Thank you for teaching. I still remember most of my teachers fondly. A few of them taught me to think about questions in new and different ways, and it was like suddenly being able to see in color instead of just black and white.
I agree with you on the mainstreaming. The best public schools I attended had 3 groups for each grade. They weren't assigned names - you were just in a certain teacher's class. Each group moved at a different pace, but still covered the essentials. Kids who applied themselves could move from one group to another. Kids who didn't apply themselves could get moved from one group to another. The middle of the three class groups was the largest, but there was no stigma to being in any of the groups.
Moving to other schools afterward was boring because they were inevitably almost a year behind in what they were teaching, since they had to work to the lowest common denominator.
You can't do that anymore...but the school district here breaks the classes into teams that tend to follow GPAs w/ just a little crossover. But I really wish they'd just go back to having accelerated, normal, and remedial. There's really no shame in being in a remedial class -- if you don't know the material, you don't know it, so get some help and maybe you'll get it. It gives schools the flexibility to put kids where they need to be: I've seen students who could be in accelerated math but need extra help with language arts and vice versa; I've tutored students who weren't stupid, but they just hadn't "gotten" some important concepts and needed some extra help; and then there are those who just aren't going to be in advanced classes, but that doesn't mean you leave them hanging by teaching them nothing -- well, put them all where they need to be. Everybody comes out winning (or the majority do).
Thank you for teaching. I still remember most of my teachers fondly. A few of them taught me to think about questions in new and different ways, and it was like suddenly being able to see in color instead of just black and white.
I agree with you on the mainstreaming. The best public schools I attended had 3 groups for each grade. They weren't assigned names - you were just in a certain teacher's class. Each group moved at a different pace, but still covered the essentials. Kids who applied themselves could move from one group to another. Kids who didn't apply themselves could get moved from one group to another. The middle of the three class groups was the largest, but there was no stigma to being in any of the groups.
Moving to other schools afterward was boring because they were inevitably almost a year behind in what they were teaching, since they had to work to the lowest common denominator.
You can't do that anymore...but the school district here breaks the classes into teams that tend to follow GPAs w/ just a little crossover. But I really wish they'd just go back to having accelerated, normal, and remedial. There's really no shame in being in a remedial class -- if you don't know the material, you don't know it, so get some help and maybe you'll get it. It gives schools the flexibility to put kids where they need to be: I've seen students who could be in accelerated math but need extra help with language arts and vice versa; I've tutored students who weren't stupid, but they just hadn't "gotten" some important concepts and needed some extra help; and then there are those who just aren't going to be in advanced classes, but that doesn't mean you leave them hanging by teaching them nothing -- well, put them all where they need to be. Everybody comes out winning (or the majority do).