Comment on Honor student truth
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 14 hours agoI wanted to comment because I’ve seen your comments and thought of you as a thoughtful commentator and I suspect we have similar political alignments.
My child is in an urban school district. For several school board administrations, the focus has been on equity prioritizing black and indigenous peoples. I agree with this. I think systemic racism has led to the deterioration of these communities resulting in a downward spiral that we, as a society, have to work hard and pull out of.
My child performed well enough to be invited to the alternative, accelerated program for highly gifted students. We decided noto send him as he was well integrated into his school, but his performance is an outlier in his cohort. For a number of reasons I won’t go into, his current school is a language immersion school. It is unique because it was started by the language speaking community and has operated for several decades. It takes children from all over the district via lottery. It sounds like equity at first, but there’s a limited number of people who can spare the time to send their kids to a school not in their district (bussing can help) and learn a language that isn’t their primary one. This has helped him not be incredibly bored the entire school day.
His school is a mixture that leans towards the affluent. The language community that supports the program is a “model” minority and it attracts affluent people for the reasons stated above. The school performs well in testing and their funding reflects that. Unfortunately, this has led to the worst class room ratios in the entire district and high performing children are neglected because teachers need to make sure those not meeting the norm or need the help to meet the norm are getting that help. Giving these people that help is very important. Neglecting high performers deprives them of metacognative skills.
High performers need to accelerate and be challenged in a way that is different. Their brain solve problems weirdly, sometimes rigorously, sometimes with leaps that don’t make sense to anyone but themselves. While my kid isn’t in the top ten percent of the top one percent, these kids need special attention that our system can’t provide.
All of this isn’t to say you’re wrong. I think parents perpetuate a system that lets them access the basic education that we all deserve and find perpetually underfunded.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
That’s a theory, certainly. I’ve seen others, suggesting that kids can perform better when they collaborate with their peers. More advanced kids who tutor a subject they’re familiar with outperform advanced students who simply race on to the next lesson.
But, broadly speaking, the three prerequisites for a good education are
“Gifted” programs tend to shrink their class cohorts and provide more experienced teachers. Their kids come from wealthier families that don’t let them leave the house hungry. A lot of the behavioral problems you see in “low” performing students are the consequences of hunger and stress.
That’s the difference.
When schools provide breakfast programs and equitably distribute resources, offer social services rather than bullying kids with police, and keep the lesson plan from being busy work everyone hates, they improve the performance of the entire student body rather than a select privileged sub community.
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I agree with the bulk of what you’re saying. I think those three points are essential. I’m even a strong proponent of collaborative learning. Hell… I forgot to include a paragraph on it, unschooling, and free schooling.
I think programs like Math Circles focus on creative engagement with the material through collaboration. The instructor engages with the conversation flow and hints in directions when they get stuck. This type of engagement is crucial and requires small class sizes. My kiddo is a talker and gets labeled as an “innovator” or just “a little disruptive”.
And in no way am I suggesting making the race on to another subject, rather, engaging at different depths for subjects they’ve shown competency in or are actually bored with. Hell, this is true for all students. Different depths may be the thing that spark engagement.
I think segregated gifted classes are a mistake. In class acceleration, exploring at depth, compacting, interest led projects, and backfilling with a well educated teacher who, frankly, the kid likes goes a long way. For a while, he wanted to be a second grade teacher because she used to have very little rules and kids wouldn’t get in trouble for being themselves. She was also probably the oldest teacher at the school with the warmest disposition.
He is, to my hesitancy, choosing to accelerate into the next grade for one subject. Normally, I’d be a pretty hard no, but he has genuine excitement to do so. That and a non trivial portion of their math is on a computer. The computer is filled with crap animation and rote engagement that it slows him down which means boredom for him.
I’m a little hesitant to back tutoring especially at this age. He’s so invested in being smart that it gets in the way of being present in the way one needs to be to clarify mistakes and introduce concepts. Hell, identifying where one makes a mistake and how to guide someone back to the core concepts is a skill. And many kids need the repition to demonstrate competency. Getting a kid who just “gets it” to tutor is a mistake until they are a little older.
Kids who are gift still require unique engagement. I met a 12 year old whose math skills far exceeds my kid’s ability. He was, still at that age, trying to get me to light up with his knowledge. And I was happy to. He had the math skills I had at 16 or 17, but emotionally he was a 12 years old. He was in no way suited to teach anyone yet. But he needed to talk with people who were capable and interested in hearing what he was learning. It was a lot of fun for me to do so.
So I largely agree: well fed students with competent, connected teachers who have a class size that lets them actually connect is definitely the starting point. Part of that connection, though, is tailoring the material to the specific child’s needs and helping where they need it. Collaboration and creative exploration is also important. But each kid moves at a different speed and being supported by kids who are moving neither too fast nor too slow will create an exciting atmosphere for learning. At the same time, kids also need to see, for some of the time, how kids move at different speeds and still get the material.