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Re: Stopit Stopit Stopit
Posted:
Jul 22, 1997 4:36 PM
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At 16:36 -0400 7/22/97, David L. Hanson wrote:
>No, we can't stop it. Not when government educators claim that they
>can give individual instruction to each student in the same classroom
>when the range of the students' IQs can range from 50 to 150 (due to
>government school policies of inclusion and heterogeneous classrooms).
You make "government educators" sound like something evil. I suppose you
mean educators that work for the government, which certainly includes a
good number of members of the list. What I see is a dedicated group of
people trying to do their best for the children of this country. It sure
isn't the prestige or big salary...
Further, your assertion that anyone believes that each student is supposed
to be given individualized instruction is a distortion. How could that be
possible? A more viable view would be that a strong program of instruction
can be designed to meet the needs of a broad range of students.
>I strongly contend that it is not possible and when our children
>attended a government school, before we started to home educate them
>six years ago, we saw first hand that the government schools couldn't
>and wouldn't challenge our sons in math.
You *strongly contend* that it is not possible. However, proving that
something cannot work is very problematic, as you have to account for all
possibilities. On the other hand, to prove that it can work requires only
one case. And I have personally experienced (as a classroom teacher) and
seen (observing other teachers) many classes meeting the needs of a very
broad range of students. Indeed, I strongly contend that homogeneous
classes are less effective because there is less diversity in ways of
thinking about things, which translates into less richness in discussions.
I have seen many cases where that proverbial 150-IQ student gains important
insights from supposedly less able students.
Sincerely,
W. Gary Martin
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