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Teaching everyone with high expectations is a great idea. In practice, though, it means that some people flunk. (I'm not talking about the fact that some stud

Teaching everyone with high expectations is a great idea. In practice, though, it means that some people flunk. (I'm not talking about the fact that some students require different instruction; for instance, some students are special education students. I'm talking about standard students.) Many school systems find that flunking folks requires a disproportionate amount of effort. There are ways to work through that, but in the end there has to be a public will to do it. At least in the US, there is a very large thread of public discourse that thinks the goal in the education system is to minimize the cost of educating other people's kids, not to maximize what they learn.

MsMowz 9y ago
Another option is aggressively tutoring students who fall behind. Finland does this to great success. I'm not sure what the ratio is now, but at one point there was a tutor for every 7 students on average in Finnish schools. You're absolutely right that it would be costly and politically difficult.
- jimhefferon 9y ago
  Yes, there has to be a will to do it. It is distressing that in the US at least there is a widespread movement in the other direction. It threatens to make shittier for us all (except those who are completely insulated, of course).
  - jacobush 9y ago
    And being insulated to avoid the crap is its own kind of shittines. Like living in a gated community not for fun but to avoid getting robbed.
crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
Removing the concept of failure from my mind has been instrumental in helping me unlock my potential. Society could probably benefit from this. Learn. Or learn not. There is no fail.
- white-flame 9y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "failure". Kids need to be confronted with honest evaluations and positive feedback loops about their progress, including things they need to work harder on or redo, in order to reach the expected levels of common baseline education. In the USA, there's just a general pushing through of all kids to the next step regardless of whether or not they actually learned anything, which is simply broken, too. It's missing any notion of failure. However, what we shouldn't do is effectively discard failing kids from ever succeeding, dumping them to the wayside. They just need different types of help than was offered by the bulk instruction, either in content or style.
- taeric 9y ago
  I prefer it as: Learn, or learn something else. Failure is it's own lesson.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Teaching everyone with high expectations is a great idea. In practice, though, it means that some people flunk. No, it doesn't, any more than any other expectations do. (The expectations that are being discussed are the assumptions of ability that set content and instructional approaches. How you respond to differing acheivement is a nearly orthogonal question, and that's the domain that flunking is in.) > Many school systems find that flunking folks requires a disproportionate amount of effort. Which is why they don't flunk students, even when they fail to succeed with the low expectations that underlie their instructional approach.

MsMowz 9y ago

Another option is aggressively tutoring students who fall behind. Finland does this to great success. I'm not sure what the ratio is now, but at one point there was a tutor for every 7 students on average in Finnish schools. You're absolutely right that it would be costly and politically difficult.

jimhefferon 9y ago
Yes, there has to be a will to do it. It is distressing that in the US at least there is a widespread movement in the other direction. It threatens to make shittier for us all (except those who are completely insulated, of course).
- jacobush 9y ago
  And being insulated to avoid the crap is its own kind of shittines. Like living in a gated community not for fun but to avoid getting robbed.

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago

Removing the concept of failure from my mind has been instrumental in helping me unlock my potential. Society could probably benefit from this. Learn. Or learn not. There is no fail.

white-flame 9y ago
It depends on what you mean by "failure". Kids need to be confronted with honest evaluations and positive feedback loops about their progress, including things they need to work harder on or redo, in order to reach the expected levels of common baseline education. In the USA, there's just a general pushing through of all kids to the next step regardless of whether or not they actually learned anything, which is simply broken, too. It's missing any notion of failure. However, what we shouldn't do is effectively discard failing kids from ever succeeding, dumping them to the wayside. They just need different types of help than was offered by the bulk instruction, either in content or style.
taeric 9y ago
I prefer it as: Learn, or learn something else. Failure is it's own lesson.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Teaching everyone with high expectations is a great idea. In practice, though, it means that some people flunk. No, it doesn't, any more than any other expectations do. (The expectations that are being discussed are the assumptions of ability that set content and instructional approaches. How you respond to differing acheivement is a nearly orthogonal question, and that's the domain that flunking is in.) > Many school systems find that flunking folks requires a disproportionate amount of effort. Which is why they don't flunk students, even when they fail to succeed with the low expectations that underlie their instructional approach.