Saturday, October 03, 2009

I'm Lucky I Went To School Then


I was sitting with a colleague today and the topic of the NY Times came up. I told her of my aversion to the paper, not because of anything written in it today, but because of the experience I had with the paper as a sixth grader.

I vividly remember daily sessions with that huge paper sitting on my desk. I never learned how to fold it properly and although I was reading on grade level, that level was not good enough and I had trouble comprehending what I was reading. I still remember trying to copy the answers to our weekly newspaper quizzes from the little red head boy I sat next to.

After relating this story, my colleague looked at me and said, "what happened to differentiated learning?" We both laughed at that since differentiated learning was not in any one's vocabulary when we went to school. And then I said, "am I lucky it wasn't."

Differentiated learning would have meant that instead of the Times, I would have been given a Weekly Reader. I would not have accomplished as much as I did that year and when I went into junior high, I would have been behind. If statistics mattered then, like they do now, I then would have been delegated to a class of poor readers and behavior problems. I would have kept this pattern going until I entered high school, ill prepared for college preparatory classes. I am sure I would have made it through but I wouldn't have learned much. No one would have cared because I was not hurting the graduation statistic. I might have even attended a two -year college that I was not prepared for. I would have flunked out. Today, instead of teaching, I might have been walking behind elephants in the circus, holding giant garbage cans to catch their waste products. I wouldn't even have the skills to write this blog.

Don't get me wrong, there were problems with education then but I believe there are bigger problems now. I just returned from dinner with a few teacher buddies of mine. One, an English teacher, was bemoaning the kids today and how ill prepared they are to grasp what they should be able to grasp as seniors in honor English classes. She said the kids today are just not that bright. I corrected her. They are just as bright or even brighter. The problem is not them, it is the type of education that has been rammed down their throats for years. They have been schooled but not educated. She thought about this and agreed.

No teacher can effectively differentiate in a class of 34 and who has the right to shortchange kids by differentiating the curriculums. Kids will be left behind. How many do we have to do this to until someone wakes up and changes the program?

6 comments:

Ricochet said...

The special ed teacher demanded to teach the current chapter. She is teaching the Juniors and Seniors on an elementary level and they are resenting it so much.

Yes, it is easier, yes they will score higher on her tests than on mine - but she isn't making them work or showing them that she thinks they can.

It is such a joke.

My 6th grade teacher made me read To Kill A Mockingbird (I was new to the south) - and then read it again when I missed the point of the book. I believe we work harder when people show us that they expect/know/believe we can do it - and then guide us to get there.

Pissedoffteacher said...

Your spec ed teacher doesn't sound like a team player. When I had the team teaching class, it was our class, we split kids and work 50 -50. I had the best person possible working with me and the kids were doing great. And then the admin, in its infinite wisdom, took me out and put in someone who sounds like the person you are working with.

mathmom said...

Unless a teacher teaches to the top of the class, kids will always be left behind in an undifferentiated class. But most people think it's fine to leave the top kids languishing with no real learning year after year.

Pissedoffteacher said...

In my school differentiated learning means handing kids a worksheet which has the better kids doing 20 problems and the weaker kids doing 10. These sheets are just phot copied from random workbooks. No real learning takes place.

I hate seeing the top kids not getting their proper education and it is happening every day. The kids in my calculus class come in with severe holes in their knowledge because their previous teachers were worksheet believers.

Anonymous said...

Differentiated learning would not have meant that you would've read the Weekly Reader. DL means that your teacher would have scaffolded the NY Times so that it could reach you.

DL is not worksheets and teachers who teach that way should be ashamed. I admit I struggle daily with DL, but I don't dumb down my work because I know it won't be of any service to my students.

I teach at a school where all my students are immigrants to the US. Some have been here only three years. We read the Times, interpret the Declaration of Independence, and in English class they read Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". DL, when done properly, allows access to material some kids would never have been able to read.

Pissedoffteacher said...

I'm glad it is being done correctly at your school. From what I have seen, that is not the way it is where I work and it is not the way my AP explained it to us. It sounds like something that could work under the correct situation, I've only seen it dummy stuff down.