Chapter Two: Professional Responsibilities of Teachers of Young Adolescents

This chapter discusses the many roles and responsibilities that a middle school  teacher must have. I knew about many of these responsibilities already, but the amount of detail included in the chapter  made it seem more overwhelming at first. However, as I read on, I realized that the details were helpful - I learned things that I hadn't thought of before, even if I knew about the particular topic. For example, the idea of demonstrating overlapping: "Attend to the entire class while working with one student or with a small group of students, communicating this awareness with eye contact, hand gestures, body position and language, and clear but private verbal cues" (Kellough and Kellough 61). I found this interesting, because while I knew that teachers need to pay attention to the whole class even when they are working with someone individually, I never really considered how to go about communicating this to the class. Overall, I think the point of the chapter was to show that so much can be learned, and that the classroom and strategies are constantly changing. We need to be aware of these changes and able to adapt ourselves to them - essentially remaining lifelong learners.