Class War in the Classroom

                                                                      Join the mailing list, get the blog delivered to your inbox

In a perfect world every kid would get their own teacher who could guide them through each subject in life with expertise and patience and compassion. Challenge them here, catch them up there, untangle this, focus on that.

But of course that’s not the way the things work and the groups they are taught in are based on the year they were they born and not their capabilities or lack thereof. So, as a result we have “gifted” kids, “average” kids and “Not So Smart (NSS)” kids. 

You cannot apply one of these labels across the entire spectrum of things a kid does. There are gifted kids who are hopeless at sports and gifted guitars players who don’t read well. There are brilliant mathematicians who haven’t couldn’t throw a Frisbee to save their lives and some amazing athletes who are also academically brilliant and there are captains of industry who are completely illiterate.

The definition of a gifted kid is one who shows strengths in one or more areas and is easily bored and wants more of a challenge in those areas. 

I have asked this before: Who does that formula NOT apply to? 

If kids were grouped together according to their level in each individual subject this labeling wouldn’t occur and kids would get help where they need it and challenge where they could use it.

Instead we have articles like this one that talk about how gifted kids are in a bit of a bind because sometimes being clever makes it hard to socialize, they hide their smarts to “fit in”. Can the same not be said of average and NSS kids? Of any of us? Old or young, smart or otherwise? Isn't socializing hard enough without being labelled according to academic skills? Don’t NSS kids hide their disadvantages the same way smarts kids do? Doesn’t one kid hide their inability to read the same way another might hide their ability to understand physics? Aren’t we all susceptible to ridicule based on how much we know, how much we don’t know, how tall or short thin or fat we are? But where we can’t change our height, we can learn and get smarter, in the right environment.

There’s a class war in the classroom and it is stunting our collective growth.

What if all the kids who read at a grade 2 level were grouped together regardless of age?

What if all the kids doing grade 5 math were grouped together regardless of what year they were born?

It’s the way swimming lessons work and no one dies. It’s the way university works and no one dies.

Kids would move from one subject to the next in groups that were assembled by understanding rather than age. When a level is mastered the student moves to the next group at their own rate.

If everyone can suck at things and excels at others the thrill of pointing it out dies.

Wouldn't everyone eventually feel secure enough to show/admit their weaknesses, get help and thrive? 

Wouldn’t it mean that a teacher would be talking to a group of kids who were all on the same page and no one would be acting out because they “so get it” and are bored or can’t  “get it” and act like the class clown rather than be seen as the village idiot?

And rather than an article like this that says we need to do more for our gifted kids we would be doing more for ALL our kids and they could all very well be gifted at something? 

Something they, in the current system, may never discover because of how far they get left behind or crappy they feel?