Let me start by quoting Rabindranath Tagore, “Don 't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.” I can understand the concern regarding developmentally appropriate instruction, I feel I must explain my decision to continue on with this path. Teachers concerned about their test scores later can be assured that these students will be ready for the next school year. I believe that if we can reach students on a fundamental level it will be easier to give them the information needed to succeed.…
Graders and educators seem to emphasize assignments and grading for performance and understanding. The grading system basically labels a student’s image either being a smart/average/”dumb”. Knowing this will run very deep in how a child careers their self around school or when they have to do an assignment. The grading system makes the student more focused on what they can do to get the grade that is Above Standard than actually care about what they’re researching or learning about, this is assessing students and categorizing them basically in groups based on their knowledge and skill in the course. Teachers do try to motivate their students but it doesn’t always work and students begin to chase their grade and become disinterested in the course material. I saw a post the other day on why students cheat on exams to pass and the top reply was this “When students cheat on exams it’s because of our school system values grades more than students…
We live in a society that uses grades as a reflection of learning. Grades are supposed to show how well you know a subject, but is that what they really show? In our society it has become more about getting the grade than actually learning the subject. What impact do grades even have on learning? Jerry Farber, a professor at the University of California wrote an article, titled “A Young Person’s Guide,” that discussed grades and the impact, or lack thereof, they have on learning. Farber is correct in saying that our school grading systems are terrible because grades are not an accurate representation of someone's knowledge.…
For me less concern will be given to a child with learning disability, because it can be intervene when detected earlier, such training can help develop learning skills of a child, unlike physical disability wherein your only hope is thru surgery and it is visible to public that make some people laugh at, and it is too hard for parents looking at their child unhappy because of her disability.…
From the age of 6-11 school is an important factor in the child’s life. New social and academic demands are placed on the child. If successful they feel competent and if they do not feel that they have achieved at this then they feel inferior.…
POLICY ANALYSIS RETENTION & ADVANCEMENT 2 Introduction Schools labeled academically unacceptable, low performing schools in general, schools and teachers bearing the burden of low test scores; these are the indicators of schools that have a retention problem. These schools are either victims of poorly designed retention policies, or they themselves perpetuate these poorly designed policies. How is a student at the ninth grade level, who reads at a third grade level going to be successful? Why are we promoting kids to the next level when they show absolutely no growth as a learner? Are we asking our middle schools and high schools to bridge too large a gap in terms of achievement?…
An individual with learning difficulties may not understand what’s going on so could probably deal with it by just having the support of their careers, However the effects of…
Other drawbacks to raising achievement are institutional racism, lack of motivation, lack of suitable challenge, the appropriateness of activities and tasks, a mix-match of expectations, a perceived irrelevance of the activities and tasks. National Education Authority claim to be “raising achievement to higher levels and closing student achievement gaps are priorities in schools and communities at all economic…
One problem with assessing students with ID is the identification and classification of ID is that they differ greatly between states and is often inconsistent. According to Kortez, students with specific learning disabilities are served under the IDEA, however we use the word “classification” when referring to the category of and indentified student’s specific disability or disabilities (Kortez). The major problem that arises is the fact that identification is being highly inconsistent which is raising the concern students being mislabeled. It seems as though some educators are either over identifying or under indentifying students. However, this is not just a problem on the educator’s level; it is also showing up on the state level. It seems as though when the combined across the nation, identification is inconsistent. More than half of all students being served are doing so under the IDEA part B umbrella, students with specific disabilities, while the number of students recognized as” learning disabled ranges from 3% to 9%” across the United States (Kortez). According to Kortez, not all states implement the same policies, guidelines, or criteria, therefore some states have a significant higher or lower number of students…
No Child Left Behind was designed by the Bush administration to reduce the "learning gap" between different groups of students and to ensure better teacher equality. However, it sets fourth a method of measuring "Adequate Yearly Progress" which aims at 100% proficiency in 10 years time (from the start of the program) (Wood 4). These impossibly high standards cause greater harm than good. One adverse effect of these high standards is that they substantially weaken the safety nets for under-performing students in the nation's schools. As schools struggle to meet the act's impossibly high goals, many incentives to keep underperforming students out, or to hold those already in the school back present themselves. A disturbing example of this comes from King Middle School in Ohio. At this school the average scores increased from the 70th to the 72nd percentile from the 2002 to the 2003 school…
Author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." Students are encouraged everyday in school to aquire more knowledge and build on what they learned in the past. Also, athletes are expected to continue growing each day by going beyond what they learned previously. Emerson's words are seen as true through life, especially in school and athletics. Each day, a student, between the ages of five and eighteen, is expected to attended school, but what would the point be if they did not go beyond what they already know? The grade level system is a way to measure how far along spmeone is in school; with each grade, a student is to build on what they learned in the…
The No Child Left Behind Act has stacked the deck against schools with special needs. At this point in time with the 2004 elections right around the corner, it seems that this Act is taking a lot of criticism for it's rigid approach to the educational progress of our children today. No Child Left Behind has some wonderful goals and aspirations: to "close the student achievement gap, make public schools accountable, set standards of excellence for every child, and put a qualified teacher in every classroom". (http://www.NCLB.gov) In this paper I will be discussing how this new law closes "the student achievement gap" and setting "standards of excellence for every child" using some of the psychological principles that we have covered in this course. Also I will be addressing some of the flaws that this law has by not addressing some of the theories of psychological developments discussed in our text.…
2). When a student should be identified and isn’t, he may be stripped of the services he really needs in order to succeed. On the other hand, if a student is identified and shouldn’t be, it creates an inaccurate impression of a child’s intelligence and potential in the classroom. Along with that, it makes him more susceptible to judgment, as classmates begin isolating students that are “different.” Also, once a student is labeled in special education, he is all of the sudden far less likely to receive access to the full curriculum and given limited interaction with his “abled” peers, actually providing him fewer education opportunities throughout his years in…
Social promotion is usually studied and discussed in comparison to its opposite: grade retention. A grade retention policy calls for requiring students who have failed to achieve adequately to repeat their current grade the following year, instead of moving on to the next grade (Aldridge, 138). This policy is motivated by the…
By those kids or teens being placed in those special classes they are being labeled, they aren’t given the option if they want to placed in a regular classes, even if it’s with a special aide. In the TED Talk, Labels Limit Learning, by James Nottingham, he clearly states that “labels get in the way, whether they are positive or negative.” That happened to Jake. Jake wasn’t expected to accomplish anything, or amount to anything in life after being diagnosed with autism. “When he was three, the goal the experts had set was that he’d be able to tie his own shoes at sixteen.”(Barnett 3) He overcame the odds and now is considered a prodigy in math and science. Jake was twelve when he got his first summer job, he was hired as a paid researcher in physics at a…