· Individuals
· Tracking
· Education
· Stereotypes
· Ability
· Programs
· Skills
· Variety
· Stimuli
· Encouragement
· Gaps
· Alternatives
· Achievement
· Pacing
· Curriculum
· Advantages
· Improvement
· Success
Evidence:
· “Many express particular concern about tracking’s effects on poor and minority students, who are placed in low-ability groups more often than other students and are less likely to be found in programs for gifted students”.
· “Moreover, the nature of these differences suggests that students who are placed in high-ability groups have access to far richer schooling experiences than other students”.
· “It seems that tracking is both a response to significant differences among students and an ongoing contribution to those differences”.
· “The achievement gaps we observe among students of different abilities are exacerbated by the failure of classrooms to provide all students with the time, opportunities, and resources they need to learn”.
I really liked this article and the way that the author spoke about the tracking controversy. However, I sometimes do not know what side to take in the argument. I most certainly believe that if tracking is not done right that it does not give some people, in this case minorities, the ability to move easily through different levels. The curriculum encourages all kids to be taught the same material in the same way. We already discussed the problems with public education in the last article and how it creates learning gaps. A lot of students go at different paces and have different need but how can we ensure that the slower students get quality educators and the same opportunities as those who are in the levels above them.
When tutoring at my first school it was so apparent that these lower level students were not analytical. They never know how to answer questions that they did not memorize and they cannot easily link things to the outside world. I think it is part of the teacher’s job to help the students analyze things and really think about their relevance. It will help them with the material that is at hand as well as material in upcoming lessons. It is kind of like the article about service learning and how the students understood more when there was a reflective component involved. I think teachers need to be better prepared to work with behavioral problems as well as disabilities, but how?
I also agree with the author and how she talks about how the classroom environment is important. If it is a positive classroom environment and the teacher shows enthusiasm then the students respond better. I think that would help with behavioral problems because it encourages rather than discourages them. The author also talks about apathy and how bad behavior always interrupts the students time to learn. I think kids are afraid of being wrong in some schools so they are afraid of trying. Teachers need to encourage students to answer questions and have them explain themselves. If the student is wrong then the teacher can reward them for thinking or trying. I feel like encouragement and a positive atmosphere would really help.
I think classes need to help prepare students for the real world. We need to change the institution and some of the fundamentals that do not help students succeed. Developmental education is so important because kids can retain so much more information when they are younger. If we can teach kids to think critically and be more analytical at a young age then it will positively affect them in the future. The author states “When curriculum is organized around the central themes of a subject area rather than around disconnected topics and skills, all students stand the greatest change of enhancing their intellectual development” and I totally agree. She also says how there should be “multiple right answers and multiple routes to success” but I think that this is very hard to do with the system the way that it is. I do not think that testing is an accurate way of measuring student’s worth and I also think that the overall problems with public education need to be fixed. I also think teachers need to be better prepared for teaching varying abilities better. There is so much that needs to be changed it almost seems an impossible task but if enough teachers get together in their school to change the curriculum I bet they will get somewhere.
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