From: betsyp@apollo.hp.com (Betsy Perry)
Subject: Re: Demise of honor programs in public high schools
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 20:29:11 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Aug26.031807.13245@jlc.mv.com> john@jlc.mv.com (John Leslie) writes:
>In article <BtGtF1.60B@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu 
>(Herman Rubin) writes:
>>
>>This has been stated repeatedly on this group, but there are always new
>>readers.  I claim that we will never have even a fair educational system
>>as long as our children are prevented from learning because others cannot
>>do what they can.  
>
>   This is a strange indictment, when you think about it.  But I've spoken
>with a number of students who favor honors classes.  Many of them seem to
>believe they will learn less in a classroom which admits average students.
>To me, it just doesn't ring true.
>
>   I went through an honors track in high school, thirty years ago.  As I
>remember it, the students had widely differing intellectual ability --
>the common thread being the interest in learning, not the IQ score.  It
>never occurred to me that my learning was impeded by "lower-ability"
>students being in the same room; and I still don't believe it was.

Tracking by "interest in learning" is still tracking.  Let me give you
my 1970's story.  Through a misfortune in scheduling (I was studying
two sciences), I had to take the "normal" sophomore history class
instead of the "team taught" history class.  Both were open to any
student; the parents who cared knew that the "team taught" class was
better.  As a result, the normal class was full of kids who didn't
give a damn, and who resented students (me) who did.  I think my hand
was the only one raised all semester.  And if I'd been susceptible
to peer pressure, mine wouldn't have been up after the first week.

I think you and Herman are addressing different sides of the same
issue.  Children who don't care about learning retard the progress
of the children who do.  A teacher needs feedback and stimulation in
order to do a good job of teaching.  You can't teach a student who
doesn't want to learn.

The fundamental question, of course, is why our schools are full
of children who don't care about learning.  I blame their parents,
but that's too easy.  Part of the blame must also go to teachers
who are more interested in conformity than learning.  In this same
school system, in the '60s, any change to the existing rules was
met with "Oh, but that wouldn't be fair to the other children." 

But, to be devil's advocate, when there's one teacher and thirty
first-graders, I can see why conformity is the only goal the
teacher can be certain of achieving, and is essential to her
sanity.  And when you're paid less than the typical plumber,
and the local plumber writes weekly letters to the paper complaining
that you're overpaid for your "part-time job with the summer off", I
can see why the teachers who care may drift into better-rewarded
professions.
-- 
Betsy Hanes Perry   (note P in userid)     betsyp@apollo.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard Company
"It seems to us that the readers who want fiction to be like life are
considerably outnumbered by those who would like life to be like fiction."
Newsgroups: misc.education