In this article, I consider what Noddings' ideas about the critical lessons schools should teach might suggest for social education and critical thinking at the middle school level. Giving particular consideration to Noddings' calls to engage young people in self-understanding and allow students to pursue their interests, this article explores how the middle school years present an especially rich opportunity to engage students in an examination of the period of young adolescence, allow them to enter the debates about schooling for the middle grades, and use students' interests as a springboard for examining complex social issues. Considering Noddings' (2015, p. 1) urging for us to engage in the mission of "producing better adults," I argue that the critical middle school years offer a generative time in young people's lives to advance this important work.