Because this is an important time for young adolescents' personal growth, teachers must be leaders for equity and justice. Productive, educated citizens are more likely to result when teachers believe in their students and treat all of them fairly. Keep your behavioral expectations as high as your academic standards.
Young adolescents are capable of being cruel and impulsive.
They also echo our culture's prejudices even though they may not have fully or personally adopted any particular view. Teachers must be unwavering in expecting appropriate behavior and speech. In a middle school classroom, all abilities and ways of knowing are honored. Teachers should not vary their expectations from group to group or individual to individual, even though methods, techniques and strategies may. Middle schoolers feel more comfortable with their own differences when all cultures and personalities are celebrated and esteemed.