Monday, November 12, 2012

This American Life on Middle School

This week's episode of This American Life looks at Middle School. As a tutor whose own middle school years are ancient history, I found this interesting and helpful. One of these days I might look for the book by the woman interviewed in Act One: Not Much, Just Chilling': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers (2003). The Seattle Public Library's catalog record for it is here.

1 comment:

  1. This is very interesting- thank you for sharing! I was intrigued from the beginning when they introduced the idea of "skipping" middle school; just giving up on educating middle schoolers. Sometimes I feel that way! But what a great reminder of the things that are going on in middle schoolers' lives, how quickly their brain is changing during these years, and the experimentation that takes places as they become young adults. One thing I wonder is to what extent middle school students want to share their experiences with an adult. It always seems to me that they don't want to talk about the issues that they actually care about- the boys, the girls, the friendships, the anxiety, etc. Is it that we don't ask them in the right ways? Or are these struggles something they WANT to handle without the guidance of an adult? Perhaps that is what they fear- that the adults in their lives will try and give them the answers instead of just empathizing.

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