Open meetings are regularly scheduled times when all class members and the teacher sit together in a closed circle to discuss important topics, such as name-calling. Such meetings are structured, moving from reviewing ground rules to posing a warmup question, encouraging numerous perspectives, personalizing the topic, and challenging students to…

Early adolescence is a time of great turmoil as well as tremendous social, emotional, and cognitive growth. Young people at this age are becoming more aware of social status and of their position in the social hierarchy; at the same time, they are usually moving into larger school environments where they are exposed to more variation among their…