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© 2024 Middle School Walk & Talk
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A podcast series offering heart, hope, and health to members of our middle school communities. Hosts Phyllis Fagell and Jessica McGuire model wellness as they walk and talk while recording each episode. Listeners are encouraged to take a walk, too, as they listen to discussions on self-care, student well-being, school culture, and more. Middle School Walk and Talk is designed to support the concepts found in the book, The Successful Middle School: This We Believe, and is a production of the Association for Middle Level Education. For more information, visit www.amle.org.
41 Episodes
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In this first episode of the new season, Phyllis Fagell and her new co-host, Principal Jessica McGuire, talk 2023 back to school trends. Electric scooters, sleep schedules, and anxious tweens, oh my!
Whether or not you've begun to explore the capabilities of AI, your students certainly have. How can educators help students leverage AI to deepen their learning, instead of just using it as a shortcut? Megan Vosk, Joe Pizzo, Dustin Purdy, and Marri Bayour, middle grades educators and members of AMLE's Teacher Leaders Committee, stop by the podcast to talk emerging trends and why AI represents both a practical and philosophical issue teachers can no longer ignore.
What does it mean for a student to have an academic identity? Miriam Plotinsky, author of Writing their Future Selves and Teach More, Hover Less, stops by the podcast to talk how teachers can value kids brains as well as their identities as people. Phyllis, Jessica, and Miriam dig into a range of topics, including how to celebrate mistakes as pathways to learning, how to help students break down stereotypes about themselves, the best professional development for teachers, and why being afraid...
What’s it like being a middle schooler today? 8th grader Laila Hayes and 9th grader Gabriela Berrios Ortiz dropped by the podcast to dispel what they believe are common myths about middle schoolers, the traits of their most effective teachers, and the social challenges and pressures they face today. Episode Notes: This podcast was recorded during the AMLE50 50th Anniversary Annual Conference in November, 2023. AMLE is grateful to Walker Mill Middle School and The Siena School for support...
As Executive Director of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, representing school HR professionals, Kelly Coash-Johnson heard frequently about the impacts of the educator shortage, but noticed more finger pointing than solution generating. As a result, AASPA collaborated with organizations and stakeholders across education to convene the first National Educator Shortage Summit to identify the underlying causes of the shortage and what could tangibly be done to co...
Dr. Anitra Warrior, psychologist and owner of Morningstar Counseling, stops by the podcast to talk about youth mental health and getting back to the basics of adolescent development. Dr. Warrior specializes in Native youth mental health and offers insights and practical language and tips educators can use to support Native students and their families through culturally affirming practices.
Middle school is the perfect time to introduce career exploration opportunities to kids. They're developmentally tuned to think about their future and investigate their interests. But, too often, kids start to self-select based on what they perceive they’re good at or what they’ve already been exposed to. Jean Eddy, author of Crisis-Proofing Today’s Learners, is on a mission to help reimagine career education to prepare kids for tomorrow's world. She stopped by the podcast to dispel the myths...
Believe it or not…schools have a leg up on mighty social media when it comes to engaging kids, especially tweens. While so much of the affirmation kids receive online is artificial and fake, schools can create true belonging and spaces where they can become their best selves. Laurie Barron, superintendent and author of Middle School: A Place to Belong and Become, joins co-hosts Phyllis and Jessica to talk about the foundational concepts of belonging, how to help students feel affirmed and wel...
From riding roller coasters to rafting down the Colorado River, AMLE Educator of the Year Autumn Rivera is always finding ways to integrate the community as a source of learning for her 6th grade science students. She stopped by the Walk & Talk Podcast to talk about her approach to engaging middle schoolers, tackling the challenges of rural education, and why now is the time for teachers to take risks and try new things.
Too often, the middle grades get lumped in with elementary or high school instead of being recognized as its own, unique entity. Even worse, middle grades leadership can be seen as just a stepping stone to high school leadership, instead of requiring a unique and equivalent skill set as well as a deep knowledge of young adolescent development. Kevin Armstrong, president-elect of the National Association of Elementary School Principals and middle school principal, joins Phyllis and Jessica to ...
Leveraging their diverse backgrounds in speech pathology, bilingual education, elementary and secondary teaching, and more, Persida and Bill Himmele are on a mission to empower educators to engage every student. They join co-hosts Phyllis and Jessica to talk about barriers and solutions to middle school disengagement and how to build trust between teacher and student – and administrator and teacher.
Just by the very nature of young adolescents, middle school should be a fun place! But it seems we’ve lost some of that joy in our schools. Dr. Daryl Williams, former Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools and current Professor of Practice at Morgan State University, sits down with Phyllis and Jessica to talk about how school leaders can help bring that professional satisfaction back into our buildings.
News flash! Kids make mistakes. So how do we adequately address the behavior while creating space for learning and growing? Phyllis and Joe are joined by Jen Cort, author of Help Us Begin: HUB strategies and mindsets for meaningful conversations with kids, especially when you are challenged by the topic. Jen offers some practical tips on how to effectively communicate with adolescents in ways that lead to more productive outcomes. She also shares advice on how to make the most of middle...
How is empathy related to kids’ likelihood to engage in cyberbullying? How can we teach kids resiliency when they face mean behaviors online and in real life? What skills can we teach kids to help them have more positive online experiences? Phyllis and Joe talk with celebrated author and cyberbullying expert Dr. Sameer Hinduja about how to equip kids with an action plan for their online lives.
Phyllis and Joe use spring break to catch up on current events. They talk about kids’ reactions to recent incidents of gun violence in schools and how the proliferation of hate speech online is impacting student mental health. The co-hosts discuss how to help kids build resiliency and learn to deal with the challenges of adolescent social life. On a lighter note, a karaoke machine makes an appearance and the duo preview some exciting upcoming episodes.
Teacher wellness has become the latest buzz word as schools continue to struggle to recruit and retain enough educators to meet community needs. It turns out, encouraging the adoption of yoga classes isn’t quite enough. But there are meaningful things schools and districts can do to support their staff – and their students – both physically and emotionally. Rick Wormeli joined Joe Mazza and Phyllis Fagell to talk about some of these strategies and figuring out, at our core, what d...
Who is school for? When we talk about redesigning school...what are we really talking about? Phyllis and Joe chat with Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor, New York City educators and authors, whose work focuses on how to create fully inclusive learning experiences for kids.
What would happen if we treated students...like real human beings? Phyllis and Joe and joined by Nathan Maynard, co-author of Hacking School Discipline, and Dr. Belinda George, who gained international notoriety for her "tucked in Tuesdays," who both share how their own experiences as youths shaped their thinking around positive discipline and the use of restorative practices in schools.
We want to teach our middle schoolers important social skills, including how to be kind. But what does that really look like in practice? Houston Kraft joins Phyllis and Joe talk about practical ways to infuse compassion into the schools we serve and our daily personal routines.
In this episode, Phyllis and Joe are joined by Todd Brist, principal of Watertown Middle School in South Dakota and author of AMLE's forthcoming book Successful Middle School Advisory to talk all things advisory. Why should schools have them? What should they accomplish? And how do you convince reluctant teachers its worth the time? This episode was recorded LIVE at the AMLE22 Annual Conference.
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