Rock and a Hard Place

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Rock and a Hard Place
1524
Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am

There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:24pm
I suppose the teacher was saying that half the children arrived at school with reading readiness levels which current and popular research would tell us is consistent with the levels displayed by children who are never read to.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:33pm
<< very much favor multi level classrooms. The research is absolutely clear that children in split classrooms do better>>

That is not what absolutely clear research says. In fact, the difficulties faced by children in mixed grade rooms are absolutely the reason educators and parents alike, hate mixed grades en mass. A teacher in a mixed grade classroom has no more reason to look at each child individually than does a child in a regular classroom. She simply has (typically) half the time to spend with a particular childs' group. Any research group wishing strongly enough to find a positive correlation between mixed grade classrooms and better academic performance will not have any problem finding it. Because the practice of placing the better academic students into those classes, IS widespread, in spite of what my particular school does.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:37pm
ROFLMAO - whatever you need to believe, honey you go on believing!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:40pm
Absolutely true. Not only that but they gain a false self esteem when they are measured in terms of their brain power. My dd1 was in a gifted school for a couple of years. Those were some of the unhappiest children I have ever met.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:45pm
Well then that teacher would be pretty darned STUPID wouldn't she? My dd2 has been read to every bit as much as her siblings who were reading well before starting K. She, however is not even interested in memorizing the letters of the alphabet. By this teacher's wisdom, she would be one who was never read to since she is not displaying ANY reading readiness or even aptitude. The other funny thing about that is for the children who are in fact ready, now that they have the benefit of this wonderfully (almost psychic) teacher, they may well surpass those little dc kids who have had all the benefits the poor wee ones of the lazy drunken SAHPs have missed out on. You are very entertaining!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:48pm
Actually, in spite of your self proclaimed wisdom, you are once again wrong. Educators have been having a hard time convincing parents that mixed grade classrooms are in fact beneficial to ALL students regardless of their individual ability.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 12:53pm
But YOU had the information. YOU told us you KNEW your daughter was top of the class didn't you? THATS pretty definite. And a relatively easy point to come by. Assuming of course, you what you knew as actual truth. How come YOU get to have that info but other parents can't have it for their kids, just because their info isn't so easily deduced by casual observation? What if the top child in your SONS class isn't aware of his placement. What if he has competitive parents. What IF they don't realize he is top of the class cause his report card has some Bs, and what if they pressure their already excelling child to improve beyond any reasonable expectation? You can take any scenario and have the same parents make a mess with it. My guess is that the very same parents you are so worried about will make the bigger mess with LACK of information.

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You just don't want the responsibility. You want no information more detailed than school level. You are happy to have schools compared that the teachers and administration may improve and adjust how they educate their students. But thats as far as you are willing to go.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 1:17pm

Hey - what are you doing with my children???


Mine were pretty much exactly the same. DD couldn't wait to read and although I read to her regularly, she pretty much figured it out on her own.

SUS

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 1:19pm
Because "ahead" means nothing. Ahead of where she is supposed to be according to provincial standards? Ahead of where the teacher has managed to get this class, whether that is where the class should be or not? Top of the class but competitive with others near her? In a leauge of her own? Merely ahead of 60 or 70% of the class? How many kids in her class can run with her? Is she going to be challenged more - alone, or with other kids. How many of them? It makes a HUGE difference. It makes a differecne to all kind of decissions that need to be made, and all kinds of advice and support that can be handed out. Do I advise this child to find challenge amongst competitive peers she can expect to find there? Does she need to know she will never find that and has to expect as much and get used to functionnnig more or less alone? Or are there other kids she can be encouraged to look out for? Do I encourage her to see who is doing more or better here or there, in something or other, knowing full well those kids are there, that she may find inspiration and challenge, and try to learn from them, see how they do things? Or is there just no point. Is this the teacher speaking as the coach of the AAA team or the houseleague team? I hate the guessing game. The teacher in the academic classroom is generally the coach of both teams, but the parent is really not allowed to know which team their kid is on. A classroom is not an isolated social environment. Thats the beauty of it. And I can't do the parent thing properly wrt my own children if I do not know what that environment is. It makes ALL the difference in the world. The information should be available and its not.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-27-2003 - 1:27pm
So if your kid is achieving according to some arbitrary level, thats all you care about. You don't care if he is at level X and noone else in his class is anywhere near it? You don't care if he is at level X and everyone else is already several levels ahead? I care. Achievement isn't JUST about the childs innate ability. A child with a very good teacher might achieve X where he just wouldn't with an average teacher. A very smart child with a very poor teacher might make X inspite of everything. How a child is doing in comparison to how the rest of the class is doing means a whole hell of alot in terms of how the child is doing. ESPECIALLY in the early years. Who wants to be the parent of the K student with the excellent teacher who just got the whole class to X and beyond in reading...just to find out that with average teacher in Gr 1, the child can no longer cope? Your child is at X means little. Your child is at X, half the kids are not there yet, the other half are beyond, means alot more.

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