Summer: Perfect Time To Gain School Perspective

I love the dynamics, diversity, growth potential, and awkwardness of middle school. In three short years, young humans transform from grade school students to high school students. This is no small feat!

It’s difficult, however, for middle school students to see the big picture of their schooling. Why is it structured the way it is? Why do teachers teach the way they do? What is the point of middle school? While in the midst of the day-to-day middle school routine, it is challenging to answer these questions AND have them heard. Summer is a great time for middle schoolers to gain middle school perspective!

Parents help students see the big picture of the day-to-day, hour-by-hour school experience. So can my book, Empowering Kids: School, written for middle schoolers, can help you help your student see the big picture of the entire middle school experience. 

I explain, for example, why teachers provide a whole year’s curriculum in 180 days instead of all of it at once. Each day is a step, a piece, or a part of the whole. Fortunately for kids, the curriculum is sectioned into small units of study.

In addition, teachers create these units to fit together with other subject’s units for what is called interdisciplinary or cross curriculum instruction. A writing teacher may create a unit about history coordinating with the history’s teacher’s unit about WWII. The science teacher may create a unit about diseases, germs, and the origin of antiseptics and disinfectants with an emphasis on war.

Side note: Joseph Lister in the 1800s was first to introduce antiseptic surgery. Now can you guess where the product name Listerine came from? These connections of history to present life help students learn. What other fun facts can your child discover this summer?

Chapter titles include:

Choose to value the educational offerings your teachers plan and provide you every day.

Choose to explore all the educational avenues available to you, and they are all available to you.

Choose to adopt that you can become anything you want because if you can dream it, it already exists.

Choose to know every single person on the planet learns in his or her own unique way.

Choose to marvel at the “incredibles” regarding your school.

Choose to participate in events, activities, and situations that are pro only.

Choose to view every grade and assessment as your opportunity.

Empowering Kids: School is a very valuable resource for your child. It is beneficial for you as well. Would your life benefit from a less whiny child during the school year? Would you benefit if your child could understand his or her teachers better? Would you benefit if your child understood what a lower-than-expected grade really is and took responsibility for it? Yes! Yes! Yes! Get Empower Kids: School for your child now and see the difference the information in the book can make in your household for the fall.