Oakes and Finns (quotes)

  I found these two articles to be very informative. They really made me think. Like in the article by Oakes I never really thought about seperating kids in "low ability classes" and high could be an issue for kids.


 "Students who need more time to learn appear to get less; those who have the most difficulty learning seem to have fewer of the best teachers".
 
    This quote really stood out to me. I actually had a converstaion about this with my friends. This actually happens at RIC. For example the kids who are undeclared dont have a set advisor. These are the kids that need the most guidence and here at school they are recieving the less. The students who have a major have a set advisor. Those students already know what they want they don't nees as much guidence as the students without a major and who are unsure of what they want.

  "If students of all abilities are to benefit from being taught together, classrooms will probably need to be organized differently, providing a diversity of tasks and interactions with few "public" comparisons of students ability".

   This quote explains that if they were to mix students with different abilities the teacher would have to mix up their ways of teaching particular things to make sure that everyone understood what they were being taught. It could be a good thing to mix students in a different class the students with a low ability could be motivated by the students with higher abilities. If the students were to be mixed though it would be a lot of work for the teachers. So this could go either way.

  "Most public displays are well-enough meant; good work shown as a matter of pride, intended to motivate and provide examples for others. But too often they are convenient and irresistable oppurtunities for comparison".

  Teachers tend to compare students to others, by showing kids works when they do well and praising them. This can be damaging to the kids that do poorly. This could bring them down instead of motivating them to do better which could be their intention.

In class I would like to talk more about if its a good thing to seperate students or can it be damaging to the students with lower abilities.

Grouping kids by ability