The school is very large. There is a liberal arts wing, a STEM wing, a voctec wing, a music wing, etc...
Advanced and AP classes are all on one side of the school. Regular classes are scattered. Low-performer classes and special ed are all in a separate wing (which is also the voctec wing), and there are guards between the two at the sole door.
I'm sure this makes sense logistically, but if there was ever a way to feel like you were segregated by intelligence and put in an environment that only further encouraged failure, that's pretty much it.
Yeah that does kind of sound like "We need guards to keep the dumb kids away from the smart kids!"
It basically demonizes a lot of the students who are struggling by portraying them as inherently bad and destined for trouble.
And by grouping them all together, you are providing for a much higher likelihood that they will: 1. Distract/prevent each other from learning. 2. Have no excelling students around to help/tutor them. 3. Demoralize them into believing that they are inherently screwed up and will never succeed now that they've been classified as "trouble" students.
Yeah I listened to an episode of of This American Life that basically said that Desegregation significantly raised school performance for reasons like this (or rather, the inverse) and as schools have managed to basically re-segregate themselves over time shit has gotten a lot worse.
The school is very large. There is a liberal arts wing, a STEM wing, a voctec wing, a music wing, etc...
Advanced and AP classes are all on one side of the school. Regular classes are scattered. Low-performer classes and special ed are all in a separate wing (which is also the voctec wing), and there are guards between the two at the sole door.
I'm sure this makes sense logistically, but if there was ever a way to feel like you were segregated by intelligence and put in an environment that only further encouraged failure, that's pretty much it.
My girlfriend's school did this and she said it was kinda annoying because she was on the the STEM track and they didn't let you take classes outside of your track so she couldn't really take any creative classes.
The school is very large. There is a liberal arts wing, a STEM wing, a voctec wing, a music wing, etc...
Advanced and AP classes are all on one side of the school. Regular classes are scattered. Low-performer classes and special ed are all in a separate wing (which is also the voctec wing), and there are guards between the two at the sole door.
I'm sure this makes sense logistically, but if there was ever a way to feel like you were segregated by intelligence and put in an environment that only further encouraged failure, that's pretty much it.
My girlfriend's school did this and she said it was kinda annoying because she was on the the STEM track and they didn't let you take classes outside of your track so she couldn't really take any creative classes.
My younger sister is actually running into that a bit right now with the way our high school handles GPA, basically if she wanted to stay in the top 10 she couldn't take any art classes despite having room in her schedule.
It basically demonizes a lot of the students who are struggling by portraying them as inherently bad and destined for trouble.
And by grouping them all together, you are providing for a much higher likelihood that they will: 1. Distract/prevent each other from learning. 2. Have no excelling students around to help/tutor them. 3. Demoralize them into believing that they are inherently screwed up and will never succeed now that they've been classified as "trouble" students.
It's just bad planning.
OH, it had terrible outcomes for the poor performers. They weren't getting the attention or environment they needed.
But, it was waaay better for the high performers. When I was in the previous school, they ensured deeply integrated classes with high and low performers. The result of that was.
1. Extremely slow pace for all students 2. Deeply simplified lesson plans 3. Smarter students literally learning nothing for weeks at a time 4. Class interruptions for behavioral issues
The real solution probably involves more, better paid teachers, better special education, and smaller classes of similarly able students.
I spent my last year of high school with five other people in my class and it was the only year of school where I felt like I learned jack fucking anything.
Yeah my high school physics class had like 8 people in it and we dicked around a lot in that class, teacher included. Definitely one of the classes where I really only ended up learning it right before the exams and promptly forgot it.
It basically demonizes a lot of the students who are struggling by portraying them as inherently bad and destined for trouble.
And by grouping them all together, you are providing for a much higher likelihood that they will: 1. Distract/prevent each other from learning. 2. Have no excelling students around to help/tutor them. 3. Demoralize them into believing that they are inherently screwed up and will never succeed now that they've been classified as "trouble" students.
It's just bad planning.
OH, it had terrible outcomes for the poor performers. They weren't getting the attention or environment they needed.
But, it was waaay better for the high performers. When I was in the previous school, they ensured deeply integrated classes with high and low performers. The result of that was.
1. Extremely slow pace for all students 2. Deeply simplified lesson plans 3. Smarter students literally learning nothing for weeks at a time 4. Class interruptions for behavioral issues
The real solution probably involves more, better paid teachers, better special education, and smaller classes of similarly able students.
That sounds about right. I think they likely need an incentive program that gives higher-performing students less classes overall, but they spend parts of their day in lower-performing classes tutoring and helping the teacher. In the 11th grade, I was in a Regents-level Physics class, and the teacher made it very apparent to me at the start of the year that I was way above the curve for that class, and would give me some leeway in getting stuff done if I was always willing to help other students who didn't get it. Just that one acknowledgment made me all the more willing to go around helping other students, and the class as a whole did way better.
Honestly? That might work for adult Rym. But high school Rym? Middle school Rym. (They're the same thing... read on).
The tutoring/mentoring thing you suggest was forced upon us in middle school. Poor performers paired with high performers in integrated classrooms. Basically the exact arrangement you described.
I deeply resented it then. Rather than learning real physics, I was forced to spend a full month tutoring very dim children in the metric system. I lost a full month of classroom education to explain, over and over again, how meters and centimeters work.
In order to accommodate the poor performers, all integrated classes went so slowly that I literally, honestly, not-even-exaggerating, was learning nothing at all. Except resentment. It was holding me back, hurting my education. I was gaining nothing from it, and perhaps was even losing my empathy.
What you suggest only works when the gulf between the best and worst performing students is small. When it's wide....
That was when we threatened to sue the school, got the state to declare me a "gifted child," and forced them to send me to the high school to take physics there instead for an hour a day.
The physics class was "full" and they put me in AP Biology instead, assumedly hoping to watch me flame out and prove that the new program they had to institute for me shouldn't continue. (I was the only student in it).
Of course, I was top of the curve in that class. And there, I did spend a lot of time tutoring the (relative) poor performers. But I didn't resent it, because they were the poorest performing of the very few capable of taking AP Biology. The class didn't slow down to accommodate them. I was still learning new things every day.
So IME, it doesn't work in general integrated classes: the low performers are so far below the highest performers that neither gains any benefit, and the most significant thing they learn is mutual resentment.
That's a very good point, Rym. It definitely depends on what you're forced to do, who you're forced to tutor. When I was in High School, and Physics was my only non-AP class, I didn't mind having a class that was easy and where I learned very little. But the situation has to be very carefully managed. At the very least, kids who excel and are asked to tutor need to be given real tangible rewards and benefits for doing so.
At the very least, kids who excel and are asked to tutor need to be given real tangible rewards and benefits for doing so.
Isn't teaching others rewarding in and of itself though? Throughout grade school I often helped others and the feeling of accomplishment you get when you successfully teach someone something, especially when the teachers, books, and other students failed to help them is great.
At the very least, kids who excel and are asked to tutor need to be given real tangible rewards and benefits for doing so.
Isn't teaching others rewarding in and of itself though? Throughout grade school I often helped others and the feeling of accomplishment you get when you successfully teach someone something, especially when the teachers, books, and other students failed to help them is great.
It's rewarding to teach someone who wants to be taught, and actually learns at a somewhat reasonable rate.
For me at least, teaching someone who can't or won't learn is frustrating and futile.
At the very least, kids who excel and are asked to tutor need to be given real tangible rewards and benefits for doing so.
Isn't teaching others rewarding in and of itself though? ..
Not when you're doing so to the detriment of your own actual education. I was being held back by them, and none of my tutoring was helping them catch up.
Also, most people are not good teachers, let alone good tutors. For someone with special education needs, it's a terrible idea to ask one of their age-peers to tutor them.
At the very least, kids who excel and are asked to tutor need to be given real tangible rewards and benefits for doing so.
Isn't teaching others rewarding in and of itself though? ..
Not when you're doing so to the detriment of your own actual education. I was being held back by them, and none of my tutoring was helping them catch up.
Also, most people are not good teachers, let alone good tutors. For someone with special education needs, it's a terrible idea to ask one of their age-peers to tutor them.
This, a thousand times this.
Knowing something, even if extremely well, and being able to impart that knowledge to someone else effectively, are two completely and utterly different things and skill sets.
I'm sure lots of people have run into this problem, especially at higher levels of education, but I have never run into it quite as much as in law school. Because of how higher education works, the Publish or Perish system, many law schools are filled with professors who are incredibly distinguished and knowledgeable in their fields but have utterly no idea how to teach students.
This system was just as bad in how my law school chose TAs. Basically, the students in the top 10 percent of the class were eligible to become TAs, regardless of anything else. In many cases, the TAs I had were horrible because they had no idea how to teach. They knew how to study, they knew how to get good grades, but they had no idea how to impart their knowledge to others, or that others might learn in different ways from them.
Having been a teacher before law school, and experiencing first hand how difficult it can be, I have the utmost respect for teachers. Teaching is more than just having the required knowledge, it is a skill. In some circumstances, a teacher may not even be that knowledgeable about a subject, but still be an effective teacher, at lower levels at least, because he or she is good at imparting that knowledge to others.
Comments
And by grouping them all together, you are providing for a much higher likelihood that they will:
1. Distract/prevent each other from learning.
2. Have no excelling students around to help/tutor them.
3. Demoralize them into believing that they are inherently screwed up and will never succeed now that they've been classified as "trouble" students.
It's just bad planning.
But, it was waaay better for the high performers. When I was in the previous school, they ensured deeply integrated classes with high and low performers. The result of that was.
1. Extremely slow pace for all students
2. Deeply simplified lesson plans
3. Smarter students literally learning nothing for weeks at a time
4. Class interruptions for behavioral issues
The real solution probably involves more, better paid teachers, better special education, and smaller classes of similarly able students.
The tutoring/mentoring thing you suggest was forced upon us in middle school. Poor performers paired with high performers in integrated classrooms. Basically the exact arrangement you described.
I deeply resented it then. Rather than learning real physics, I was forced to spend a full month tutoring very dim children in the metric system. I lost a full month of classroom education to explain, over and over again, how meters and centimeters work.
In order to accommodate the poor performers, all integrated classes went so slowly that I literally, honestly, not-even-exaggerating, was learning nothing at all. Except resentment. It was holding me back, hurting my education. I was gaining nothing from it, and perhaps was even losing my empathy.
What you suggest only works when the gulf between the best and worst performing students is small. When it's wide....
That was when we threatened to sue the school, got the state to declare me a "gifted child," and forced them to send me to the high school to take physics there instead for an hour a day.
The physics class was "full" and they put me in AP Biology instead, assumedly hoping to watch me flame out and prove that the new program they had to institute for me shouldn't continue. (I was the only student in it).
Of course, I was top of the curve in that class. And there, I did spend a lot of time tutoring the (relative) poor performers. But I didn't resent it, because they were the poorest performing of the very few capable of taking AP Biology. The class didn't slow down to accommodate them. I was still learning new things every day.
So IME, it doesn't work in general integrated classes: the low performers are so far below the highest performers that neither gains any benefit, and the most significant thing they learn is mutual resentment.
You escalate when you want an excuse.
Cops want excuses.
For me at least, teaching someone who can't or won't learn is frustrating and futile.
Also, most people are not good teachers, let alone good tutors. For someone with special education needs, it's a terrible idea to ask one of their age-peers to tutor them.
Knowing something, even if extremely well, and being able to impart that knowledge to someone else effectively, are two completely and utterly different things and skill sets.
I'm sure lots of people have run into this problem, especially at higher levels of education, but I have never run into it quite as much as in law school. Because of how higher education works, the Publish or Perish system, many law schools are filled with professors who are incredibly distinguished and knowledgeable in their fields but have utterly no idea how to teach students.
This system was just as bad in how my law school chose TAs. Basically, the students in the top 10 percent of the class were eligible to become TAs, regardless of anything else. In many cases, the TAs I had were horrible because they had no idea how to teach. They knew how to study, they knew how to get good grades, but they had no idea how to impart their knowledge to others, or that others might learn in different ways from them.
Having been a teacher before law school, and experiencing first hand how difficult it can be, I have the utmost respect for teachers. Teaching is more than just having the required knowledge, it is a skill. In some circumstances, a teacher may not even be that knowledgeable about a subject, but still be an effective teacher, at lower levels at least, because he or she is good at imparting that knowledge to others.
Also rightly so, how is he going to go through the rest of his life without being recognised as a controversy / news story rather than a person.