The Association of Middle Level Education (AMLE) has been on the cutting edge of middle school practice since it was founded in 1973 as the National Middle School Association, ten years after William Alexander pioneered the middle school concept. In this context, “middle school concept” refers not just to a generic school for young adolescents but rather to a specific set of values and principles that may or may not govern a given school’s program. These are laid out and explained in AMLE’s “This We Believe,” originally published in 1983 and now in its fourth edition. Not as many middle schools are based on the middle school concept as one might wish. Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School is one of the happy exceptions.

AMLE hosted their annual conference in Philadelphia from Nov. 6-8, and I was able to attend the third day, squeezing out a visit between two nights of rock band rehearsals.

Imagine a room full of thousands of middle school teachers, our students at the forefront of our minds, singing “I hope you dance” along with Tia Sillers, the co-composer, various Nashville-area musicians, and Ms. Sillers’s brother-law, Monte Selby, who had chosen to sing his keynote address at the 2006 National Middle School Association Annual Conference. It was deeply moving, and something I can still very clearly play back in my mind.