On Sunday Aug. 30th, the New York Daily News published as its lead Op-Ed piece a "critique" of heterogeneous class and a call for a return to tracking of students. In this article Anna Penny, a teacher for all of 3-and-a-half years decries her inability to motivate students in a 12th grade Literature elective. What is the cause? Could it be a society that does not value reading? Could it be class sizes of 30-34 students? Could it be a system that throws new teachers into a class with little or no support?(her principal taught for all of 2-1/2 years before getting his job through the "mis"-Leadership Academy) NO! It is the fact that she had a heterogeneous group of students with a wide range of reading skills.
It is not that I am not sympathetic to Ms. Penny's ordeal. I have taught Chemistry and Physics to heterogeneous groups of students for many years. Believe me, I KNOW what it is like to have students who are ill-prepared and unmotivated. The thing is, there is a history to heterogeneous grouping that is very important to remember. The tracking systems that were being used in the past were inherently racist. Statistics showed that many more black and latino students were being kept out of college-prep and honors tracks than white students. The placement of student was based on the whim of teachers, guidance counselors and administrators or the results of tests that were culturally biased.
I remember my elementary school P.S. 165 in Manhattan. All of the classes were numbered: 5-1, 5-2, 5-3 etc. Everyone knew who the "smart" class was. And guess which class got the extras, like trips or the most experienced and motivated teachers- It wasn't 5-10. So for many years progressive educators, students and families fought to bring and end to tracking. We fought to allow all students the opportunity to take courses that would prepare and allow them to go to college. We fought for heterogeneous classes.
Are heterogeneous classes a panacea? No. They are more work for teachers. It is always easier to teach a more homogeneous group of students especially if they are motivated. But we should not stop heterogeneity because it is hard. We need to fight for ways to make us more effective teachers. We have to fight for the resources that our students really need. So if you have a 12th grade student with a 2nd grade reading level in an elective lit. class (as Ms. Penny claims) the struggle should be for the literacy support that this student obviously needs. Did her school have a pullout literacy program? If not, why not? Was this a full class of 34 students? Why aren't more teachers, parents and students fighting for smaller classes so that we can give all of our students the attention they deserve. For too long we have accepted it when the UFT leadership says that we can't negotiate for smaller classes in the contract. OF COURSE WE CAN! We just can't use it as trade-off to get higher wages.
I'll end with some questions that I hope you respond to.
Why did the NY Daily News give such primo space to this article?
How does this tie in with Obama's "Race to the Top" call for more testing and an end to tenure?
How do we motivate students, parents and teachers to get involved in these struggles?
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AN interesting point you make that 5-10 didn't get the most motivated teacher. There is a factor that teacher X is very motivated in 5-1 but feels dragged down by 5-10. Too many years in a row and you get burnout. In my school, some of the best teachers couldn't do it in the bottom class while others would take it year after year. It took a certain personality to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteReplacing one evil by introducing another is not progress. A remedy that is worse than the ailment is no remedy.
ReplyDeleteThe whole concept of "heterogeneity" is a diffuse one that needs to be sharpened. To say that "heterogeneous classes are better than homogeneous ones" is meaningless unless one defines heterogeneity and homogeneity and also explains how, exactly, the first is better than the other.
Leaving aside, for the moment, objective, measurable educational outcomes, what is the degree, or extent, of heterogeneity that one is talking about? Should one put students who cannot add in a calculus class?
The degeneration of educational "progressivism" into a farce would have been a comedy had it not resulted in such tragic consequences for so many students and their teachers.
The attitudes of those who (often) send their own children to schools with special programs that are highly segregated by ability, and (almost always) to colleges that insist on traditional common-sense prerequisites for sequential courses, while condemning others, both students and teachers, to deal with what is not merely "hard", as the author writes, but humanly impossible, would again be amusing if it were not so blatantly hypocritical and callous.
No one is suggesting a return to rigid tracking, especially one based on race! But students, and their teachers, deserve some bare, minimal attention, not just platitudes. In particular, we need to make sure that the majority of those who are sincere have some likelihood of success.
The current system almost surely seals the educational fates of all except those who are not unusually talented or fortunate enough to have been in a different educational system, by accident of parental fortune or location.
The current concerted and mean-spirited attack on the public schools could, to a large extent, have been forestalled, had adequate attention been paid by the public school establishment (including teachers and their unions) to the real problems faced by the schools -- dealing with social pathologies as well as with curricular issues centered on content -- relevance, correlation, its sequence, focus, pace (including allowance for individual variation) and the provision of adequate time.
These issues have been consistently neglected, while we have been beset by waves of methodological distractions and by the cruel impositions of misguided philosophies.
Both left and right share, unfortunately, a common lack of faith in the abilities of students -- especially those of color. Much of the cause for poor educational outcomes in troubled urban school districts stem from lack of the requisite educational attitudes and background knowledge to succeed in an academic environment.
This is aggravated by methodological absurdities, on the one hand (including not only unsustainable differences in skill levels in a class, but also the most inappropriate, puerile, capricious and dogmatic impositions of "methods" on teachers kept cowed by the highly subjective observation and evaluation systems that justify the existence of the parasitical supervisory layers.
On the other hand, further adding to the aggravation, is the forcing of students into high-pressure, fast paced cram classes terminating in standardized examinations -- with the extreme gap between standards and average student skill levels creating extreme stress for both sincere students and teachers.
This last is bridged only by fudging and cheating from the state on down that completely undermines whatever remains of the integrity of our profession.
The assumptions made by Arjun are really interesting. In fact, my children went to a fairly open alternative program based in a "failing" NYC public school. I however am a product of the old "special High Schools" system. I graduated from Brooklyn Technical HS. While I was there I organized against using an entrance exam as the only criteria of entrance. I believed then, and still do toady, that using this type of criteria was inherently racist.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that total heterogeneity is beneficial in this system. Students need to be appropriately challenged and aided. As I said before, this is not possible when classes have 34 students. To work with students who have a wide range of abilities necessitates a small group of students. I currently work at a school where all of our students are English Language Learners. But they have had many different educational experiences. We have student who finished 10th grade (or beyond) before they came to the U.S. in the same class with students who did not finish 3rd grade. Unfortunately this is necessitated by the structure of the Dept. of Education and its belief that small schools are better than large schools.
So we work with our students. We build on the skills that they have. We hope for smaller classes and try to figure out ways to lift all of their abilities. And we fight to change the system.
I guess that my question is - Until we can change the system what choice do we have?