I thought this was an effective method. I thought that working on a variety of things together would help me get things done quicker. However, I soon noticed that this was not effective at all. I was forgetting what I read and forgetting where I was at on assignments. It was interesting for me to read that when you do that, you aren't actually multitasking, instead your just moving back and forth really fast. This distracts your brain and leads you to not focus on what you are working on.

The last point that shocked me was the idea of 'metacognition.' When I was in high school I tutored a group of boys. I started tutoring them while they were in 6th grade and was able to watch them graduate middle school. Something that I noticed while working with them was the metacognition growth process. I noticed while they were still 6th graders they were unable to understand how the positively and negatively effected their academic grades. In the beginning, they would constantly forget worksheets, failed to read instructions, and did the littlest amount of work that they could on assignments. As they got older and learned more they began to start reflecting on their assignments. I remember one day one of the kids came into the room and pulled out his science homework and started working. When he finshed, I watched as he checked over the paper very diligently. I asked what he was looking for and he let me know that the last time when they had a similar assignment, his teacher had taking points off if he started sentences with "but." He had remembered and reflected on a past assignment and then was able to correct his mistakes on the future assingment.

Some ideas that were talked about in Chapter 2 stuck out to me as well. These are topics that we have discussed in class as well, but the first thing was the increased appetite. I remember in middle school I would be starving after school. My sisters and friends would raid the cabinets searching for snacks to tide us over until dinner. I also was astonished by the sleep that adolescents need. It said that teens need "approximately nine and a half hours of sleep to function." This is very rare for students during this time. Middle schoolers have practices, clubs, homework, and social lives that they are juggling. The last idea that stuck out to me was the lack of confidence that middle schoolers have. The chapter talked about the "locker room syndrome." At this time so much is changing and developing that it can be hard for students to not feel as if they are behind or not as "cool" because they don't look like or sound like their friends.

Overall, these two chapters were very informative and allowed me to reflect on my own middle school experiences.