Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Middle School Journal

Publication Date

3-2024

Abstract

[In the absence of an abstract, the conclusion is presented.] When I first opened the document containing the policy priorities, I was struck by the way that AMLE centered the voices of young adolescent students. By including direct quotes from 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, AMLE positioned the priorities as being about middle school students and not just problem solving to answer calls about teacher retention, class sizes, or other structural issues that need to be addressed. I believe that policy must be in pursuit of improving and meeting the needs of these young peoples’ lives. I am hopeful that as AMLE leads its membership into advocacy work, we will not lose sight of the human faces behind the documents. The personal stories, like those of the young people quoted in the introduction of the document, like my nephew, and like the millions of other students who are sitting in a middle school classroom today, must be at the center of any work we do. As a member of AMLE, the policy agenda reminds me that we are working to craft a future where no young adolescent feels lost or unsupported, and where middle schools are a place for innovation, growth, and possibilities beyond the academic curriculum, and into social and emotional well-being as well.

Funding Source

This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Taylor & Francis.

Comments

First published in Middle School Journal 55, no. 2(2024): 19-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2024.2307283.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

DOI

10.1080/00940771.2024.2307283

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