4 ms·

Why do we make B students sit through the same classes as their brainy peers? Not to be too literal here, but the B students are not necessarily less brainy.

by araneae 16y ago

Why do we make B students sit through the same classes as their brainy peers? Not to be too literal here, but the B students are not necessarily less brainy. In college I was everywhere from a D student to an A+ student; it took the competition with my peers to bring me up to that level. Without being with the "brainy" students I had no chance of becoming one.

_delirium 16y ago
That's an ongoing debate with things like gifted-student programs as well, especially at the earlier stages of education. The pro is targeting students with material suited to their pace, so there aren't students going much more slowly than they could on the one hand, or being overwhelmed on the other. But the con is that the giftedness-segregation itself might produce a self-fulfilling prophecy, as students not in the gifted track aren't challenged with the advanced curriculum, and also lose the benefit of interaction with some of their bright peers.
- Rhapso 16y ago
  So, arguably to fix this we should improve our methods of gifted student identification? versus not having a special education program at all. I was a gifted student, and I did not start off that way, I was not until high school that I gained entry to the higher level classes and I had to fight tooth and nail to get into them because my grades in the regular classes were Bs not As. It took a few of my teachers arguing with the administration to get me into the program where I excelled, and my grades got better, but because of the blind spot you describe it was almost impossible.
kabdib 16y ago
Boredom will make A students D students.
michaelochurch 16y ago
This was my thought as well. By "B student" does he mean "students who got B's" or does he mean "students of mediocre intellect and industry"? Those are different sets of people entirely. I know people smarter than I am who graduated (or dropped out of!) college with abysmal GPAs-- like 2.5, which is a disaster following U.S. grade inflation. I also know intellectual mediocrities who were good at playing the system despite mediocre effort. My sense of Mr. Adams is that he had A potential but probably got B's and C's because he had other projects. That's the good case of a "B student": someone who got mediocre grades because he was working on other things. They should be considering entrepreneurial pursuits. But I wouldn't want to see the average U.S. college graduate (fairly lazy, intellectually mediocre, able to meet college's low minimum demands based on socioeconomic status rather than merit) managing a large, complex company. Hell no on that one, sir.
- jerf 16y ago
  'This was my thought as well. By "B student" does he mean "students who got B's" or does he mean "students of mediocre intellect and industry"? Those are different sets of people entirely.' "Assume good faith." The piece makes more sense as the latter, and it certainly doesn't break the argument. I don't see any good reason to impute the first one to Adams. (Not that you did.) It's obvious that it's not easy to separate who is who, but it's equally obvious that the B crew does exist.
  - lani 16y ago
    I think what is being said is that since only the top few academic performers get the A label,by design, the remainder should get extra non-academic (here, enterpreneurial ?) skills to level-up when they get out in the real world.
ig1 16y ago
I saw a UK based study a while back which said that 30% of students were in the top 10% of their class at some stage during their school life, but weren't in the top 10% when they finished school. The idea of a fixed pool of "A" students is a false one. That said I think that we should be teaching all students most of the topics he mentioned.

by araneae 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

That's an ongoing debate with things like gifted-student programs as well, especially at the earlier stages of education. The pro is targeting students with material suited to their pace, so there aren't students going much more slowly than they could on the one hand, or being overwhelmed on the other. But the con is that the giftedness-segregation itself might produce a self-fulfilling prophecy, as students not in the gifted track aren't challenged with the advanced curriculum, and also lose the benefit of interaction with some of their bright peers.

Rhapso 16y ago
So, arguably to fix this we should improve our methods of gifted student identification? versus not having a special education program at all. I was a gifted student, and I did not start off that way, I was not until high school that I gained entry to the higher level classes and I had to fight tooth and nail to get into them because my grades in the regular classes were Bs not As. It took a few of my teachers arguing with the administration to get me into the program where I excelled, and my grades got better, but because of the blind spot you describe it was almost impossible.

kabdib 16y ago

Boredom will make A students D students.

michaelochurch 16y ago

This was my thought as well. By "B student" does he mean "students who got B's" or does he mean "students of mediocre intellect and industry"? Those are different sets of people entirely. I know people smarter than I am who graduated (or dropped out of!) college with abysmal GPAs-- like 2.5, which is a disaster following U.S. grade inflation. I also know intellectual mediocrities who were good at playing the system despite mediocre effort. My sense of Mr. Adams is that he had A potential but probably got B's and C's because he had other projects. That's the good case of a "B student": someone who got mediocre grades because he was working on other things. They should be considering entrepreneurial pursuits. But I wouldn't want to see the average U.S. college graduate (fairly lazy, intellectually mediocre, able to meet college's low minimum demands based on socioeconomic status rather than merit) managing a large, complex company. Hell no on that one, sir.

jerf 16y ago
'This was my thought as well. By "B student" does he mean "students who got B's" or does he mean "students of mediocre intellect and industry"? Those are different sets of people entirely.' "Assume good faith." The piece makes more sense as the latter, and it certainly doesn't break the argument. I don't see any good reason to impute the first one to Adams. (Not that you did.) It's obvious that it's not easy to separate who is who, but it's equally obvious that the B crew does exist.
- lani 16y ago
  I think what is being said is that since only the top few academic performers get the A label,by design, the remainder should get extra non-academic (here, enterpreneurial ?) skills to level-up when they get out in the real world.

ig1 16y ago

I saw a UK based study a while back which said that 30% of students were in the top 10% of their class at some stage during their school life, but weren't in the top 10% when they finished school. The idea of a fixed pool of "A" students is a false one. That said I think that we should be teaching all students most of the topics he mentioned.