Middle School

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : November : 2

Middle School
By Trish

Last year I taught 7th and 8th grade. This year, I teach 5th grade. So, from seeing both sides of the 'spectrum' I can definitely give some tips.

First, they need to know how to take notes and how to study. A lot of my
5th graders this year have no idea how to do either of these. In order to survive in the class I taught in middle school, they MUST know those 2 things.
Second, self-control. 5th graders are soo chatty and touchy. They talk all the time and for some reason have to push,etc on each other.
Third, I hate to say it this way because as a parent I believe children need to be children. But

in today's world, a lot of children just aren't that way. Those that are, appear immature. I have 5th graders this year that are STILL sucking their thumb and throwing temper tantrums. This is just not tolerated in middle school by either the teachers nor the students. Those kids are going to be targeted by stronger kids and their lives will be miserable.

Fourth, try to help them become more organized. 5th graders have no idea how to set up their notebooks, etc. Some of the students I have (actually one whole class) seems to always have a dozen pencils, pens, etc all over the place. Here is a perfect example, one boy left his binder, he came back with his bookbag on his back still. It was all unzipped, he had pencils and pens in his hands. When he bent over to pick up his binder, things in his bookbag spilled out. He had paper and books all over the place. Everytime he tried to pick something up, something else fell. He ended up walking out and the student that sits in his 'desk' raised her hand and said that there were still 5 pens, his keys and several markers still on the floor. I deal with this daily.
In middle school, I never had this. Now, their binders (I require students to have binders) were often a mess, but to the degree I just explained, never.

I am sure that if I set here long enough, I could think of all kinds of things.. Hopefully this will start you going.

Trish