Upstanders: How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry

by Harvey Daniels, Sara K. Ahmed

" Upstanders is about helping young people question the world, build knowledge, become skilled researchers, and communicate thoughtfully-in the service of humanity, not just themselves." Harvey "Smokey" Daniels and Sara Ahmed How can we meet today's elevated academic goals and engage middle school kids-but not simply replicate our competitive, winner-take-all society? How can our students achieve an even higher standard-demonstrating the capacity and the commitment to bend the world toward justice? In a word, inquiry. Welcome to the classroom of Sara Ahmed. With Smokey Daniels as your guide you'll see exactly how Sara uses inquiry to turn required curricular topics into questions so fascinating that young adolescents can't resist investigating them. Units so engaging that they provide all the complexity the standards could ever expect, while helping students grow from bystanders to Upstanders. Smokey and Sara describe precisely how to create, manage, and sustain a classroom built around choice, small-group collaboration, and critical thinking. You'll be inspired by what Sara's students accomplish, but you'll also come away from Upstanders with a can-do plan for teaching your own classes thanks What kind of classroom do we want for our middle schoolers? How about one that develops the skills the standards demand and prepares kids to take action in the world right now? We can do it-if we help kids become Upstanders .

Genres: Teaching, Education, Professional Development, School, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2014

Reviews

[Beth Honeycutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great ideas and reminders about what middle schools should look like. I will definitely use some of the beginning of the year practices to integrate with other activities that we use to start the school year.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for any middle school teacher, regardless of subject area. I love how Daniels and Ahmed emphasize student voice and responsibility for learning, and they justify it to all the haters out there by aligning it to CCSS. Really excited to implement some of their ideas this year, namely lit circles, student talk via Edmodo and written discussions, and open inquiries, where students' curiosity guides their learning.

[Lauren Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absolutely one of my favorite PD books to date. Sara’s heart for her middles and her willingness to embrace a bit of chaos in favor of student agency is the kind of teacher I aspire to be.

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a lot of great resources and good ideas that I know I can use. I'd recommend to anyone looking to learn more about how to use inquiry in the classroom. The only reason why it isn't five stars is because it goes on a few tangents that felt like filler.

[Valerie Biggam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ran out of steam reading this one, but I was still able to take away a few great tidbits.

📝The “schema marking” activity was so good. Like, I will work this into next week good.
📝It was validating that so much of what we already do was highlighted as example lessons: the danger of a single story, etc.
📝Some interesting thoughts about stating class with a soft open or invitation instead of the relentless “do now’s” or warm ups or bell ringers most teachers of a similar generation as me were trained to use.

🔂This seemed long for a professional book, even though I know it wasn’t. I wish the strategies had been pulled out from the narratives of lessons a bit more. I ended up skimming some of the classroom narratives because it got repetitive.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was a teacher I may have rated this higher - the rating reflects my learning and not the methodology of instruction. Lesson plans on being an upstander (An “upstander” is someone who recognizes when something is wrong and acts to make it right. When an upstander sees or hears about someone being bullied, they speak up. Being an upstander is being a hero: we are standing up for what is right and doing our best to help support and protect someone who is being hurt. - The Bully Project) designed for middle school students. Lessons in curiosity and empathy matched with the how to.

[Erin McDonnell-Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great book for future middle school teachers. The compassion and empathy that the author's share is essential for working with that age group and it's clearly conveyed throughout the entire text. I would use this as a supplemental text and encourage my undergrads to read it--maybe offer extra credit?!?

[Kim Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book filled with ideas to promote inquiry in the classroom.

[Heather Stringham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this book had some clearer ideas on how to use these ideas with high schoolers. I hope to use these ideas in the future with my students.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ideas on how to instill inquiring-minds into the middle school classroom. Embed lessons on identity, citizenship, justice, and encourage open-mindedness in adolescents.

[Tracy Jaconette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a must read for middle school educators. It provides many doable examples on how to build an inquiry classroom, step by step, throughout the school year. Check it out!

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic processes for delving deeply into identity and into student-driven inquiry.

[Cam Bruder]

Read for class. No rating. A lot of this is focused on the ideal class with great resources. I would have liked to see how to engage classes that aren’t picture perfect or with limited resources.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally, a useful book. Much of the work is based off of works that I already know quite well, so the book was more so an exploration of how to integrate best practices but with little new information. This book would be especially helpful to new teachers.

[Cindy Dean]

So much food for thought as I prepare my future units of instruction. I hope to have the thoughts and ideas in this book permeate everything we discuss in class going forward.