SCHOOL MATTERS:
Next step in 'mysterious' path to adulthood

Here it is November of what still feels like a new school year, and new fifth-grade parents are already turning their attention to the mysterious world of middle school.

Information sessions, site visits, off-line chats with experienced parents and students will help fill in the picture of the vast unknown that marks the transition from grade school to secondary education. To the initiated, it's a jungle out there. All those students. All those classrooms. All those academic decisions to make.

Now imagine how our fifth-graders must feel. Educator and author Susan Mulcaire has developed a student-friendly workbook, "The Middle School Student's Guide to Ruling the World!" that helps take some of the mystery out of this important next step on the bewildering path to adulthood.

Combined with "The Middle School Student's Guide to Ruling the World! Instructor's Guide," these resources contain a comprehensive organizational skills curriculum called S.O.S. (Student Organizational Skills) that could put an end to the worry and stress our kids experience as they begin to master the skills necessary for a successful academic career.

Too many middle school students underachieve because they lack basic organizational skills. Good organizational skills can boost achievement across all areas of the curriculum. They improve academic self-confidence and build a solid foundation for the more complex organizational skills students need for success in high school.

Mulcaire sheds light on several key areas of the middle school experience, offering concrete, practical advice around such topics as:

- Advisory periods

- After school programs

- Elective/exploratory subjects

- Study skills classes

- English language learning

- Summer school

Because the workbook can also be used independently by students to learn organizational skills, it gives our kids a chance to tackle the challenges ahead without parent intervention, a novel concept in a world where parents are increasingly likened to helicopters hovering at low altitudes around their children's areas of endeavor.

This article was published the Palo Alto Daily News on November 5, 2007