Any curriculum for middle school students must consider the unique conditions of their age. Between grade six (11 years old) and grade nine (14 years old) the child leaves childish things and enters puberty. Amidst these physical changes come changes in expressing emotions, forming friendships, and learning. Peter C. Scales in Educational Horizons (3) notes the emphasis on preparing elementary and secondary level teachers for the age group and intellectual level of their charges, but that only 17 percent of middle school teachers have been specifically prepared for teaching the young adolescents that are middle school students. Scales also cites the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development report "Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century." This report calls adolescence "the last best chance" (17) to prevent many of the social problems a growing number of young people fall victim to: school failure, adolescent pregnancy, and substance abuse. A key "protective factor" cited by the report is academic success.
Scales charges that if these young people think and act differently than their fellow students in elementary or high school, then the teacher should have the training to address those differences. One of the differences that needs to be addressed is the social interaction between students who are changing how they relate to each other. Irene Whitney and Peter K. Smith write in Educational Research about a study of 6000 pupils in 17 junior high and middle schools and 7 secondary schools in Sheffield, England. They defined bullying as a "child or young person is . . . picked on . . . or a group of children or young people say nasty or unpleasant things to him or her. It is also bullying when a child or young person is hit, kicked, threatened, locked inside a room, sent nasty notes, when no one ever talks to them, and things like that . . ." (14). They found that the most common form of bullying was name...