My school is taking on the bear of standards based education. In having conversations with several people, the idea that we are "reinventing the wheel" and just tracking kids has come up. Tracking is such a tricky subject. Most teachers I talk to are against it, saying that kids are forced into groups and not allowed to move up or down based on need. According to what I have heard and read so far about standards based education, this is not the case, and the groupings will be fluid. Even so, tracking is an interesting controversial subject in education.
I did some online research to read more about the two sides of tracking, pro and con. The first article I read was from a blog hosted on Education Week http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2009/06/the_problem_of_tracking_in_mid.html. The author, Mary Ann Zehr refers to tracking is the harsh terms of "malpractice". She cites a study done where a previously tracked school was reformed into a school with heterogeneous classes. The classes that were considered low before made great progress when they were integrated with more accomplished students. The author was obviously against the practice of tracking and supported it with this study.
To get a balanced view, I looked at a site that my sister-in-law had recommended to mehttp://www.geniusdenied.com/articles.aspx?articleid=14&NavID=3_5. She recently read the book Genius Denied by Jan and Bob Davison. I have not read the book, but I did look into the educator section and have had conversations about it. Overall, the premise of the book is that we are doing a disservice to the gifted students in America by not challenging them. In the educator section of their website, they talk about some of the things we can do in the classroom to make sure that gifted students receive the education they deserve. The authors go on to say "Highly gifted learners need to be grouped with their intellectual peers in more rigorous self-contained academic classes." They take the approach that students with high intellectual abilities need to be challenged and cannot be appropriately taught in a class where there are students with high needs.
An article from education.com took the idea of tracking even further and looked at the long term effects of tracking on students in terms of their professional adult roles. The article states, "The labeling system, beginning at an early age, determines who will wear a stethoscope, who will carry a laptop computer, and who will become a low-wage laborer." http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Other_Side_Tracks/
After reading and thinking about these three articles and what I already know about tracking in schools, I have to say that it is an unfair practice. I am of the opinion that teachers can make their curriculum differentiated enough in the classroom to benefit all students without the stigma of some students being in the "dumb" class. With effective differentiation, all students are working up to their own potential, making progress, and still getting the benefit of working with students at all levels. As a dedicated educator, I would hate to think that I was responsible for picking a students' future job without an honest input from them based on their interests. It is my job to provide all students with a valuable education that allows them to grow and develop to the best of their abilities.
I know I'm supposed to agree and say that I don't believe in tracking, but I also have to be honest. Working in Special Education has shown me several new sides to what we call tracking. First of all, kids who truly struggle with learning do not want to always be next to the "smart kid". All this does is make the struggling child feel worse about themselves. The child truly gets more out of the experience if you can work with them at their level. This being said, I do not like the term "tracking" as it is used. Just because a child needs to be with peers on their educational level doesn't mean that they always have to be with those peers. I do believe that heterogenous groups are beneficial, yet there are times that call for homogenous groups. Educators have become so sensitive to this term that they are afraid to admit whats best for the child.
ReplyDeleteI hope that makes sense and doesn't make me sound horrible. At the beginning of our course, Ed would always use a key word. Balance. I think it's all about the balance of "tracking".
Reading is not a simplistic “how-to” that is once learned well and thereafter applied. Academic reading is multi-faceted and complex. In other words, there is plenty to learn that will challenge gifted students throughout their K-12 experience. In fact, the old learning to read and reading to learn dichotomy is limiting our “best and brightest” students. Let’s un-limit them with Differentiated Reading Instruction for Gifted Students.
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