6 ms·

I think the smarter thing to do would be to stop demanding everyone complete the same tasks. Let the quicker students skip the repetitive exercise and give them

by yarcob 6y ago

I think the smarter thing to do would be to stop demanding everyone complete the same tasks. Let the quicker students skip the repetitive exercise and give them something challenging. Or let them explain it to the slower kids.

superflit 6y ago
The "challenging" is called advanced learning.
- yarcob 6y ago
  I meant without first testing them and putting them in separate classes.
  - toast0 6y ago
    I think the challenge is it's pretty difficult to be customizing instruction to 30 different students at wildly different levels. Having some students help instruct others can work, and when it works, I think there's a lot of positives. But, it can also be socially akward, and lead to a lot of negatives (especially outside the classroom). I think there are real issues with equal access to advanced classes, but making it equal by ending the program seems like the wrong thing to do.
jonwachob91 6y ago
A big factor is that not every teacher is capable of teaching gifted students. The gifted public school I went to recruited college professors to teach our middle school classes. I met a lot of HS teachers that couldn't keep up with the math the gifted students where doing as early as 7th grade. It's silly to expect for the average teacher to be able to teach every kind of student. Some teachers are better at challenging gifted students. Some teachers are better at teaching large groups of "average" students. Some teachers are better at teaching basic concepts to students that the educational system has failed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Well, one problem is that practically every teacher wants to teach the easy, gifted students that already know most of the material anyway. No one wants to deal with the not-so-easy ones, where teacher quality and proper discipline actually makes a huge difference to quality of education. That's why explicit tracking is so unpopular - it exposes these not-so-comfortable dynamics.
- yarcob 6y ago
  My experience in school (and now with my kids in school) was that there was no such thing as a group of "average" students. There's a huge variation in most grades. Sure, you could pick the smartest kid in each class and put them in a gifted program, und give extra help to the slowest learners. But that wont help the rest of the class that still spans a huge range. That's why I think that education should move away from the "everyone does the same thing" type. I took some extra physics classes in high school. And guess what, in those extra classes every student got their own exercises. Because we were all at different levels and had different interests. Why don't they do that in normal classes?
sitkack 6y ago
See also the recent discussion on same-age vs mixed-age classrooms. By mixing age groups, the kid who is advanced in history can hang with a grade or two above her own. But she might be a grade below in writing, and that should be 100% ok. I was a poor kid that attended a gifted program in first grade, the majority of the parents were upper middle class doctors and lawyers. It was lord of the flies classist bs. I clearly wasn't supposed to have been let in and went back to normie classes. It wasn't again until 6th grade that I was back into a one class a day advanced program. I don't think there should be separate classes for advanced or gifted students. Many of the aspects of gifted programs are just better funded less shitty versions of regular classes. Just like the startup within a corp trope, the gifted programs are often just cover for a private school within a public school. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26204386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26204386
- vinger 6y ago
  Now you introduce a new social aspect where you could have freshman in senior classes and via versa. Would that encourage more relationship between 14 and 18 year olds friendship or otherwise and does matching maturity matter? Does that mean some are finishing in 2 years and others in 6. In some places you have a cutoff of 21 years where you need to go to adult school at that age.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    That already happened when I dropped out at 16 and attended community college with 16-60 year olds, as it should be. Maturity lessons would certainly help a whole lot of folks, myself included. Who said we had to have grades at all? And why there needs to be a split and a set progression? I think some might leave at 16 and some at 28, both could be fine and ideal.
unanswered 6y ago
> Or let them explain it to the slower kids. It's a good idea, except... It would defeat the main purpose of education, which is to teach obedience to authority and that knowledge and subsistence comes only from authority figures, not ones' peers.
somethoughts 6y ago
I think a great strategy would be to allow students who are done with the daily lesson early to have the freedom to be let lose on Khan Academy or other sites which aren't necessarily focusing on getting farther ahead but instead they are given the freedom to explore applications of topics being taught (i.e. mathematics as applied to bird migration patterns or cryptography, etc.).

by yarcob 6y ago

superflit 6y ago

The "challenging" is called advanced learning.

yarcob 6y ago
I meant without first testing them and putting them in separate classes.
- toast0 6y ago
  I think the challenge is it's pretty difficult to be customizing instruction to 30 different students at wildly different levels. Having some students help instruct others can work, and when it works, I think there's a lot of positives. But, it can also be socially akward, and lead to a lot of negatives (especially outside the classroom). I think there are real issues with equal access to advanced classes, but making it equal by ending the program seems like the wrong thing to do.

jonwachob91 6y ago

A big factor is that not every teacher is capable of teaching gifted students. The gifted public school I went to recruited college professors to teach our middle school classes. I met a lot of HS teachers that couldn't keep up with the math the gifted students where doing as early as 7th grade. It's silly to expect for the average teacher to be able to teach every kind of student. Some teachers are better at challenging gifted students. Some teachers are better at teaching large groups of "average" students. Some teachers are better at teaching basic concepts to students that the educational system has failed.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zozbot234 6y ago
Well, one problem is that practically every teacher wants to teach the easy, gifted students that already know most of the material anyway. No one wants to deal with the not-so-easy ones, where teacher quality and proper discipline actually makes a huge difference to quality of education. That's why explicit tracking is so unpopular - it exposes these not-so-comfortable dynamics.
yarcob 6y ago
My experience in school (and now with my kids in school) was that there was no such thing as a group of "average" students. There's a huge variation in most grades. Sure, you could pick the smartest kid in each class and put them in a gifted program, und give extra help to the slowest learners. But that wont help the rest of the class that still spans a huge range. That's why I think that education should move away from the "everyone does the same thing" type. I took some extra physics classes in high school. And guess what, in those extra classes every student got their own exercises. Because we were all at different levels and had different interests. Why don't they do that in normal classes?

sitkack 6y ago

See also the recent discussion on same-age vs mixed-age classrooms. By mixing age groups, the kid who is advanced in history can hang with a grade or two above her own. But she might be a grade below in writing, and that should be 100% ok. I was a poor kid that attended a gifted program in first grade, the majority of the parents were upper middle class doctors and lawyers. It was lord of the flies classist bs. I clearly wasn't supposed to have been let in and went back to normie classes. It wasn't again until 6th grade that I was back into a one class a day advanced program. I don't think there should be separate classes for advanced or gifted students. Many of the aspects of gifted programs are just better funded less shitty versions of regular classes. Just like the startup within a corp trope, the gifted programs are often just cover for a private school within a public school. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26204386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26204386

vinger 6y ago
Now you introduce a new social aspect where you could have freshman in senior classes and via versa. Would that encourage more relationship between 14 and 18 year olds friendship or otherwise and does matching maturity matter? Does that mean some are finishing in 2 years and others in 6. In some places you have a cutoff of 21 years where you need to go to adult school at that age.
- sitkack 6y ago
  That already happened when I dropped out at 16 and attended community college with 16-60 year olds, as it should be. Maturity lessons would certainly help a whole lot of folks, myself included. Who said we had to have grades at all? And why there needs to be a split and a set progression? I think some might leave at 16 and some at 28, both could be fine and ideal.

unanswered 6y ago

> Or let them explain it to the slower kids. It's a good idea, except... It would defeat the main purpose of education, which is to teach obedience to authority and that knowledge and subsistence comes only from authority figures, not ones' peers.

somethoughts 6y ago

I think a great strategy would be to allow students who are done with the daily lesson early to have the freedom to be let lose on Khan Academy or other sites which aren't necessarily focusing on getting farther ahead but instead they are given the freedom to explore applications of topics being taught (i.e. mathematics as applied to bird migration patterns or cryptography, etc.).