What the Crap?

I just read an article in the New York Times about a middle school getting rid of academic tracking. It suffers from the pointlessness problem that plagues the NY Times (because haven't we been pretty sure since the 80s that the sort of tracking they're talking about doesn't serve anyone well?), and there is plenty that I could say about the whole "just shove everyone together in the middle" philosophy they seem to be advocating.

But instead, I chose to continue my tradition of singling out random quotes to make fun of:

The other day in Jamiya’s newly mixed social studies class, students debated who was to blame in an ancient Roman legal case in which a barber shaving a slave in a public square was hit by a ball and cut the slave’s throat. At one point, Jamiya was the only one in the class of 25 to argue that it was the slave’s fault because he sat there at his own risk — which the teacher said was the right answer.

How the fuck is that the right answer? That is the most ridiculous victim-blaming I've ever heard. Don't blame the douche playing ball in a crowded square, don't blame the guy with a deadly, sharp thing pressed against another person's throat, blame the person who was just sitting there? And do we even know if it was the slave's idea to get shaved? Maybe his owner was like "Get thee to the square, sirrah, for thy face is bristled unbecomingly!"*

Perhaps this is just shoddy reporting, and the teacher actually said that that is what the Roman court decided, which I suppose they may have done so as not to make the ball-man or the barber responsible for replacing the slave.

But whatever the case, what is the logic behind using this specific example to illustrate all the great new learning every one's getting now that the classes are integrated? I think the point was to illustrate how this girl who wouldn't normally have been in the "smart" class was the only one who could think outside the box, though really it just makes me want to take little Jamiya out for ice cream and explain to her that when random, horrible things happen to a person, it's not that person's fault. If we're using her as an example of how economic disadvantages were more responsible for kids getting placed in the lower performing classes than actual intelligence, it's double sad. Because by the logic that the teacher reinforced as correct, it was her own damn fault she was in the bottom percentile in the first place.

All that said, I wish we'd discussed things like that in my middle school social studies class. Though I probably would have just sat in the back, afraid to open my mouth and draw attention to myself, because in the past, exerting myself academically never turned out well. It mostly resulted in being constantly paired with the most troublesome students in the class in hopes I would rub off on them, or something (why, why do teachers persist in thinking that's a good idea? it sucks for both kids so much!), or in being assigned to grade the other students' tests (why? why?) or in being told "Kitty Pimms, will you put your hand down, we know you know the answer!"

Okay, I've got the time to get into this. Here's why "just shove everyone together in the middle" doesn't make for good educations; because really smart kids need as much extra help as really not-smart kids.

In fact, to put it more accurately and much less meanly, instead of thinking of kids on a spectrum of smartness we should be thinking of kids on a spectrum of "academic engagement" (or some less stupid-sounding thing). Then we have, on one end, kids who for whatever reason don't give much of a crap, who aren't engaged because the material is too hard or too easy for them, or because they have problems at home, or because the subject doesn't interest them. In the fat part of the curve are kids who are reasonably engaged; they're doing fine because get the material themselves or have support systems at home to help them, they work hard enough to improve, they basically like what they're doing. Finally, on the other end, there are kids that are hyper-engaged; they're focused on the subject to the exclusion of the rest of their lives, they consistently perform much higher than average for their age, they want to delve further into the material than the curriculum allows.

Thinking about it this way, you can see where the un-engaged kids and the hyper-engaged kids are going to be the same kids a lot of the time. So, to really make this thinking work, kids have to be evaluated differently in every subject. Then I, as a kid, would have been simultaneously in the "top" group in reading/writing, in the "bottom" group in math, in the middle group in art, etc. I wouldn't have been sitting in the back of the class reading Jane Eyre while everyone else was still plowing through whatever the McGraw-Hill reader had to offer that day. Nor would I have been in trouble a hour later because I still couldn't figure out how long division worked and obviously wasn't trying, because I was one of the smart ones.

Of course, I am well aware that this will never, ever happen, because it would cost a million-bajillion dollars to treat children as individuals. Not to mention that, while there's plenty of incentive to try to bring the lowest performers up to average, there isn't a lot of concern about keeping those with the highest potential from checking out (especially because they often still have higher-than-average scores even when not actually trying). In fact, there seems to be s suggestion that extra programs for "gifted" kids are some how providing those kids with some unfair privilege... Clearly, they should be down in the trenches, spreading their giant brains around to share, not in some ivory tower thinking they're better than everyone else. Which would be fine, if we weren't talking about, like, eight-year-olds.


*Based on the production of Julius Caesar I'm currently rehearsing, I'm pretty sure that's how ancient Romans talked.