Middle level education

My final thoughts about what middle level education should be was pretty much reinforced through our class. Students should spend the first four to six years (K-5?) learning and strengthening their basic skills (particularly math, but we know my position on that). Then, in middle school, they should start the process of transferring from learning the basic skills to applying them over the span of the first couple years, maybe 6th and 7th grades, before gearing the 8th grade year for almost entirely project-based work unless there is new material that needs to be taught prior to project work. Granted, there is always new material, but by the 8th grade, students should be able to readily implement the new material into applicability, if necessary. After 8th grade, working in groups and applying basic skills to solve problems and create projects should be second nature and give the students a head start moving into the high school years. In high school, they will be doing a lot of projects in all subject areas, and middle school should be the training ground for this.

including parents

You know, I'm also a Generation X person myself. In fact, I was born almost dead center of the Generation X years, so I know what it was like to be a latchkey kid. My grandparents had to do the shopping for the family (my brother and I were raised by our grandparents, so they weren't even baby boomers, but the generation before that), and sometimes would not be home when we got off the school bus. However, we didn't see this as a detriment to our upbringing; in fact, they trusted us to get our own lunch and go off to our friends' houses if that's what we chose to do, as long as we left a note stating as much. I never felt neglected or anything like that, so communicating with parents who may have had these feelings may have their hands full dealing with me.
In the "Solve for X" section, I have some agreements and disagreements. Planning for extracurricular activities requires parental involvement and I will strongly encourage and even actively search out that involvement. Parents completing homework assignments with their students? I thought that's what you were supposed to do anyway. Again, this is strongly encouraged, but the free-choice assignment may be restricted to every two weeks so I can be assured that the required in-class content is covered appropriately. My one disagreement is having a parent come in to teach for an afternoon. That is the equivalent of me as a teacher going in to a parent's place of employment and giving my input as to how their business should be run. I'm sorry, but this particular idea isn't good. My job as a teacher depends on the information that the students accumulate from my efforts; the parent's place to teach is at home, with the exception of the chaperoning on field trips. I fully expect them to be teachers as well as chaperones in this arena.....just not in the classroom. This is my office and has to be my rules. I do expect input from the parents and I expect help from them. This is part of what makes my job a little easier and I always weigh the input of others equally, but must work for the good of the whole as well as the good of the individual.

Problem-based learning

I'm not active in a classroom yet, but I still have some input to share about problem-based learning. I am a HUGE proponent of problem-based learning as opposed to simple bookwork and lecture learning. Kids want to be actively engaged in their learning; the sooner today's teachers realize this, the sooner we may see improvements in assessment scores. My number one goal as a middle school teacher is to answer the age-old question asked by middle-school students everywhere: "When am I ever going to use this?" I think some lecture is necessary to teach new material, but the faster you move into applying subject material into real-life situations, the faster the students will learn the importance of each topic as it is really applied outside the classroom. My idea is to take each topic as it arises, give one class lecture (two at most) with a book assignment to make sure the students understand the material, and have problems or small projects prepared for each topic for the students to work on in small groups. This could be varied to make a little bigger problem or project for each chapter as it ties everything in the given chapter together. I suppose either way could work, depending on the situation; I just think the kids will perform better on assessments and in class if they understand how to use the concepts that they learn in class rather than just answering the questions posed by homework assignments.