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T.b.h. as somebody from ost-block country, I did hate the cast-system based on the performance. In my school we had a class that selected for the worst students

T.b.h. as somebody from ost-block country, I did hate the cast-system based on the performance. In my school we had a class that selected for the worst students, and surprise, it created a class where so many people failed. I was in class that had an even mix, some really smart kids, some not so much, and some comparable to the worst of the D-class. Like third of the of my classmates went for the sports-focused high-school, because they were decent at basketball and bad at almost everything else. But nobody was failing. Like, A-class should have been the top students, B and C middling, and D poor. In reality, A was ordinary, B and C contained the best and the average and D was a failure.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago
How did the A class become ordinary while B&C had a mixture of top and average? Was it that the ordinarily smart students were motivated by the sorting exams than the top smartest students?
- a-saleh 5y ago
  I think part of it was that the sort happened when we were ~10yo? People from A-class were the sort of straigh-A student that then coasted on the fact learning came to them ~naturally, so maybe that is why the perceived performance declined. Even more anecdotal thing, in my class there were more people doing extra-curicural contests, like Math-Olympiad and the like. We were even encouraged by teahers, along the lines of "No, try it even if you don't have top grades, that is the sort of thing where you need to understand what you are doing, not just ave all the right answers on the test." :D Last hypothesis of mine is, that because we had a mix of sudents, the smarter(?) of us spend some time explaining to others (mix of goodnes of heart, being bullied and even having like a pay-for-homework manufacture?) ... and as they say, you learn best, when you explain? But I could be completely wrong, rose-tinted glasses and long forgotten traumas and all that :D
akomtu 5y ago
Eh, I remember I was put in a D class. Math classes there were like "today we are going to study addition, who wants to ask this student to add two numbers?" so I volunteered and asked the guy to add 5 to 7 - I understood that the class somehow struggled with two digit numbers and wanted to see this in action. The teacher, though, realized what my plan was and said we can't do this level of complexity right now. That day I learnt something important though: that the crowd follows "the rules" without questioning them and that being a smartass isn't rewarded. We were 6-7 year olds then.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

How did the A class become ordinary while B&C had a mixture of top and average? Was it that the ordinarily smart students were motivated by the sorting exams than the top smartest students?

a-saleh 5y ago
I think part of it was that the sort happened when we were ~10yo? People from A-class were the sort of straigh-A student that then coasted on the fact learning came to them ~naturally, so maybe that is why the perceived performance declined. Even more anecdotal thing, in my class there were more people doing extra-curicural contests, like Math-Olympiad and the like. We were even encouraged by teahers, along the lines of "No, try it even if you don't have top grades, that is the sort of thing where you need to understand what you are doing, not just ave all the right answers on the test." :D Last hypothesis of mine is, that because we had a mix of sudents, the smarter(?) of us spend some time explaining to others (mix of goodnes of heart, being bullied and even having like a pay-for-homework manufacture?) ... and as they say, you learn best, when you explain? But I could be completely wrong, rose-tinted glasses and long forgotten traumas and all that :D

akomtu 5y ago

Eh, I remember I was put in a D class. Math classes there were like "today we are going to study addition, who wants to ask this student to add two numbers?" so I volunteered and asked the guy to add 5 to 7 - I understood that the class somehow struggled with two digit numbers and wanted to see this in action. The teacher, though, realized what my plan was and said we can't do this level of complexity right now. That day I learnt something important though: that the crowd follows "the rules" without questioning them and that being a smartass isn't rewarded. We were 6-7 year olds then.