"I keep thinking that if all of the kids know this why don't the adults?"
"constantly working on keeping channels of communication open within the family."
That's just it. Keeping the lines of communication open with kids of this age is hard work. Difficult to do within a family, even more difficult when your family has 130 children.
And honestly, there is quite a bit of resistance for that endeavor with some middle school teachers. The faculty where I teach is an odd mix of teachers with elementary school backgrounds and secondary school backgrounds. Some of them will tell you straight out that they are in the school to teach a subject, not do any of that "touchy-feely stuff".
Middle school is such an odd mix of juvenile, just right, and too-mature behaviors. The students are at an age where the opinion of their peers is becoming much more interesting and important to them than the opinion of adults--teachers or parents. And the students experience a real mix of expectations among their teachers, too. Some classes are rigorously precise and structured, others are maddeningly open-ended.
All that being said, the vast majority of students do what they are expected to do most of the time. Serious life lessons are learned, doors are opened, worlds are expanded, passions for learning are ignited, and personalities really begin to take shape.
I hated middle school so much as a student, I've been wondering how I ended up back there, and why I intend to spend the rest of my career there. Well, it's always interesting, and intense, and extremely important. Dabrowski might say it's a site of positive disintegration.
