Turning Points: Chapter 2

Citation:
Jackson, Anthony W., and Gayle A. Davis. Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st Century. Teachers College Press, 2000.

Abstract:
Chapter 2 clearly states the goal of Turning Points. The goal is that “middle grades schools should serve the oft-cited “whole child,” challenging students to think critically, to work industriously, and to contribute to their communities, to care about others, and to care about their own physical and mental health” (pg. 23). The vision of Turning Points is that well-served students will leave middle school as intellectually reflective people, good citizens, people in route to a life time of meaningful work, and caring, ethical and healthy people. The chapter introduces 7 recommendations, all designed to help middle school students succeed.
These recommendations are:
· to teach a curriculum of rigorous and relevant standards, based on differentiated instruction of how students learn best
· to have all staff members involved in decision making
· to create a community of prepared, life long learners
· to include parents and communities
· to continue to professionally develop teachers and hire staff trained specifically to teach adolescents
· to create a climate of intellectual development
· to provide a safe and healthy environment
While these recommendations do not have to be implemented in a particular order, together they all form a system which is integral to student success. The recommendations need to be co-existing in order to be successful.

Reflection:
We all felt that the recommendations Turning Points gave, could have been important to any school. Any school looking to improve student success, regardless of whether it is a middle school or not, could use these recommendations to vastly improve their school. We felt that it was really important that the recommendations be used in concurrence with one and other, because they are useless by themselves. Educators need to understand they can’t just implement one of these as a quick fix to improve their school. They have to implement the “system” mentioned above, which takes determination and hard work. A quote on page 26 is very important to understand. It states that “curriculum, assessment, and instruction are intertwined, each inevitably affecting the other two. Any effort to change the curriculum and assessment without changing instruction, or to change instruction without considering curriculum and assessment, will fail.” We feel this is an important aspect of teaching that educators need to be aware off. All to often do we try to change one aspect of our teaching or our schools, without really looking at the big picture.



*Alyson