3 ms·

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 midd

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?

3 ms·

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 midd

by jonwachob91 6y ago

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?