bootism-shoe-religion

How I chose to respond to the chapters of Reading, Writing and Rising Up by Linda Christensen was to find passages that struck me in a powerful way.

Untracking English: creating quality education for all students.

“Students in advanced class come to believe they “earned” a privilege that is often given them based on race, class, or gender, while students in remedial classes come to feel they are incapable of completing more difficult work.”

How true is this? This models what society is. There is an upper, middle and low class. This is what a capitalist society is. Tracked classes are the way that people have found to assess performance. I think that some schools have this attitude that the higher acheiveing student need to be rewarded by having the advanced classes. I personally would not want to be in an advanced class, especially the ones at my high school. They required summer reading. At that time I have better things to do than read a book during the summer. But now I can’t put books down. Things do change for the better I guess. I don’t understand tracking. It breeds intolerance. Nobody is better than another person. People should not get special treatment because of something.

“To successfully untrack English classes, teachers must unmask the myths about student ability, redesign the curriculum and change teaching strategies.”

We can’t just untrack all English classes this doesn’t fix the issue. The issue is that students are being separated into ability levels. Another issue is that differing ability levels are learning different things. All students should be learning the same concepts. Untracking classes is a huge task. Everything has to be redesigned. The class has to be cohesive. The techniques have to suit everyone. Untracking is parallel to the idea of inclusive education. This means that all ability levels are in one class. The teacher is responsible for meeting all needs of students. This sometimes is unrealistic. General education teachers are not prepared for the wide range of students. The students that we are talking about are the students with Cognitive impairments to the students who are gifted in one class. This range is hard to handle. But a class with students with learning disabilities and advanced students could function well in the same class.

“The teacher must absolutely believe in the potential of the student, but even more essentially, the teacher must believe in the right of the student to have access to a rigorous education.”

I think this is a problem that is faced in schools today. I don’t think that teachers see the potential in all students. Students can detect these vibes. Who is going to do anything for you if they know you don’t think they can? Why even try. Because what ever they produce is going to go up for ridicule. It just won’t ever be good enough. I know I wouldn’t try if my high school teachers didn’t push and encourage. If there was a teacher that didn’t believe in me I wouldn’t do a darn thing for that teacher. This is they way our future students will think. What does them not doing anything prove? Some would say see I knew they couldn’t do it. It proves that the student is not learning a darn thing, because that student is not being challenged. All students have potential and all students have the right to an education.

“One of the biggest lies about ending ability grouping is that “low” students benefit while “advanced students languish.”

In my classes that I have taken through the College of Education this is one of the teaching strategies that I have been exposed to. This is supposed to help all students. This strategy is called peer tutoring. They idea behind this strategy is that teachers can beat the tar out of a concept and students still don’t get it. If a student who does get it teaches another student who is struggling they may get it faster. Because sometimes a peer can teach a concept in a different way that the teacher didn’t and student grasps concept. I think this works. I really haven’t tried. But schools use a variation of this strategy. Where they have upper grades teach to younger grades.