Recent debates among educators about the middle school curriculum involve three concepts: (1) middle school ought to provide a general education school in which the curriculum focuses on widely shared concerns of early adolescents and the larger world rather than specialization among separate subjects; (2) the curriculum ought to serve the…

Of all the reform recommendations being made by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, making mathematical connections is among the more difficult, yet most important to achieve, especially at the middle school level, where students are first beginning to appreciate the real power of mathematics. Mathematical connections can relate…