As school moves through the first few weeks I am getting to know my classes. The administration likes to give a few tests, ask a few questions, talk to their PR guy, hold their wet fingers in the wind and then they establish classes at different levels. I have five classes. Two of them are labeled “gifted” or “gate” and one is above that and labeled “advanced”. That means that my leaders consider 60% of my students to be above average. Really? This at a school where few of the children are reading at grade level and as I said, not one of my students had any idea where the Mississippi River was located. Our school is in the bottom quartile in the country. And 60% of my children are above average? I guess we are trying to catch up with Lake Wobegon where it is 100%.
When I was in junior high we had a section of track in PE. One of the things they tried to get all of us to do was the high jump. There are a number of ways you can increase the number of people going over the bar. You can lay it on the ground. You can build a ramp. You can call it rigorous. You can lie through your teeth.
I have a lot of great kids. So far the knuckleheads are still controlling themselves. I hope to make a contribution to their future. It won’t be because someone put a label of “gifted” on them but because they choose to overcome in spite of that label. It will be from work and focus instead of acting like it is an automatic guarantee.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.