We have to settle for mediocre teaching, because there are mediocre teachers and they have tenure. I agree that “tired teachers” shouldn’t be in the classroom, but they are there, they have tenure and they aren’t going anywhere.

The less work that these teachers have to do, the more likely it is to be done and the less harm that will be done to the kids who are further away from the mean, both gifted and not.

As the gap between the high and low kids narrows, it takes less of a superteacher to be able to span the gap.

For widespread success, you need a process that works with high, medium and low ability teachers, not just the high ones.

I think differentiation requires too much from teachers to work over a wide range of schools. I see that it doesn’t work in my children’s school.

2. I knew it was only a matter of time before differentiation became a race issue. We don’t like tracking because the black kids end up in the low classes and the white kids in the higher. I agree this is troubling, but putting black kids in over their heads isn’t the solution — I’ve rarely seen it work. I will note that I use FAR more technology, shared inquiry, cooperative learning, etc. with my remedial group (reading 3 – 5 years below grade level despite the best reading remediation money can buy since 1st grade) than I do with my Advanced Placement [TM] class.

3. In my district, tracking of any sort isn’t implemented until high school. That would suggest to me that it isn’t really the problem behind achievement issues. If simply tossing the low achievers in with the high achievers were going to make a difference, I think it would have in the early years. I have great respect for my colleagues in those grades; they are a talented group of teachers — I’ve seen them work wonders with my own kiddo, who is gifted/ld.

4. I am not a huge fan of differentiation (as you can read), but apparently I am so talented at it that I’ve been chosen to lead my district in it. It’s been re-christened responsive teaching, which is what I do, but which I’ve always thought of as backward planned data-driven instruction. Hard to keep these fads straight! I try to go for common sense and what works. Because I teach all levels of students, from lowest to highest, and classes that have it all, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what is workable. Differentiation is not a magic bullet.

I guess I don’t see why we have to settle on mediocre teaching for all.

I also don’t see how you ever get away from differentiation even in a “gifted cluster” where students come in with different skills. I think Nancy Bosch would agree that a gifted classroom is not a place for a “tired teacher” nor is a classroom of lower level students. Teaching well is hard; there’s no way around it.

I have thought about our conversation, and I think we are approaching the issues from two very different perspectives.

I think you are saying, here is is there great tool that significant upside potential. I think that you are enthusiastic, motivated and look at the great things that can be accomplished if teachers differentiate properly. I think that you also see limited upside potential with ability grouping.

I am tired and short on options. I see the tremendous harm that happen if differentiation is done poorly. I think there is limited downside risk with ability grouping. At worst, the teacher has a smaller variation of skills and ability to teach to, and a tired teacher can/will manage that better than a large variety.

So, is it better to try a strategy with limited risk/ reward or one with a great probabilty of both sucess and failure?

I was not assuming that you rich though it is true that in urban areas there are several choices (like magnet schools and charter schools which cost nothing to attend) in addition to the neighborhood school.

I have always taught in a one computer classroom so I would say there is no reason why science experiments (no computer required), writer’s workshop, research and inquiry (I assume they have libraries where you live), if there’s just one computer then that’s a bonus (it’s all you need to make movies, video conference, etc.). I strongly recommend a site like Donors Choose to get that one computer for the classroom if you don’t have that. A connection to the outside world can also be made via snail mail.

I do think you have a right to ask questions about why any things aren’t being done no matter the ability of your child.

In regards to worksheets, in our program worksheets are done whole group so that everyone completes them together and successfully. Independent practice is things like the writing and research not more fill in the blank material that generally doesn’t engage anybody.

We don’t live in a place like the Bay Area with its mulitude of schools and choices. We live in a rural area. There are five elementary schools in my entire county. Four of them are public and employ the heterogenous model. The other is private which we can’t afford.

There is no computer labs, science experiments, video conferences with the outside world for anyone at these schools.

In a poor area like ours, without the technology that I think you take for granted, the differentiation you describe simply does not take place.

If all the kids have are worksheets to complete, then at least the worksheets should be at a high or low enough level so that they fit the child.

Ideally, I think the parents should be able to choose. If we want our kids in heterogenous environment, depending on the teacher to differentiate, then there should be a classroom set up for that. If we want an ability grouped classroom, that should be available too.

By the way, being a gifted kid does not always imply that your parents are rich.

@Jane,
You have many choices as to where you place your child and if you find it cruel, then I would stop sending my child to that school. I don’t agree, having taught classrooms where we made movies, conducted science experiments, video conferenced with the outside world, conducting research, etc. The students identified as gifted students learned from the other and vice versa.

What I think it cruel is that white students are disproportionately identified as gifted and given enrichment and access to technology while everyone else gets more of the same. What’s also cruel is that you could have a class of gifted students who are simply given worksheets to complete and that’s not enriching for them either.

What I’m about is fundamentally changing the way we were teaching (though I suggest doing it in baby steps). It just so happens that things like technology and project based learning also lend themselves to differentiation more than one size fits all workbooks.

I don’t subscribe to your paradigm of teachers as experts imparting knowledge that bores gifted students too. The classroom should be more about inquiry and teacher as facilitator.

@Everyone
While parents have choices in where they place their children, teachers do not choose how they make up their classes. So some of your arguments are a moot point. Mixed ability groups are the norm where I work and rather than complaining about it, these are the things can make it work.

Students identified as gifted can be challenged in such an environment at the same time that students of lower levels can be included in class activities on their own level.

Perhaps they can. But surely the relevant question is – do gifted kids, special education kids, and average kids learn more in such an environment than they do in classrooms when the teacher can spend more time working with the whole class since the whole class is on a more equal learning?

Universities and the workplace themselves are set up heterogenously.

However training programmes are often set up separately. I have learnt subjects as an adult ranging from skiing to scuba-diving to foreign languages. Schools in those subjects do not attempt to educate everyone simultaneously, instead they split up students based on the students’ starting skill level, and give lessons to a more homogenous group.

What you are missing here is the teacher’s time. Learning is not just about the kids, it’s also about the teacher, the expert. If the teacher is having to cope with 30 completely different lessons, they are less effective at passing on their knowledge than if they can work with groups at a more even level.

NO. What I am suggesting is that throwing together gifted and near-illiterate (or innumerate) students, and expecting that the teacher will, somehow, wave the “magic teacher wand” and sprinkle differentiation fairy-dust, and magically facilitate incredible levels of learning to be – frankly – dumb.

The gifted deserve more than boredom, unpaid tutoring of their peers, and learning to hate school.

The average deserve more than being ignored in favor of teacher trying to keep the gifted from driving her crazy, and the non-gifted from sitting there with a glazed look on their faces.

The non-gifted deserve the chance to learn in a setting that allows them to achieve their best, not feel stupid, surrounded by other students who sigh loudly when they “don’t get it” when the rest of the class does.

The current anti-tracking fad is driven by parents who can’t accept that their child isn’t up to the skills levels of the average student. The jamming of the gifted students in regular classrooms is driven by administrators who want to keep the costs down by eliminating gifted classes.