Finally, we have to organize our junior teaching in ways that will help our kids begin to understand and participate in adult reality. This means more independent activity, more say in what happens in the classroom, and more responsibility in their own learning. It also means teachers who model the importance and usefulness in our own lives of the subject we teach, demonstrating our own processes as learners and our personal knowledge of our fields, inviting students inside academia by showing that inside is a worthwhile and interesting place to be. 8 th graders shuttle back and forth between everything . . . This stirring of new, dark feeling is balanced by the awakening of new intellectual powers.
Adolescents begin to go deeper into ideas - political, moral, and artistic.
I've seen 8 th graders work harder than I thought possible on claims they staked for themselves. We like to find out about things we didn't know before. But make it make sense. Let us learn together. And be involved and excited, so we can be involved and excited.