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NELMS NEWS Node 2006
An annotated list of current events & issues related to the middle level
Poll: Teens feel intense pressure
to succeed at school
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/living/education/16211229.htm
More than 40% of teens report feeling overwhelming pressure to succeed
at school and 22% admitted they'd cheated on a test in the last year,
a Deloitte & Touche USA LLP and Junior Achievement poll of 787 teens
found. Deloitte is developing a curriculum for schools' Junior Achievement
programs that will teach students how to make ethical decisions under
pressure. (The
Philadelphia Inquirer )
Computer Class Resources
http://www.kidsnetsoft.com/html/home2.html
Here's a idea-rich site that supports the computer curriculum at Mountain Ridge
Middle School in Colorado Springs, CO. Teacher Chris Clementi spurs students
to learn software programs like PhotoShop by engaging them in project—and
problem-based learning. See especially the "Students" webpage. A friend
of ours who teaches digital photography at the high school level says "Chris
is really doing great things...quite inspiring." After you've visited with
Chris, you might drop by the Mountain Ridge MS website—very nicely done! (http://academy.d20.co.edu/mrms)
School phobia hits hardest during tween years
http://tinyurl.com/s889a
Bullying, hormonal upheaval and the often chaotic nature of middle school
can induce school anxiety and depression in many 10- to 13-year-olds.
Successful treatment for school behavior can include medication, cognitive
behavior therapy and school visits before the start of the new term.
Bullying, often perpetrated by young teens who are unsure of themselves,
is one of the most common causes of this problem, called school refusal
behavior. "Children who are bullied or teased often become anxious about going to school," said
Michelle Kees, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. And some
of them may avoid school... (The New York Times)
'Social norms' strategy aims to tame bullying
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0817/p15s02-legn.html
Researchers say that middle-school bullying could be curbed by showing that it's not normal.
It's not normal to act like a bully. In anonymous surveys at several large middle schools, the vast majority of students reported that they had not hit, teased, threatened, excluded, or gossiped maliciously about classmates in the past 30 days.
But a majority were also convinced that their own nonbully status was an exception to the norm. To reduce the amount of bullying that does exist, that misperception needs to change, argues H. Wesley Perkins, a sociology professor and director of the Alcohol Education Project at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y. (The Christian Science Monitor)
Building a Strong Classroom Structure
http://snipurl.com/jonesonstructure
"A classroom routine is simply a well-rehearsed response to a teacher's directive," says classroom management expert Fred Jones. "The alternative -- the absence of a routine -- is usually noise, milling around, and time wasting on the part of students, and nagging on the part of the teacher." This column on "Succeeding with Classroom Structure" is one of a series by Jones published at the Education World website. Routines, says Jones, are one of the teacher's most important time-saving devices. But they must be taught and practiced until students learn "that you are the living embodiment of two timeless characterizations of a teacher: 'I say what I mean, and I mean what I say' and 'We are going to keep doing this until we get it right.'" If you're a brand-new teacher looking
forward to having your own classroom for the first time, grab an iced tea and settle down in front of your computer for some sessions with Dr. Fred! Here's an index of more than 25 useful articles:
http://snipurl.com/fredjonesarchive (Education World)
Teachers buy and sell course guides online
http://tinyurl.com/qwadq
Teachers can buy course materials ranging from $4 to about $40 in price from colleagues on the new TeachersPayTeachers.com Web site. Purchasers say that unlike materials from publishers, the teacher-developed content can be easily modified in Word or Excel, plus its pricing is much better. (Los Angeles Times–free registration may be required)
Competition and Student Learning
http://tinyurl.com/j8oze
How does competition affect student learning?
Competition is frequently used as a behavioral tool for motivating students and can have strong positive outcomes for some; however, competition also necessitates that there be both winners and losers. For the “losing” students, competition may result in negative effects as significant as or greater than the positive effects experienced by other students. To determine how competitive interactions affect students, the authors of the study highlighted in this issue of ResearchBrief applied behavioral-economic theories and models in an effort to explain student behavior. (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)
Self-Discipline and Student Academic Achievement
http://tinyurl.com/mduq8
Student motivation and engagement play an important role in learning and academic achievement. Closely related to motivation is self-discipline, the ability of students to monitor and control their own behaviors. Students who are highly self-disciplined may be able to better focus on long-term goals and make better choices related to academic engagement. (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)
Outdoor Games
http://www.surfnetkids.com/outdoor_games.htm
Got kids who need to run off a little bit of pent-up energy? Barbara J. Feldman offers a collection of favorite outdoor games resources at her Surfing the Net with Kids website. You'll find "hundreds of games to play by yourself, with just a few friends, or with your entire scout troop or classroom. Whether you are looking for rules to a game you vaguely remember from your childhood, or want to find something entirely new, these sites have it all." (surfnetkids.com) AND, speaking of "student movement," check out the Brain Gym website developed by the Educational Kinesiology Foundation, where you can explore research about the impact of movement on learning: http://www.braingym.org
Feds Fault Most States' Testing Systems
http://tinyurl.com/lauue
The US Education Department said 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have such significant problems with their tests that they risk losing federal funding if they do not correct the problems this coming school year. Ten states won full approval, four others are expected to do so shortly, and two—Maine and Nebraska—had their testing systems rejected. (USA Today )
Recess Receding
http://tinyurl.com/s3anh (free registration required)
With elementary schools cutting back recess to as little 10 minutes and many middle schools scrapping it altogether, advocacy groups nationwide are mounting campaigns to protect the mid-day break. Experts say children need the unstructured time to develop their decision-making and negotiating skills with their peers. (The Washington Post)
Atlanta Teacher Uses E-mail to Engage Children in Writing
http://tinyurl.com/kvn4x (free registration required)
Middle school language-arts teacher Janice Ramsey teaches her suburban Atlanta students writing by focusing on the medium of e-mail before they advance to reports, essays and poems. She's part of a team of local educators developing a tech-based writing curriculum that can be used in other schools. (Atlanta Journal and Constitution)
Examining the Teaching Life
http://snipurl.com/WigginsMcTighe
Without regular opportunities to consider, observe, and analyze best practice and receive helpful, nonevaluative feedback, how likely are teachers to engage in continual professional improvement? Not very, say Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in this important Educational Leadership article (March 2006). "Indeed, teachers can be remarkably thin-skinned when someone questions their methods or decisions, and many of us resist seeking or receiving feedback from students, parents, colleagues, and supervisors. When students fail to learn, some teachers end up blaming the students, without an honest investigation of where student fault ends and teacher responsibility begins." The co-authors of Understanding by Design and related works propose a "Learning Bill of Rights"---standards and structures that "serve as criteria for safeguarding a learning-centered mission in which teachers regularly engage in peer review and self-assessment as part of their jobs." (Middleweb)
Too Much Tech Time Could Prime Children for Stress Injuries
http://tinyurl.com/kx9tk
Although conclusive evidence is lacking, ergonomics experts fear that prolonged use of computers could be setting up today's generation of kids for repetitive stress injuries years from now. One Australian study in 2000 found that 60% of 10- to 17-year-olds suffered from neck and back discomfort when the youngsters used laptops in schools. (Cnet)
K-8 Shuffle Not a Cure-All?
http://www.middleweb.com/mw/news/gradeshuffle.html
Baltimore school officials have suggested that by keeping thousands more children in their elementary schools through eighth grade they can raise the performance of middle graders. But a data analysis by the Baltimore Sun and interviews with educators and middle school experts suggest that "turning around dismal middle school achievement is far more complex than reconfiguring grades." Says one principal of a successful 6-8 school: "We can change grade configurations, we can make schools smaller, but if we don't change what happens in the classroom, if we don't find ways for teachers and students to interact in a way that brings powerful learning, we haven't done anything" (Middleweb)
Coaching critical to student achievement
http://tinyurl.com/rvzcq
Former teacher Ninive C. Calegari and Daniel Moulthrop say the most effective teachers know that coaching rather than lecturing is the best way to boost student learning. They quote several educators who describe how they successfully use hands-on experiences, personalized instruction and mentoring to get both students and new colleagues excited about lessons. (Edutopia, February 2006)
Learning is all about relationships
http://www.middleweb.com/mw/news/relationships.html
With communities in disarray, schools need to build communities of their own.That's the constant message of Dr. James Comer, the Yale child psychiatrist who has promoted a school reform model built on the philosophy that "if you get all the relationships to work well---teachers, kids, parents, community---nothing stands in the way of kids acquiring skills and information." Comer's views, says education writer Julia Steiny, run against the grain of "a surprising number of education pundits (who) have started an aggressive backlash against social and emotional learning in schools, on the grounds that teaching such skills is somehow mutually exclusive with academic achievement." In this column from the Providence Journal, Steiny succinctly states Comer's case and reminds us that " the federal government conducted an exhaustive analysis of 27 comprehensive school-reform models, only three of which were shown to raise test scores reliably. One of them was Comer's." (Middleweb)
Middle School Gets a Wake-Up Call
http://www.nsdc.org/members/jsd/martin271.pdf 
Sometimes, bad news can be exactly what organizations or individuals need to point them in a healthier direction, says school improvement consultant Robert Martin, who recounts the story of Southfield, Michigan's Thompson Middle School (Journal of Staff Development, 2006). In 2002, the Thompson faculty missed AYP and also received a low grade of "C" in the state's annual ratings. "The double dose of bad news was a jolt to the school's culture and climate," Martin relates. After a brief period of mourning and denial, Thompson's staff embarked on a three-year journey that included designing and implementing common assessments and deepening teacher collaboration and professional conversation around interpreting data and allowing data to inform teachers' practices. The results: a significant improvement in students' achievement scores at the high minority school. (Middleweb)
MySpace moves to thwart cyberpredators
http://tinyurl.com/gdc8y
The social networking site MySpace.com has launched a public-service ad campaign on the Web and TV to warn children about online predators and has hired former federal prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam as its first chief security officer. The site had already begun boosting security by deleting profiles of users younger than 14 and by offering free Web-filtering software to parents. (Los Angeles Times)
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*Node=a point at which lines or pathways intersect or branch; a central or connecting point.
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