Working for Lifestyle/Extras

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-22-2005
Working for Lifestyle/Extras
3621
Mon, 11-20-2006 - 11:13am

Hi Ladies :)

This is my first time on this debate board and I have been dying to jump into some of the topics, but I feel as though they are sooooo long (one in particular is over 1000 replies, yikes!) that starting my own specific one might work out better.

Anyhow, a recurring theme here seems to be what Moms should and shouldn't be going to work for. It seems some are of the opinion that is OK for Mom to work if she must to pay her bills but NOT if its to afford a nice car, house, good neighborhood. This is considered keeping up with the Johnses (who are they???) and thats bad.

Well, I want to know what in the heck is wrong with a women working to have nice things? I don't mean working and leaving baby in child care 16 hours a day, everyday...thats pretty extreme.

I enjoyed a certain lifestyle before having a child, should I have downsized that lifestyle once baby came so I didn't have to work? What about me *wanting* to maintain a certain lifestyle for myself, my husband, and my child makes me a (a) workaholic or (b) striving to keep up with the Joneses?

Don't some people (like myself) simply enjoy living in a nice place with nice things and want their children to have the same experience?

So please, anyone who thinks a women is wrong for WOH if she is not doing so to financially survive but does it to maintain a certain lifestyle...whats wrong with this?

Thanks all :)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:14pm

Reading books themselves, seeing that others read

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:20pm

Several posters here are mixing the terms GT and ability grouping, and GT IS considered ability grouping by many (and therefore undesirable). In the suburbs of NY, at least where we were, both GT and ESL tend to be used for the purposes of segregation. I should make clear that I find this a particularly disgusting practice, but it is the reality. In our town, the "diversity" was so low that this was not considered necessary. There they just stuck the "diversity" in a special ed class.

Gifted is defined in varying ways, but usually, in education contexts, refers to the top 2-5% of the IQ bell curve. Some districts, notably some in NYC, put the top 10% in GT, but that is unsual. The Australians have developed some interesting methods for identification of gifted children, methods that rely much less on plain IQ test scores. Either way, it is not 1 in 2000, but many more people than that.

This is getting serriously OT, but here goes anyway. Many things are getting mixed up in this discussion, so I will try to separate them out a bit, as best as I can.

1. There is the issue of gifted kids, as defined above. The needs of the gifted are considered by many to be comparable to those of other special needs/LD students.

2. There is the issue of higher achieving students more generally, say the top quintile (nice new word, thanks).

3. There is an issue of how much room you allow for the upper quintile to achieve. IOW, these kids will most likely achieve the top level on the state test. How much room do you give them to go further?

4. As you throw money, resources and teacher effort at "closing the gap," how much are you detracting from the potential achievement of the upper quintile?

5. There is ability grouping which puts kids into separate classrooms, with little chance of mobility, like old-fashioned tracking.

6. There is also flexible tracking, recently introduced in British schools again, after a long hiatus, around the 5th grade level. Kids are mixed for most of the schoolday, but separate into groups based on achievement for math and language arts. The groups are assessed several times a year and kids are moved as necessary.

7. There is loose, flexible ability grouping within a classroom, such as reading groups etc.

8. Then there is differentation, in which each learner is supposedly accommodated as necessary.

As far as I can make out, #8 is considered good, whereas #7 is considered not good. OTOH, it is hard for me to see how #7 is incompatible with #8. #5 is obviously a bad idea for first graders, but at the same time, most people consider it a given at the HS level. I believe you, certainly, when you tell me that ability grouping is not considered best practice, I am just confused as to which kind you and other experts mean in this context.

Concerning the whole GT issue, the best place to start is hoagies.org. The issue has gotten quite murky in the US, given that it gets quagmired in larger political issues. All the same, I do believe that GT kids have genuine needs that should be considered.

The issue of how you balance your resources between closing the gap and helping the top quintile is quite real as far as I can see.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:20pm

<>


Yes, as you have said numerous times.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:26pm

I agree.


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:27pm

Again I agree...


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:32pm

So books are the only way for a child to learn to love reading? What about journaling? Newspapers, magazines, blogs? Sesame Street? The ABC song? Computer programs?

Your statement, since it limits the encouragement of reading to only book-related activities, suggests that you would also be opposed to the current push to digitize books so students can, for example, have all their textbooks on a laptop, or a library can provide its patrons with more material.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 4:52pm

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If GT kids really are just one or two in several hundred or a thousand or two thousand, I see no problem with grouping them by ability; they're entitled to some sort of special programming in public schools, IMO.

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 5:09pm

<7. There is loose, flexible ability grouping within a classroom, such as reading groups etc.>>

I find that too stigmatizing for children below 5th or 6th grade.

I have been wondering about this. As far back as kindergarten I remember there being separate reading "groups" who were in various points in the book/s. I remember more often not I was near the bottom - not because of my reading comprehension skills - but my ability to read out loud to the teacher due to speech impediment.

Do these reading groups still exist in schools?


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 5:24pm

Ok, I will try to refrain from addressing all points, lol, for the sake of relative brevity.

"<>

I think that's terrible."

Yes, we agree as already stated.

"<<1. There is the issue of gifted kids, as defined above. The needs of the gifted are considered by many to be comparable to those of other special needs/LD students.>>

Well, my reaction is that if you're just going to arbitrarily call the top 10% as measured in IQ tests, gifted, then that's creating a difference between those kids and the ones who are just average that may not have any real basis in fact. IQ, contrary to what many believe, is not an immutable, fixed measurement. It's heavily dependent upon socialization. In my school district, most of the kids are smarter than the average bear. Why take the top 30 to 40% and call them special? I don't get it. I'd be more comfortable with using some cutoff like IQ>148; by that standard, fewer kids would be gifted."

As I said, some systems are trying to define better ways of IDing GT kids. Again, just because we have only crude approaches to a problem does not mean the problem does not exist. Your view of the mutability of IQ is one of many. I agree that IQ tests are fairly crude. Why that would mean that a cut-off of 148 is better than 130 or 120 is a bit beyond me, since your basic objection seems to be with calling anyone "special." The objective should not be to ID as few GT kids as possible. As with other diversified needs in the school, the objective should presumably be to reach as many kids as possible.

"<<2. There is the issue of higher achieving students more generally, say the top quintile (nice new word, thanks).>>

What would that issue be? My dd is friends with some very, very bright kids, and their high school seems to serve them pretty well."

LOL, yes and your kids are in an average school.

"<<3. There is an issue of how much room you allow for the upper quintile to achieve. IOW, these kids will most likely achieve the top level on the state test. How much room do you give them to go further?>>

But the brightest kids don't really have much to do with the state testing; it's entirely irrelevant to them. In Massachusetts, most high schools that can put together classes for honors English, advanced math, and AP courses, find the resources to do that."

I am not talking about HS. As I posted, most people seem to accept ability grouping at the HS level. That is not where the problem lies. The problem lies at the elementary level.

"<<4. As you throw money, resources and teacher effort at "closing the gap," how much are you detracting from the potential achievement of the upper quintile?>>

I don't know; why should educating hard-to-teach kids mean taking away from the high flyers? If class sizes are too high, and resources are inadequate, that doesn't benefit anybody. But I would argue that in that case, the illiterate and semi-literate are needier than the bored."

In many cases one may detract from the other (it can go either way), and these are issues that have to be weighed, IMO. Also, there is a tendency to dismiss, as you do the needs of the top quintile, i.e. "so what if they are bored?" The problem is not "boredom," it really is more complicated and far-reaching than that. All I am really arguing is that the needs of all kids should be considered equally important. That does not mean that you can always do equally well by everyone, but you should at least start with that as an ideal.

"<<7. There is loose, flexible ability grouping within a classroom, such as reading groups etc.>>

I find that too stigmatizing for children below 5th or 6th grade.

<<8. Then there is differentation, in which each learner is supposedly accommodated as necessary.>>

That would appear to be the current holy grail in the U.S.

<>

As a teacher, you need to figure out your grouping strategy for the year. Otherwise, it becomes very confusing. To do ability grouping at all, you have to have the mindset that you're going to invest more heavily in comparing students with one another. While the mixed grouping relies more on evaluating students individually wrt their progress on benchmarks or standards. Hard to mix the two different approaches effectively, even if you thought you wanted to."

I am sorry to be a pain, but I do not comprehend how if you have 2-3 kids who are around the same level and point in a process, AND you are supposed to accommodate these kids as necessary, why would it be a bad thing to let them do a project together? It seems a simple question, to my little peabrain, and the answer that "ability grouping" is not "best practice" does not explain to me why these kids can't work together some of the time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Tue, 12-19-2006 - 5:41pm
Do these groupings still exist?

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

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