“My middle schoolers are ready for more – more leadership, more say, more experiences – but we often don’t let them do more. There’s so much that educators can do to enhance education in middle school.”

“I’ve learned a lot about respecting [students’] boundaries and finding ways for students to contribute that aren’t verbal, but I do still believe that being able to articulate your thinking is an important life skill.”

“We don’t “team teach” but we’re on each other’s team, if that makes sense.”

“In Chemistry, anytime you can get students to do chemistry themselves, it’s like magic, and then when they’re explaining and they realize they can understand why it’s happening, it leads to really great insight. I really do think of it like magic. They’ve seen the wizard behind the curtain.”

“I always want for the kids in my classes to feel like that: heard, seen, and known.”

“Every once in a while, I wander and look in other people’s classes: I’d like to see what people are doing in other disciplines. How do they handle their lessons? How are they arranging their desks and table? I just ask.”

We spoke with David McCullough, founder of the American Exchange Project, about building connections across barriers.

We spoke with Rebecca Marcus, English Teacher and Founder of Paper Paragon, whose “favorite moments aren’t even when someone says something really brilliant; it’s when you can look at a student or read their writing and see them finally making the connection, that first step that you’ve been working on for months.”

“…community matters. Teaching starts with our relationships to one another and trickles down to students.”

“…I want my students to know that I’m as much of a learner as they are. I want them to see me learning and engaging with content.”