Finnan and Swanson challenge the segmenting of students by gifted, average and remedial levels. They ve written their book as a way to help teachers understand how accelerated strategies and programs can benefit students of all levels and backgrounds. The concept of accelerated learning is based on the assumption that schools can accomplish both an equitable and excellent education of children, they write. In accelerated learning the emphasis is on challenging all students to think, solve problems, and communicate effectively, not on selecting the best students to experience the best curricula and training the rest to follow directions. The notion that gifted kids are the only ones who benefit from accelerated learning opportunities has fallacies, says Finnan, a Stanford Ph.D. who has taught at the College of Charleston since 1991.
All kids have the propensity to explore and to become engaged in learning.
If you give them relevant experiences, and show them that you care, often times they ll come through. In our book we take the idea of pushing all kids forward and we examine programs that have been successful in doing this, adds Swanson, who received her undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston and her doctorate at the University of South Carolina. She has taught at her alma mater since 1992. Finnan and Swanson say teachers using accelerated learning approaches report students who are more active and responsible, more turned on to learning, and are less likely to have discipline problems. It contains a message of hope for these children, their parents, and their teachers, writes Dr. Lorin Anderson, the University of South Carolina s Carolina Distinguished Professor of Education.