Responding to the needs of estranged youth, a group of Benjamin Tasker Middle School teachers created the Thoughtful Pedagogy Model. The program allows adolescents to reconstruct images of the adult world through self-exploration; participate in field trips, assembly programs, and adult/adolescent bonding activities; and experience the love and…

To help personalize schooling for adolescents and provide the nurturing environment often lacking at home, teachers at a Bowie, Maryland, middle school began a mentoring project focusing on social exchange, sense of belonging, symbolic interaction, life skills enrichment, self-image, self-efficacy, resource development, and role models. Students…

As a rural Maryland middle school found, Saturday school keeps students in class. Assigning students to 3.5 hours of school attendance on a Saturday can eliminate inschool suspension and reduce out-of-school suspension; provide a different discipline avenue for administrators; reduce the number of major disciplinary offenses; increase the total…

Concerned with increasing numbers of student fights, a Maryland middle school initiated a peer-mediation program to help students deal effectively with conflict. Peer mediators received training emphasizing confidentiality, rephrasing, and cooperation. After one year, the number of suspensions and student arguments decreased, school climate…

Young African American males' role models are those in the entertainment and sports arenas. Few see themselves as scholars, contributing to the common good. To counteract teachers' low expectations of black males' performance, educators at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland, established African-American Achievers, a program that…

For the past 18 months, a middle school in Bowie, Maryland, has been enthusiastically committed to change. Teachers have become catalysts, realizing they possessed the skills and abilities to remedy schooling problems. They confronted school failure through school-based management, self-actualizing activities, staff development, and professional…

In response to adolescent girls' concerns about teen violence, rumors, grooming, careers, and equity, four women teachers and a woman administrator at a Maryland middle school developed the Delta Program. The program provides positive learning experiences, teaches social skills and conflict management techniques, empowers girls through mentoring…

Argues middle schools must focus on students in its space, textures, color, furnishings and materials used to address academic and emotional needs. Describes Kettering Middle School's mission to accomplish this goal by providing small learning communities, mentoring, opportunities for parental involvement, innovative instructional approaches, and…