Middle school is an exciting, frustrating, fun, difficult time in a young person’s life. The same can be said for the faculty and staff fortunate enough to work with them. It goes without saying that as educators we are charged with bringing out the best from all of our students. So, what can we do to motivate our students to unlock the brilliance possessed in each student we teach? We all agree that our students are on different levels and capabilities. But all students have some level higher than what they show unless we can encourage them to go deeper than they think they can.
By igniting the desire in our middle school students, we can see growth neither they nor us could have ever imagined. In addition to teaching curriculum and equipping our students for success, we must also bring them to a desire to seek brilliance lurking just under the surface. So, how do we do that? Let’s list a few things we can do to ignite our students and bring out their brilliance.
Showing Genuine Interest in them and Their Skills
In other articles, I have stated an old saying, “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” A teacher must be in the classroom for the students first. If all a teacher cares about are test scores and meeting growth models, students will feel like a tool used to measure the teachers’ success. If a teacher genuinely cares about their students first and takes care of communicating that, learning and success will come.
For you see, when the student feels like you care about them and their interests, they will want to perform well for themselves and for you. As a teacher, you take the time to learn your students’ interest and the skills they possess, you can work the curriculum toward mastery and ignite students to dig deeper on their own. When they dig deeper and find more interest, the sky’s the limit.
Encourage Participation
Often times simply getting students to participate is the key to unlocking middle school students’ brilliance. Sometimes we have to identify why a student is an unwilling participant. Once identified, the key is to encourage in a positive way the student to try. Maybe they are afraid of failing and being ridiculed by classmates. Or a student may fear disappointing the teacher or their parents. Sometimes the student could just be unfamiliar with the subject matter and, therefore, somewhat disinterested.
Regardless of the reason, we should find a way to bring the middle school students in and make them willing to participate. Once we get them to participate, we must continue to prompt positively so that the student feels like they are progressing. Remember at any time during this process a student can ignite in ways we never could have imagined. The key here is to never stop encouraging and celebrating even small successes.
Give Them Choices
It is human nature to have choices about how we delve into different tasks. Middle school students are no different. Making out plans to cover the different objectives students need to master is a staple of good-quality teaching. In planning to incorporate different learning strategies and allowing student to choose can be an effective way to ignite student learning. By allowing students to decide how they will learn an objective is giving them input on how they learn and showing them that you trust them to make good choices based on their interest.
Of course, you still control the curriculum and what it takes for mastery. You also exhibit good differentiated instructional practices by giving middle school students choices and carefully monitoring student progress. But on the surface, by giving the students choices, you are allowing them to be a direct part of the learning process.
Keeping a Standard Routine and Maintaining Organization
While we strive to show interest in our middle school students and their skills, and while we encourage participation from everyone, and while giving them choices to a certain extent, we must establish and keep a regular routine. Failure to keep a routine and good sound classroom decorum, you will have chaos in your classroom as you have 25 students all doing what they want to do with little to no structure from you. By keeping a sound standard routine, you can ensure that everyone is on task and seeking a common goal you set daily. Station work, and small groups working on a common goal often work to allow choices and participation.
If this is incorporated daily into your routine, then students know what to expect and when. By maintaining a standard routine and keeping good organization, students learn quickly to transition to the next step and understand that everything builds as you move forward. This can serve to excite students as they transition and look forward to what is coming next.
There are a myriad of ways to attempt to ignite middle school students‘ brilliance. These listed are but a few ideas. The best way is to try different things. Strive to see what works and what doesn’t. Truthfully, the only bad plans are those you never try. The middle school mind is open and ready to receive. Be sure you always look for ways to open them up.
To successfully unlock the hidden brilliance of our middle school students takes a lot of upfront planning. But if we truly want to see the best our students have then is planning well for each of them worth it. It’s a lot of work, but our students deserve it. Remember what we said earlier, “Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Show your kids how much you care by how well you plan FOR THEM! Remember, education is not a job, it’s not a career. Teaching is a calling. You answered the call; now show them (your students) what you got.
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