When you were 14 did you ever wonder what your life would be like when you were 30?
When teachers talked to you about careers did they tell you about balance, flexibility, belonging and inclusion?

Imagining the year 2036 was the inquiry that launched our economics unit because if you are going to inspire curiosity about savings, investing, budgeting and long-term goals, you have to look to the future.

I was surprised by how many children stubbornly refused to even imagine a possible job or career. I took a practical approach and showed the careers expected to have the highest growth in the next 20 years. I assured them that the career they shared was all just for fun and curiosity. I mean when I was in eighth grade I thought I wanted to be a nurse. Then I volunteered at a hospital and was sure I didn't want to be a nurse.

Often our childhood dreams of being a grown-up seem so distant from the reality we end up living. However, twice this year my students have heard from intelligent, driven women who talked about values and doing what matters to you. Both connected jobs they are passionate about now - research for a power company and entrepreneur owner of an art studio - to volunteering and jobs they did when they were young. What brought them joy then and made them feel alive is what drives them today.

What lessons does this hold for educators?

Pandemic lesson 1: Helping kids find their strengths in middle school must be our top priority. It is the foundation of social-emotional health. Every assessment. Every reward. Every reflection should bring them back to taking account of their strengths and adding to their list. Research has shown that middle schoolers' perception of their own strengths plummets. 

Pandemic lesson 2: Telling someone they have a strength or asset is impactful but helping them demonstrate that strength - especially outside the classroom - is essential to building up their confidence and belief in themselves. We must wonder beyond our classroom walls.

Pandemic lesson 3: We need to become community schools. Our communities need us. We are the glue holding community together and now it's time for the community to partner with schools to enrich and create opportunities.

Let's go back to you at 14 for a minute. When you thought about being happy in your career did you consider any of the factors in the chart by the wordhappinessreport.com? 

The factor that most affects happiness at work? Belonging
Flexibility is next on the list.
Consider the other factors: How inclusive a workplace is? Having a sense of purpose. Feeling supported, trusted, and appreciated. 
Not nearly as important as we might expect: Achieving and Learning.

Pandemic lesson 4: If we want students to think of learning as their job, we need to consider the drivers of happiness at work in 2021. Let's ask kids about these drivers now and help them to clarify what they need to bring their best selves to their work every day. 

Let's raise the next generation to plan a life of balance and happiness.

Sharing student work warms my public historian heart I also love when the work we do runs parallel to the national conversation about history.
We investigate challenging topics in 8th grade social studies but we also strike a balance.
If I were to tell you that students were going to design a history park to help their fellow Americans re-learn the hidden history of Reconstruction you might be puzzled. Hopefully you'd be curious and with 8th graders curiosity is all I need. They stuck with me through this project and their final product showed creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills. They used primary source evidence and engaged in some urban planning. They all found joy in this process. When is the last time ANYTHING about the history of America's Reconstruction Era after the Civil War got you excited about history?

Grounding: Our essential question for the unit: Did Reconstruction give power to the people who had felt powerless?
We always ground our projects in an anchor text or menu of texts. We read and annotated: Separate Beginnings about freedom colonies in Texas, The Other '68: Black Power in Reconstruction - at various reading levels on Newsela then we watched Many Rivers to Cross Episode 3.

Skill Building: We annotated, learned to source evidence and draw conclusions

Assessment: Every student annotated the Reconstruction section from a 1940s textbook with the intention of arguing with the text using evidence from our anchor texts. 
I pulled excerpts from this American History textbook and students were assessed through a silent conversation - again using text evidence to argue with a text, while building on each other's answers.

Transfer of skills: The 1940s textbook demonstrated the power of education and of biased history. We watched a short video from Vox on the history of Confederate monuments. We also watched Titus Kaphar's TED talk in which he advocates for amending monuments.

Primary sources: iCivics has a fantastic interactive DBQ that tells the story of the Freedman's Emancipation Monument in Washington D.C. Based on three primary sources, we answered the question: Who gets to decide the meaning of a monument?

Career Connections: We watched a video about public spaces and then developed criteria for a good public space by reading what urban planners think about when designing public spaces. (Urban planning has a predicted 6% job growth rate in the next decade)

The project: Our client, Frederick Douglass, asked in the 1870s for another statue to be added to Lincoln Park in Washington D.C. that showed the active role freedpeople played in emancipating themselves and claiming their freedom. We loved the Mary McCleod Bethune statue added in the 1970s but wanted to tell the hidden stories of those forgotten to history. We discoved that through voting, education, hard work, community-building and resilience, Black Americans claimed their equality.
Students redesigned Lincoln Park as a public space where visitors to Washington DC could learn and play, come together and connect. 

Relevance? I discovered that my vision for a history park is actually happening in Chicago. I worked for the Chicago History Museum for three years and their history trail will undoubtedly be fantastic. https://www.chicagohistory.org/history-trail/
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History is a process and social studies education is an intricate process. Every decision we make is inspired by our students' needs, interests, and demands. Every choice is guided by standards, curriculum, and initiatives.

When I earned my master's degree in public history at Loyola University I learned the methods of history and I apply them to the sources I utilize as part of curriculum.
1. Corroborate evidence: Be skeptical of one source telling you one definitive story about history
2. Historiography: Understand how history changes. Who writes the story and HOW is influenced by culture, politics and society.
3. Bias is inherent (see #1 - look for multiple sources)
4. Primary sources are best but must be corroborated.
5. Context is essential. 

But how can I be trusted to choose sources for my students to read?
I'm trained as a public historian who has completed original research in multiple historical collections. I am qualified to work as an archivist, curator, historic preservation expert, oral historian and museum educator. I interpreted exhibits as the public face of four different history museums.
I've been a professional educator for almost 10 years and National Board Certified for 2 years.

As professional educators, we curate the classroom experience. A year of pandemic teaching has taught me that the content + community + universal design + creativity = the classroom EXPERIENCE that is essential to learning. This experience can happen virtually but middle schoolers crave the authentic classroom connection experience.
The "authentic experience framework" requires a classroom to be a place of inquiry, curiosity, exploration, practice, feedback, discovery, and creation. 
In 2021 I believe we need to declare the end of the old model of lecture, take notes, and write a paper or pass a test (at least for middle school. Please!)
​Let's face it, social-emotional competence is not triaging for 2021. When we go "back to normal" our middle school mission must be social and emotional health first.
Balance just might be the most important SEL competency we can teach.
Let's think of the classroom experience as our framework:
1. Upon entering your classroom students are welcomed. 
2. You've established a brave space that is safe and inclusive. This reduces stress and anxiety.
3. Instead of a bell-ringer think of each day's start as a warm-up. This is a gentle stretch for the mind or a meditative moment in the classroom space. 
4. Strive to make the warm-up a time when everyone participates. No-stakes or low-stakes questions. Middle school is about joy. It's about seeing where you fit in and taking risks with a safety net.
5. Lay out the agenda for the day.
6. Although some would argue for a structured, regimented schedule, I think a menu of activities works really well for middle school. Each week we do some inquiry, some knowledge building, some skill practice, some collaboration, and some exploration. Every week we try to connect to art or music. 
7. Curiosity can be kindled through choice, support, second chances, and encouragement. This is the framework for learning.

As the curator of this classroom experience, I have the same internet information resources at my fingertips that students do but as a professional educator (and a professional public historian) I know how to find balanced sources. I teach children to source, close read, contextualize, and look for bias before building an argument. 

Yes, the textbook is rarely the centerpiece of my curated classroom and although this may frighten some, my expertise in curation is actually one of my most important skills as a 21st-century educator. To meet the needs of students with vastly different reading levels, attention levels, interests, motivation levels, and multilingual capabilities, I need to universally design with multiple access points to information. I also need to consider the capabilities of students with special needs, those with learning disabilities, and other exceptional learners. I value the inclusion of every learner and want each to succeed. This means trying my best to find the source that will build confidence when needed or stretch their skills whenever possible.

Elementary teachers get hugs and undying adoration. High school teachers wait for maturity and get appreciation night at football and basketball games, etc. 
What exactly do middle school teachers get?  
I didn't get into teaching for mugs and thank you gifts and I'm actually not a hugger, but I think we are missing the magic of what middle school is or can be.

Middle school is an airport.
It's not home - a place that is familiar and, hopefully, comforting and loving.
It's not your destination - where you discover new ideas, see new things, and learn about the world. 

Our objective in middle school often seems to be getting your through an experience most people don't love, but they endure because of the adventure on the other side. The middle school where I teach is 6th through 8th grade.
Sixth grade is a lot like the confusing/disorienting check-in.
You had better be organized or figure out how to organize or this security checkpoint is going to be really frustrating for you and everyone around you.
And yes, seventh grade is very much like waiting for your flight - food, shopping, rushing to be somewhere then just waiting for life to happen. Finding that seat where you can just be left alone in this strange, noisy place. 
Eighth grade, well, it can sometimes feel like that final line-up to board your flight. I mean, the whole reason you are here is to leave. Listen for your turn. Get in a line. Endure that flight. It will all be worth it.

I truly hope this description seems foreign to many. I'm certainly working to change this culture because in fact ages 11-14 are a pivotal time. This is a rite of passage time in cultures around the world. This is the transition from child to adolescent and teachers are guides. We need middle school to be an experience that is: 
Challenging.
Inspiring.
Exploratory.
Comforting.
Reassuring.
Curiosity-filled.
Joyful
Teaching through the pandemic has completely changed my approach to classroom community. Fear of not being prepared for high school does not fit into the social emotional competence game plan. 
I'm on a journey to make middle school a place where we help students see their community and cultural capital and individual assets. 
The Search Institute has identified 30-40 assets that support students in eight categories: Support, Empowerment, Boundaries and Expectations, Constructive Use of Time, Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity. 
From seventh to ninth grade, students experience the greatest decline in assets. (Scales, 1999)

We know that adolescent mental health is in a crisis. This crisis existed before the pandemic and has been exacerbated by uncertainty, lack of structure, social upheaval, collective trauma, and the struggles of adults to stay afloat.
This April I'm going to reflect on middle school as an experience because it is its own beautiful animal and needs to be cared for as such.

Reference: Scales, P. C. (1999). Reducing Risks and Building Developmental Assets: Essential Actions for Promoting Adolescent Health. Journal of School Health, 69(3), 113. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A54709091/EAIM?u=minn4020&sid=EAIM&xid=3ed6ce49