The Editor Reflects: Competing for Their Attention to Get Young Adolescents Involved in Learning

TL;DRAbstract

Make no mistake, young adolescents are biologically primed to explore and learn new things. However, their teachers have to actively appeal to their students' modes of learning, their interest in changing social relationships, their interest in world events, and their search for defining who they are in the complex and dynamic world around them. This issue of the Middle School Journal will showcase a number of teachers who have mastered the craft of inviting young adolescents, mentally and emotionally, into learning. This issue also reinforces for me the power of Schwab's (1973) conceptualization of the practical curriculum. If one wants to understand learning in school, and by extension successfully plan for its occurrence, one has to put equal emphasis on students, subject matter, and the societal context, all managed by a knowledgeable, compassionate teacher. The nature of students themselves is the often left behind element in the No Child Left Behind

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