Middle School Students Caught In The Middle

It's amazing how easy it is to forget about theon society using their creative ideas.
middle school years.  Do you remember your crazy So who should care about middle school students? 
middle school years?  Middle school students areEveryone should care including parents, corporations,
often caught in the middle while we focus onour government, teachers and counselors.  We all
preparing high school students for college.  Therehave an investment in making middle school more
needs to be national attention focused on the middleinteresting.  Students should have laptop computers
school years to prepare them for the careerand graphing calculators as a standard resource for
challenges that face this country.  I have noticedlearning.  We need to demonstrate how we value
that even those who write books focus their effortsthe learning capacity of every student by giving them
on elementary and high school students and leaveinnovative projects. Why not let the middle school
middle school students out.  If you ever attend astudents create a city wide effort to save their city
national book fair there are limited creative efforts tomoney.  You would then witness how much
excite middle school students to read.  Any parentcreativity an influence they can have when they think
who is raising a middle school student can tell youabout the future of their own city.  We need to
that they are in a different transition in their lives. spend more time helping middle school students to
Communicating with middle school students can bebelieve that they are part of the solution.
challenging if you are unwilling to admit that you are There are thousands of middle schools teachers
not perfect.  Middle school students need parentswho need help too.  The complexity of the 21st
and teachers who will let them know that they care.century middle school student can be challenging. 
There should be a national effort to help middleStudents who would rather text message than talk
school students to explore all types of careers.  Theto each other makes for a different world.  Middle
rapid changes technology careers that are happeningschool studentsare multi-tasking just like high school
around the world are still far away from the minds ofstudents. They are talking on their cell phone, sending
middle school students in this country.  Now is themessages on their computer, talking to their friends
time to make them a part of the green revolution inand doing homework at the same time.  It has
solar and wind energy.  It would be great to seemade middle school an interesting place to try to
how these students could envision their future withkeep students focused on learning.  Middle school
solar powered cars and wind technology that reducesstudents have become accustomed to a fast paced
the cost of energy in each home.   Some of theday.  It's time to fill their lives with experiences that
most innovative students are wasting away in middlemakes middle school a place to run too not from. 
school because they continue to be taught byLet's take the middle school years as a tremendous
traditional methods.  Maybe every middle schoolopportunity to help students to encounter a whole
class should be full of green experiments that allownew journey to their future.
the students to find themselves and to make a mark