Middle level certification

Totally off topic for this week but I just had to get on my soapbox for a moment or two. Middle level educators - are you really? I hope one day teachers that teach at the middle level have to have a middle level certification - and not by some phony means such as the State of Maine did with having teachers become HQ by HOUSSE. Certification by classwork would be a good start. Teaching and understanding the middle schoolers is different than teaching and understanding first grade but yet many fail to recognize this - and yes, I mean fellow colleagues. We have to be trained/schooled to teach math, science, social studies, and ELA at the middle level - wouldn't it be fair to say we need to know about the group we want to instruct? Even RTI - this looks different at the third grade level than it does at the middle school level. I mean - look at this scenario - the students are misbehaving - being talkative and not on task. The teacher states "I've had it" and walks out the door leaving the students with an ed tech. The teacher comes back in 10 minutes later and instructs the students to get a dictionary down and they are writing words and definitions out of the dictionary for their punishment. Hmmmm.....The students were 7th grade students and the teacher, who is almost done in her masters for counseling none the less - let's look at this. I see issues with classroom management for one - is this the student's fault? Instead of looking at the whole picture let's punish the little buggers! After all - I'm in charge! This is just a key example of where education of the teacher regarding middle level learners would come in handy. And yes, sadly, this a true scenario. And I think it should be required for all middle level educators to take classes, at least once a year, on a topic relating to this learning group. This is a make or break area for so many students - anyone can teach to the best and the brightest - but who's going to help the student that's not the best and brightest? Give him/her more words to copy out of the dictionary? Enough of a soapbox for today!