Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 12

Chapter twelve discussed how important it is to be a good, just adviser to the students you teach. Being able to experience your students in different situations is an important part of developing strong relationships with them. The author used an example of taking his students hiking and experiencing firsthand how their classroom demeanors differed from their attitudes elsewhere. He suggests taking the time to engage your students in different activities to further bring out the different sides of the students' personalities. This can also double as personal development for the students, as they can hone different skills and talents they may have and get positive feedback from their classmates.

The ideas that the author puts forth in this chapter are really interesting; I know in middle school for seventh grade we went to a culture fair in Boston for the day, and got to walk around to booths representing different countries and cultures. We learned that our English teacher could play the bagpipes, a skill he learned in college while on exchange to Scotland. In eighth grade, we went bowling and found that our math teacher was in a bowling league. Both experiences made me realize that they were people with lives outside of school, and had interests and talents outside of school that we didn't necessarily know about. I think taking the time to experience your class and teachers in new ways like this puts things into perspective a bit, and could also bring the team teachers close together when they see each other outside of school walls.