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- From: jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
- Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
- Subject: Re: decline in SAT scores very little genetic
- Message-ID: <1992Dec21.184606.68997@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
- Date: 21 Dec 92 18:46:06 GMT
- Organization: Lehigh University
- Lines: 31
-
- In article <1992Dec17.125818.29756@ms.uky.edu>, fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) wri
- tes:
- >6) Don't track younger kids. Let the smart ones go off in
- > a corner to help the slower ones. Knowing a subject well
- > enough to teach it to a peer increases mastery waaaay
- > beyond the usual level needed to pass a test, so putting a
- > smart kid in with a slower one doesn't have to hold back the
- > smarter one.
-
- I can only write for myself. Personally, I think peer tutoring is a good
- idea-- but. I still have a scar on one calf where the young man I was
- supposed to "peer tutor" in math in second grade kicked me until I bled.
- I was NOT tracked in elementary school, and was miserable. (Non-tracking does
- NOT mean anti-homogeneous grouping, but grouping however the cards fall.) It's
- difficult to make friends if no child in your class understands more than one
- word in three that you speak. I literally spent one entire year with my head
- inside the flip-top of the desk, reading. I tell all this not because I want
- people to feel sorry, but to notice that non-tracking punishes the better
- students: instead of being rewarded for knowing the subject, they are asked to
- work harder to teach learners the teacher can't reach-- or simply ignored.
- The ideal classroom wouldn't work this way, but the classrooms of this country
- are far from ideal.
-
- --
- Jennifer Heise Net: jahb@lehigh.edu
- Reference Dept., Phone: (215) 758-3072
- Fairchild-Martindale Libraries #8A, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015
- My opinions are my own. No one else would HAVE them anyway.
-
- "The toad beneath the harrow knows
- Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
-