Learning at Your Own Pace

Learning at Your Own Pace It was my junior year in high school when I enrolled myself in a class called AVID, that helped students prepare for college. A friend of mine told me about this class and told me that every year the go on a class trip up north visiting various colleges until they get to San Francisco. When I went to enroll in the class the teacher told me I had to have at least a B in all my classes with a 3.0 G.P.A. Although I had no problem enrolling in the class I couldn’t help but feel like I was in the “smart” class. Looking back at how much that class helped me; students should be separated according to their skill level. In “Of My Friend Hector and My Achilles Heel” by Michael T. Kaufman, Kaufman mentioned in his essay “children from other classes, those presumably not so intellectually gifted, would tease and taunt us;” unfortunately my friends and I went through the same exact thing. As much as we loved our class we would constantly be picked on, being called “nerds”, “geeks”, and “teacher’s pets” was part of our everyday routine. One of us could simply be walking to the bathroom or the library not knowing that we were being watched, and walk out right into a handful of kids pointing and laughing at us for no reason. We had our days when we would just brush it off like nothing had been said; we knew not to step down to that level of being immature and arrogant but there were days where we could not control a word that came out of our mouths. As the school year was slowly going by the more interesting it got, we started noticing that a lot of the bullying had stopped. At first it felt good walking out of class and not being teased at but after a while it just got very weird. We were not sure whether to go with it or to keep an eye out for any thought out evil prank from the older teens or the “adults” of the school. There was a time I had stayed after school to work on some extra credit, as I was getting ready to leave the library I came across one of the worst bullies in school, Kristoffer Magana. I tried not paying any attention to him but I could not help but notice the frustrated look on his face as he would write and crumple up the paper every 2 minutes. Even though he had taunted many of my friends and me personally, I could not help but walk over to him to see if he needed any help. As I stuttered the words “Do you need…?” Kris quickly pulled up a chair next to him and yelled “YES!” all before I could finish my sentence. He had been stuck on the same math problem for at least 20 minutes, as I helped him solve problem after problem I noticed he had a hard time learning the steps and remembering them. Even though he did not wish to talk about it I told him I would help him with everyday at the same time so that he can pass his classes. After a few weeks had gone by I began to notice that Kris was getting better and better with his homework. We didn’t really talk about anything besides his assignments; until I finally got the courage to ask him why he never got the help he needed for his learning disability. In “On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read” by David Raymond, he wrote “When I told her ‘No, thank you’ she came unhinged...she told me she’d see me after class.” Kris told me had always had a hard time with school work since he was kid and that every time a teacher or his parents would try and help him, they would get very frustrated and impatient with him. When he was in the eighth grade his parents did all his work for him so that he was able to go onto to high school with the rest of his class. Kris did not want to be bullied in high school so he became the bully and focused on the “smart” kids in school because he envied them. I tried my best talking to him and explaining that he should make the best out of his life even though he has a learning disability, that the only thing stopping him from doing what he wanted was himself. After we had come back from winter break Kris’s attitude had changed completely, even though there were still kids teasing us from time to time a lot of the bullying had stopped. Besides the change of Kris’s attitude, he had also brought up all of his grades; so I decided to push him to join AVID. Two months later we were on our way to San Francisco with the rest of the AVID class. Besides all the seats on the bus having dents from sitting for so long, the tours we had of the different colleges we visited were amazing. When we came back from the trip we all started writing our essays to whatever college we wished to attend. One by one, after months of anticipation, we all received our acceptance letters. Separating students according to their skill level is a great way to help each student move forward. Instead of having them all in one class and assuming that every single student actually learns whatever it is that the teacher is teaching that day. Although each individual has their own pace to learn it’s best to separate the two or more classes so that each student can have that individual teaching and not be embarrassed or ashamed.