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• The Mohr You Know

Dear HKMS Families,

Mrs. Mohr and I have been working with Middle Schoolers for over 26 years each.  We have know really amazing, challenging, brilliant, and struggling students.  We have known many "old souls" and many "new souls" as well.  We both have our own middle school children, and have taught thousands of other's children.  They have much in common.  They are lovably goofy, intellectually curious, and fiercely fighting for their independence.  That are also not great at telling the caring adults in their lives, who pour love into their existence, the whole truth.  Yup, they often lie.  Lying is a yucky word, and I thought a lot about using other euphemism, we have so many:  being economical with the truth, misspeaking, fibbing, taking creative liberties, spinning a yarn, or pulling the wool over someone's eyes, terminological inexactitude, sugarcoating the truth, and falsehoods just to name a few.  

The past weekend I read an article by educational consultant, clinical social worker, author, and speaker Jen Cort entitled, Why Middle Schoolers Lie: and How Teachers Can Build Resilience.  I found this piece in the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), one of my go-to sources for middle school insights. The title immediately grabbed my attention for two reasons. First, we rarely use the word "lying."  It feels harsh and judgmental, a term we tend to avoid. Second, the prevalence of undesirable behaviors in young people is a pervasive societal concern, and this piece addresses that reality directly. Children can display all the bad characteristics that all humans are capable of becoming and schools are often looked at as the solution.  As an industry, schools are tasked with handling bullying that occurs on social media, the use of racist and sexist language, threats of harm, hatred, intolerance, and a host of other moral shortcomings while we are teaching packed curricula and vital learning skills.  And this is supposed to happen within a six-hour day for less then half the year.  As an industry we are honored you think we can fix all of these struggles, but we cannot.  Morals and values do and should come from the family and the community in which students are raised.  Schools are merely a reflection of those communities. 

Whatever shortcomings or strengths a school has, is usually also prevalent in the community the school serves.  What we are also becoming painfully aware of is that these issues may actually not be modeled at home; however hours of TikTok, You-Tube Shorts, and Snap Chat have normalized this behavior and made it "popular," when in fact it is heart breaking.  (Note: you can read more about the effects of short form video on our children in The Mohr You Know section at the end of this newsletter). 

After reading Jen Cort's piece I realized that lying is not a moral failure, it is not a reflection of the community, not of a family.  It is a developmental phase all children must go through to become full-fledged adults.  She reports, "The developmental realities of early adolescence suggest that lying is not a moral failing, but instead part of the messiness of growing up."  Telling white lies (another euphemism) has always been considered a sort of social lubricant.  Telling your partner, friend, co-worker, boss, or new acquaintance, the whole unvarnished truth, will not win you many friends and might even cost you relationships or a job.  Middle-schoolers are trying to figure out their place in the larger world, and figure out where they belong. "Lying often becomes a way to protect themselves socially, avoid consequences, or maintain a fragile sense of belonging." 

The question becomes, how do we handle lying as educators and parents? We know that behavior ignored is behavior condoned, so incidents of lying must be addressed with care and compassion and those involved must be held to account for their words. "Shame does not teach. Shamed brains can’t learn. Instead, teachers who balance accountability with empathy build trust and resilience" (Court). Young adolescents need our coaching, they need their adults to listen, not to fix a problem for them, but to strategize with them so they can address it themselves. We know that trust is easily lost and difficult to regain, our middle schoolers need to learn this lesson too.  Having structured conversations about the importance of telling the truth (especially to those who you love and trust) is vital.  Most movies and shows that target adolescents involve some sort of lying or betrayal, that usually comes back to bite the person who was dishonest.  Watch those media with your child and debrief what happened.  Talking about those "fictional" examples is a great entry point and basis for more poignant "real world" instances when they inevitably come up. 

We have a new feature we've added to this newsletter.  We are calling it "The Mohr You Know," penned by our amazing assistant principal, Mrs. Annie Mohr.  Every week she will delve into the research on middle school minds, bodies, and spirits to give you the insights, the hacks, the wisdom and the perception needed to successfully raise these amazing kids.  As I said above, this week she provides us with some fascinating insights on the impact of short form videos on young minds.  You will find "The Mohr You Know" at the very bottom of this newsletter.  

What a fantastic week we had at Keller! Coming off the amazingly successful pancake breakfast, the 8th grade council collected over 500 gifts for their annual toy drive.  Every toy is being wrapped and will be delivered to a deserving child at the Curiale School by one of our own 8th-graders.  The garden club also installed the base for their new greenhouse.  None of this is possible without your generosity, thank you!  You can check all of this out and so much great learning below.  Enjoy! 

Sincerely,

Steve Clapp, Ed.D.

Principal

Mrs. Brodeur's math students are using a combination of our Desmos workbook and the Desmos virtual platform to find the areas of shapes at do not have 90° angles.   Manipulating the shapes is the name of this game and the book and screen offer different methods to attack these challenges.

Have you ever wished that your child had a longer attention span?  Do you find yourself repeating simple directions over and over only to find tasks incomplete, not done or worse...completely forgotten??  Does your child come home not recalling what they need to do for homework or having forgotten their sweatshirt for the 4th time that week?

Although part of this attention issue is developmentally normal, there are reasons and simple fixes to lessen the issue and help to boost their focus...ELIMINATE SHORT-FORM VIDEO WATCHING.  Here is a to-the-point and informative article entitled, "YouTube Cofounder Cautions Against Too Much Short-Form Video for Kids",   If you are feeling too overwhelmed to click one more link, I've got you!  Below is the most eye opening excerpt from the article.

"Researchers found people who spend too much time watching short-form videos often struggle with attention. This habit may interfere with the brain’s ability to focus, leading to weaker self-control and difficulty concentrating.

According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, short-form videos are self-stimulating and content-rich, capturing attention with minimal mental effort. Over time, watching too much of this kind of content may activate the brain’s lower regions linked to emotion, while reducing activity in areas that handle focus and self-control. This pattern may increase the risk of addiction and make it harder to stay disciplined or attentive."

So the solution to helping your child with better attention, self-control and focus both at home and in school is deleting You Tube, Tik Tok, Snap Chat, Instagram and every other short-form video platform.  Will they have meltdowns, tell you that you are a horrible parent and that EVERY OTHER kid has it??  YES,3 THEY WILL!  Push through this phase because the changes you will see in your child after this detox period will be life altering.