Changes in Attitude

By Debra Viadero

Popular wisdom has it that students become temporarily ineducable when they hit early adolescence. They become more self- conscious and self-centered. They latch onto their friends with a new intensity, and their raging hormones give them no peace. In the face of all of that, how can we expect them to concentrate on schoolwork?

But Newaye Daniel, a 7th grader at Francis J. Hammond Middle School in Alexandria, Va., doesn't buy that way of thinking. He says he comes home every night and does two to three hours of homework. "It makes me feel good if the teacher says, 'Take out your homework' and it's there," he says. "You have to be more responsible in middle school than you were in elementary school."

Students like Newaye could simply be an exception to the rule. But, to a number of researchers who focus on early adolescence, he could also be something more: He could be living proof that the loss of academic motivation attributed to this difficult age...