[ale] unusual global warming experiment

[Neal Rhodes]

Well, if we're already on education... 

If you take the students who are at the top of the bell curve in 9th
grade, and you give 
those students a 12th grade test, you get......another bell curve. 

What are you supposed to do with the 9th graders who can already pass
the 12th grade exam? 

What are they supposed to do for the next 3 years? 

Thankfully Trickum and Parkview do a fairly decent job at providing a
challenge, and I sure didn't mind
that my daughter advance placed 40 college hours. 

I have met some teachers with the brains to handle children like yours,
and actually make them an 
asset.  It does take a lot of psychology to grasp which child
personality type can assist which peers. 
But not all teachers can, and if a less experienced teacher is also
saddled with an alphabet soup of kids
(ADD, ADHD, Aspergers, etc) they just may not have the brains left to
juggle. 

Being a good parent takes nerves of steel. 

On Thu, 2010-02-11 at 14:45 -0600, Preston Boyington wrote: 

> Neal Rhodes wrote:
> <snipped>
> > If teachers only had to teach students that were willing to learn, ya 
> > think we might do a better job of educating?
> > 
> 
> imagine my surprise when, upon starting public school (kindergarten), my 
> wife and I were promptly chastised because our daughter could read, knew 
> her alphabet, colors, had an early basis for general math, could 
> distinguish money and give simple change, etc.  she was then 
> continuously given very poor marks because of 'talking in class' and 
> otherwise being 'disruptive'.
> 
> we later found that this was because she finished her work and was 
> trying to help fellow students.
> 
> in an effort to curb mounting frustration it was decided that she and 
> another girl would go sit in with the 1st graders for the reading and 
> writing parts of their school day.  after their first day in the class, 
> the 1st graders came to their teacher and said they wanted to work 
> harder on their reading so 'those little kindergarteners wouldn't beat 
> them any more'.  the 1st grade teacher was floored at the immediate 
> about-face of her students and all of them started to actually care 
> about what they were doing.
> 
> when questioned as to why this wasn't common practice (letting a child 
> take more difficult course), we were told that it was because of 'No 
> Child Left Behind'.  soon after we found a better program to enroll her 
> into.
> 
> so it seems in this case that:
> Student Competition = 1
> No Child Left Behind = 0
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