Sometimes middle school S.T.I.N.K.S! It’s a huge transition for teens as they navigate more rigorous academics and experience shifts in social-emotional development. 

Middle School Scholars may: 

• Experience conflicts due to conflicting loyalties to peer groups and family.
• Are often  inconsistent in their behavior; anxiety and fear contrasted with periods of bravado; feelings shift between superiority and inferiority.
• Display a wide range of individual intellectual development as their minds experience transition from the concrete-manipulatory stage to the capacity for abstract thought.

Intellectually Middle School Scholars are ready for:

• Consideration of ideas contrary to fact
• Reasoning with hypotheses involving two or more variables
• Appreciation for the elegance of mathematical logic expressed in symbols
• Insight into the nuances of poetic metaphor and musical notation. Analysis of the power of a political ideology
• Ability to project thought into the future, to anticipate, and to formulate goals
• Insight into the sources of previously unquestioned attitudes, behaviors, and values
• Interpretation of larger concepts and generalizations of traditional wisdom expressed through sayings, axioms, and aphorisms
• Are intensely curious
• Prefer active over passive learning experiences; favor interaction with peers during learning activities; 
• Exhibit a strong willingness to learn things they consider to be useful; enjoy using skills to solve real life problems;
• Are egocentric; argue to convince others; exhibit independent, critical thought;
• Consider academic goals as a secondary level of priority; personal­ social concerns dominate thoughts and activities;
• Experience the phenomenon of metacognition; the ability to know what one knows and does not know.
• Are intellectually at-risk; face decisions that have the potential to affect major academic values with lifelong consequences

The Grande Innovation Academy implements a middle school success program called Middle School S.T.I.N.K.S: 

S:  Safe emotional environment
T:  Team work
I:   Integrate technology
N: Needs assessment to ensure success
K:  Knowledge of self and others
S:  Skills for success