Bright Futures

This article is about changes the author thinks should be made to middle schools in order to improve education. It asks for these changes to be made in middle schools because the author feels that middle school is a time when students are at a very unique stage in their development and that it is important to address that accordingly. This article gives credit to middle schools saying that they have implemented many changes that have made our students safer and saying that Maine as a whole is way ahead of where the country as a whole is because of the technology initiative. However, the article feels that students are not doing as well on the MEAS as they should be. Therefore the article is arguing for more changes in curriculum, instruction and assessment to be made.

As I was reading the article I was having a major, "well, duh" moment. The 12 core principles that the article is arguing we need to implement seem A) a little too broad and B) to be things we should already be doing. I liked that the article stated the list of principles and then went back and described each one. This meant that there was a much clearer picture in the end about what they were talking about than the vague statement gave. But I feel like overall, the 12 core principles of an effective middle school are things that as teachers we should be doing in all of our classrooms anyway. Yes, all of our teaching should be linked to the modern world, yes all of the curriculum and instruction should be multicultural and involve multiple areas of study, yes we should have projects that require students to seek and ask questions outside of the classroom, yes students should have a hand in deciding the curriculum and yes we need to always be looking at the new research and using what works and throwing out what doesn't. Maybe this is just me because of the program of study I have had here at UMF but I feel like every teacher should be doing these things and that many of them are common sense.