Talking Points for whatever day this is (tuesday, april 7?)

• Author: Jeannie Oakes

• Title: Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route

• Argument: The problem we are faced with is the issue of how to divide classrooms. To give the “smart” students their own classes and “slow” students their own classes or to mix them all together. Oakes argues that mixing them all together is the only way to assure that they will learn and no one will be unfairly disadvantaged, but that this can only be achieved by having a certain strategy in the classroom. There is a certain set of skills and type of learning that can be beneficial to everyone, and done correctly will have a huge impact on all students, but done incorrectly and practically no one will get anything out of the year.

• Quote #1: “Higher-ability students have teachers that are more enthusiastic, that make instructions clearer, and use strong criticism less frequently.” This is a clear denial of equity. Why shouldn’t everyone have access to the teachers that most love to teach? And having a positive learning environment is something no one should be deprived of, especially when instructions are clear, connected back to relevant life topics, and is more motivational in delivery. I know that I was always a high-achieving student. I was used to the positive reinforcement and clear instructions. Whenever a teacher wasn’t explicit, I would hound them until I understood the assignment, as I had been taught it was my right to be able to do so. If I got criticism, I could tolerate it, but if I got repetitive criticism I would clam up and get a grudge against the teacher and do worse in their class, not be motivated to do better.

• Quote #2: “…because (average) students are more likely to fail, they risk more by trying.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard students complain that their teacher ‘hated them’ and so they stopped trying in that class to ‘get back’ at the teacher when in the end the only one they ended up hurting was themselves (and I don’t sit here pretending like I haven’t made that same argument). This can happen very easily, starting early on, and impact the whole schooling experience. If students are reprimanded and direction not given clear enough from kindergarten, by the time they hit even third grade it seems like they have started to give up, like there’s no point in attempting school if they know they’ll fail. By sixth grade when hormones kick in, it’s almost too late to save those who now have been told ‘school is where no one listens to you and its impossible to succeed’ so why try?

• Quote #3: “Grades can be based on improvement or progress towards a learning goal.” Honestly I wish we could get rid of grades altogether, they cause too much stress and pain. For students like me, honors and AP classes in high school were a joke. I knew how to get an ‘A’ and did the minimum effort required to do so. In elementary school I remember getting fed up with English, (the only grade I ever got below a B in, indeed, I failed it) because I had ‘bad’ handwriting. I could read it just fine, and I was more then happy to type it for my teacher if that would make them happier, but they insisted I handwrite and mine was ‘too messy’. Instead of focusing on the petty things, we need to focus on the larger scale, on the learning envirement, and Oakes argues that it isn’t the envirement between students tht we should assess, but that that is from the student at the beginning to the student at the end. Or, how well they did on challenging themselves on an assignment.

• My Response: You know what I remember from education before college? We were always prepping for a major standardized test. From the CAT in 4th, 6th, and 8th. To the CAPT in 10th, to the PSAT in 11th, to the SAT in 12th, to maybe even the ACT’s if you didn’t do well on the SAT’s. You can’t get away form them! And we spent so much time focusing on the ‘prep for the next test’ that we never challenged ourselves or got life-rich experiences that supposedly people sometimes get in schools. Even a good memory I have a hard time finding inside a classroom before high school (and even in high school most times but that is why I want to be a teacher and make people’s experiences better and more enriching). What is to become of our schools when we have so much mandated curriculum that we forget to inspire creativity or motivate positive experiences and challenge people to push themselves? Well, I guess we see that already, with a good amount of students ‘burning out’ before college and a great deal more not making it through a degree program.  If only they had taught us that writing the sentence neatly wasn’t more important then the fact that you could use big words and be descriptive.