When ranking Carnegie Corporation's 8 recommendations in "Turning Points," 34 principals of exemplary middle schools rated ensuring success for all students as most important, followed by creating a community for learning, empowering teachers and administrators, teaching a core of common knowledge, preparing teachers, reengaging…

Technology education is gradually replacing industrial arts. National Science Foundation's 1983 report "Educating Americans for the 21st Century" outlines program to help middle-school students develop skills, such as controlling and using "new" body, moving from concrete to abstract, establishing independence from adults, and…

The Cooperative Learning Project Staff at Cleveland State University studied implementation effects of training and support teams on cooperative learning at nine middle schools. Findings showed that administrators should be trained with teachers and must shape an appropriate environment, recognize the importance of support teams, provide necessary…

Parents who understand the dynamics of adolescent growth and can adopt some sound management strategies stand a better chance of establishing real communication with their youngsters. Schools can help this process by establishing parents' institutes and parents' resource centers on early adolescence. These offer a much-needed alternative to…

The best gifts are those given by a deeply caring parent, a special relative, or a friend. Presents seldom last, but memories do. Parents are advised to create memories for their children this holiday season by giving them their time, caring, and love. Parents should make and keep promises to spend time with their children. (MLH)

Home-school partnerships provide a strong support system. Besides encouraging parents, teachers, and students to work together for more effective learning and teaching, the system helps parents understand their emerging adolescents. A rural Pennsylvania middle school's "Steps to Success" program offers various activities involved with…

Because intermediate students are hard to get involved and need lots of nurturing, middle schools must offer a wide variety of activities. School orientations, newcomers activities, recognition programs, clubs, contests, service projects, noon-time activities, and low-risk activities (such as informal dances and dressup days) enhance students'…

A Vermont middle school, a grade 7-8 union (regional) school, developed an orientation program to meet the needs of over 300 incoming seventh-grade students coming from 9 elementary schools in 5 different districts, plus a parochial school. The program is planned by a coordinating council and a student-guidance team; emphasis is on clear-cut…

Middle school educators believing in the importance of parent involvement soon discover the need to educate parents as well as students. One Pennsylvania middle school offers a series of workshops focusing on the physical, social-emotional, and intellectual characteristics of students aged 11-13, transmitting information through discussion,…

When transitional programs are left to chance, there is no guarantee that such programs will be effective. This article describes two articulation teams' efforts to meet the needs of students entering and leaving a Baltimore, Maryland, middle school. The two-tiered program helped relieve students' anxieties, introduced them to teachers and staff,…

Although teachers at a Denver middle school are divided over expectations for handling extracurricular activities, stark reality pushes many teachers to be there for students. Teacher volunteers manage many extras, including basketball and soccer teams, a history-of-teen-fashion video, a grant to update an antiquated library, a Pennies for…

For students to become proficient critical thinkers and decision makers, they must be involved in a continuous process of skills acquisition and application. This article presents and illustrates an action model (comprising perceptions, thought processes, actions, and closure) allowing middle school students the opportunity to design their daily…

Through the Safe Schools project, initiated by the Education Development Center, Inc., and funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, two urban middle schools in the northeast became safer, more effective places of learning over three-year period. This article describes the process. (MLH)

At a Maryland middle school, teachers and students were asked how teachers routinely give medium-term and long-term assignments. Results showed that students, teachers, and parents would benefit from clearly written performance standards. The school's science fair assignment sheet specifies student and parent responsibilities, project completion…

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…