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If there really were a single dimension axis of smartness, won’t there be a “smartest” and a “least smart” in every classroom? And if they’re in the wrong class and they leave, won’t there be two new pupils at the extremes? This argument of “you’re in the wrong class” always sounded elitist to me.

The important is that the teacher tailors the teaching to the students. Spend more time on the ones who struggle, give extra stuff to do to the quickest (e.g. help teaching to other pupils).

I’ve also always been against separating children by “intelligence”. Having a “smart” class and a “dumb” class is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That being said, there are children who have special needs and who require a teacher who has the proper formation to help them.

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Comrade_Spood@quokk.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
As someone currently in college for a degree in secondary education, yes this is exactly it. Putting the underachieving students in the “dumb class” reinforces low self esteem and crushes motivation, causing them to continue to underperform or even perform worse than before.

Individualizing lessons in the classroom is what helps students. However I have found teachers are typically pretty bad at doing this, and in my opinion, its because they are afraid of giving up control.

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- thedarkfly@feddit.nl ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  In my country (and in many othets I suspect), the number of pupils per teacher keeps increasing. It’s really hard to individualize teaching when you have 30 pupils :(
  
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  - Comrade_Spood@quokk.au ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That is fair. I also think it depends on the subject. Math I think would be particularly hard to individualize lessons. However english and social studies I think would be far easier. Thankfully I am studying to be a history teacher. Will update in 2 years how my experimentation with decentralizing the classroom goes lol
    
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UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

If there really were a single dimension axis of smartness, won’t there be a “smartest” and a “least smart” in every classroom?

Moment to moment, presumably. But your cognitive ability waxes and wanes for a host of reasons - mood, exhaustion, calorie consumption, experience on the problem set. If you test ten kids over ten iterations, and each testing gives you a different permutation of rank, which kid is the smartest? If you have four kinds of intelligence exams and four different kids all place 1st in one of them, who is the smartest? Is the kid who aces Numeric Problems but flunks Word Problems smarter or dumber than the kid who middles in both?

The important is that the teacher tailors the teaching to the students.

Sure, which is why you want to cluster kids by current ability rather than some holistic but ambiguous attribute like IQ score or head shape. But you don’t really see this sorting by ability until upper-end high school elective classes (sorting the Bio 1 kids from the Bio 2 kids or the Honors musicians from the fuck-offs).

That being said, there are children who have special needs and who require a teacher who has the proper formation to help them.

Sure sure. But we’re defunding all that under the current administration, so its a moot point.

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- thedarkfly@feddit.nl ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Sure sure. But we’re defunding all that under the current administration, so its a moot point.
  
  Just a quick comment that I am not american ;)
  
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