Finding happiness in the middle school child.

If you have ever been a middle school teacher you surely will recognize the stages of torture that this age child goes through.  I often think of the character ‘the incredible hulk’ as he morphed from a normal Joe into a big green monster machine.

This metamorphosis is constant in the average day of a middle school adolescent.  The bottom line is you never know who or what is going to walk into your art class.   They often feel uncomfortable with themselves due to peer pressure and behave accordingly.  So this creates the task of making your art room a safe haven for middle schoolers to feel at ease, comfortable with the troubles and pressures of the academics subject and their peers.

It is a great balancing act for you, the teacher, as you obviously have Standards and a Curriculum to follow.  The key is to teach with a twist!  Find the most innovative way to grab their attention and make them look forward to learning.

Art in my school is available to most students in a ten-week period.  I have found their behavior starts out as rigid and uptight initially, but as the weeks progress students become more relaxed and comfortable with their environment. 

For this reason I begin my marking period with content and assignments that take greater concentration and finer motor skills. As they become more relaxed in the art room environment, I work towards more inventive and expressive opportunities for students to create work and learn from.   My experience has taught me that it is impossible to go back to the first after visiting the last and that the expressive styles are always better in this sequence.

The bottom line is to create and environment where they feel sufficiently comfortable to let their creative side flow. 

    

  

How do you handle the morphing madness of the middle school adolescent?