Marsha M. Sprague

Engaging All Middle Level Learners in Multidisciplinary Curricula

The middle level school is an ideal setting for connecting the curricu lum. The team approach allows teachers time to plan together, and sharing a common group of students makes multidisciplinary instruc tion feasible. Nevertheless, many middle level schools have had a dif ficult time implementing multidisciplinary instruction.

An Academy for Ophelia

In 1994 Mary Pipher galvanized educators and society at large with her best-selling book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. The book describes, through a series of case studies, the terribly traumatic experience of many girls in their passage through adolescence. The book was a wake-up call for many middle school educators, who had seemed confident that the diminishing gender gap in academics indicated a decreased need for attention to gender issues.