If we want students to be successful in middle school, we must be aware of and respond to the changes in their development, understand the changes that lie ahead of them, and listen to what they say… Both academic and behavioral success were more likely in places where teachers and administrators bought into the value of basing their work on the principles of child and adolescent development.

— You want to be what–middle school teacher, Brown Knowles, 2007

Basically, I learned three most important advice for middle school teachers. The first is to be patient and listen to what students say. It happens a lot that a teacher jumps to the conclusion so quickly that she ignored what the student really wants to say or she even doesn’t listen to the student. This is very important to build up the teacher’s authority and leave students the impression that the teacher is trustworthy. There are situations that the student may be too emotional to have a conversation, especially when they are bullied. Patience is critical in this situation.

The second advice is that the teacher should understand that middle schools students are in the “special period” so she should try to take students’ perspectives but not still treat them as kids who need strict management. In my observation at Essex Street Academy, I observed one teacher asked the boy who made a loud noise to step out of the classroom. I am not sure if it is an appropriate reaction since boys in this period have a quite strong self-esteem. If the teacher could take this student’s perspective, I assume there would be a more proper solution.

The last advice is never focusing on the content but on the students’ developmental and academic needs. In the classroom, it’s essential that the teacher should address students’ needs from different aspects in the curriculum, and not only for most regular students but also focus on those who are far way ahead or behind. Only when students’ developmental needs are satisfied, could they make progress in their academic and behavioral performance.

Girls’ hierarchies are much less stable than those of boys’, and so girls’ are acutely aware of subtle nuances of inclusion and exclusion. Girls’ emphasis on closeness and intimacy and understanding (/basics/empathy) ­does not always lead to nice and thoughtful behaviour.

— Why do girls engage in those terrible friendships?

This article is more like a story that narrate my childhood. When I was in elementary school, we four girls were the famous group in our class. We were, in the eyes of others, good friends. However, things were much more complicated than just good friends. A group of four is surely not a small size for girls, so we normally broke into two pairs. It was normal except the members of each pair always changed. For example, on Monday, A and me were closer but later on, B came and told me something bad about A, whether she did something weird or A said something bad behind me. So on Wednesday, B and me were closer and we tried to exclude A out of our four-member group. Then A would be excluded from our group for several days, and once I played with A again, she soon came back to our group. It was like a circle that everyone in our group had at least one time to be A. However, till we graduated from elementary school, no one was really excluded and we were still good friends in the eyes of others.

I agree that the author regard the friendship between girls as a war, where everyone uses multiple strategies to try to “beat” (exclude) her “enemy” (someone she dislikes) out of the field. I have heard that some teachers said the “fight” between girls is not a big thing, since it is just about inclusion and exclusion, and they feel it is better to let girls figure out the problems by themselves. I, however, hold different opinions. Wars between girls are sometimes more harmful than physical fights between boys. As the author mentioned, girls are acutely aware if she is excluded or included. While friendship and study are two main issues for every student, the awareness of being excluded by “friends” often leads to a great emotional change. Kids are seeking for being accepted by a group, once a kid is aware that she is excluded, she may be super depressed. The feeling of being excluded can cause huge problems — being distracted from study, feeling distressed on everything… In this sense, I feel issues on friendship should also be included in the curriculum, for the reason that a positive guidance can reduce numerous avoidable “wars”. Surely educators want friendship to play a positive role in students’ study instead of bothering them and affecting their academic performance.

I experienced then and on many other occasions what Freire (2000) calls “banking” education. The teacher appeared to view …knowledge [as] a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. (p. 58) Had she allowed me to respond, the teacher could have recognized knowledge production as a shared endeavor and given me the opportunity to avoid the stings of rejection.

— The Sting of Social Hierarchies, Prieto

This article reminds me of the novel school days written by Chamoiseau that I have just read. It talks about a small Creole boy who was so passionate to go to the elementary school in France but was prohibited to speak any Creole language. He finally lost his love for school because he was asked to abandon his home culture and language in school. I feel like my understanding about the situation of immigrants that they struggled between two cultures is doubled. However, what I was deeply touched in this article was when the author mentioned how the guide ignored him. The author only said that the teacher seemed to think that knowledgeable people are naturally higher than people who are considered to know nothing. The author then mentioned how the “correct answer” from the guide was different from his, by skipping the human efforts. He didn’t talk about his feeling but I immediately pictured a little boy, turned down by the “knowledgeable” person, stood in middle of his peers but is so lonely, disappointed, and depressed of being rejected.

I can’t tell how many times I have seen the disappointed face of students who were being ignored in class. At past, I only felt uncomfortable seeing the teacher showed her ignorance to a certain student; now I realize that it is due to my strong disagreement with how some teachers feel superior to students because they are more “knowledgeable.” I admit that the teacher and students are not in an equal position, but it is never because of the acquisition of knowledge. On the contrary, teachers should respect students with limited knowledge but still willing to learn and explore the unknown world. Teachers should encourage students’ curiosity and endeavor and never turn them down.

I assume there will be a specific moment that the student will lose his interest for study due to ignorance. Since I have experienced and I know how brave it is for some students to raise their hands in class. They may take a long time of self-encouragement and psychological preparation to raise their hands, but once they are turned down or ignored, they won’t raise hands again. I have learned about one case study. In the report, the observer wrote that once the teacher didn’t respond to this student’s raising hand, she never raised her hands again in the rest of the class. This student might be an extreme example, but it does happen sometimes. The teacher will never know what a small ignorance will cause to a certain student, so just please try to avoid the ignorance as much as possible.