I loved those.
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I completely agree! I feel like school used to have more competitive things such as how many problems you can solve in x time and less and less of that now.
I was a pretty mediocre high school student but in hindsight I wish they’d put people’s names and results on the board. I would have found it really motivating to compete against my classmates.
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From what I have observed over here in the UK they shy away from those competitions because they dont want some of the children to feel excluded.
I find this a bit absurd as a bit of competition is healthy for children.
We had math competitions as well in school, and they were a lot of fun.
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I had no trouble feeling excluded while sitting on the bench the entire time at soccer matches an hour ride away from school, at least give me a chance to show off in math class…
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I think there is not so much less competition, we just avoid using shame as a motivator. A lot of the stuff many of us enjoyed as kids was fun because it played to our strengths, but wasn’t really inclusive. And it made people like my husband really hate school. For example, he got so stressed out about timed tests, he would rush through it just to avoid being last, and never really learned what he was supposed to learn. Turns out, he had undiagnosed ADHD.
My kids still have gifted programs, spelling bees, talent shows, displayed artwork, etc at school, but they try to elevate everyone in a way they enjoy. Not really “everyone gets a trophy,” more meeting kids where they are.
Like with my foster son. He came to us two grade levels below where he should be in reading, so the goal is to move him forward at least one grade level this year, and hopefully more. But he’s really good at math. So they make sure that he feels good about his math and never feels crappy about his reading. They make sure to call on him when he raises his hand in math, and place him in a small group where he can be a leader to help him feel motivated. And for reading, they place him in a small group where he can see others being leaders, but it’s not so far advanced that he is left behind.
Education is so complex, I’m glad I’m not responsible for figuring it all out!
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Yeah, they’re fun because we all like math and remember feeling good about them.
But if my school had forced all of us to get up in front of the class and do a stand up routine, or if they ranked us in terms of popularity or looks, well, I probably would have felt ashamed for being called out for things out of my control that weren’t my strengths, and I would have started hating school, too.
School is compulsory, so it should be inclusive.
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I don’t know. I think you’re both basically right.
The idea of competing in school-- like in the same way people compete in sports-- never even occurred to me till much later in life. Like reading Portrait of an Artist as Young Man, or Anne of Green Gables. Like I just didn’t know you could care about being the best. I suspect a rivalry is way more incentive than just a letter grade. But who knows!
And yeah, maybe the solution is to be optional, but who the hell is going to optionally choose to do math? We do not have anything like a “math club” at our school, and I wouldn’t want my kid to do extra math either.
The point about being “inclusive” about mandatory things definitely makes sense. But the thing is that our egos are still tied up in all the non-mandatory shit (like sports), so I don’t know. Arguably, by not giving kudos for learning, you just elevate sports, beauty, and popularity.
I completely agree that having gifted, and special-ed, and growth targets is a better approach, but it’s also lacking that spice of a big fat “you’re the best” trophy.
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Right now, my kid is sitting in the back of the room in math class.
And the kid in front of her, Colt, is reminding her that she’s too short, too young, and just terrible at soccer. She will give him a withering look, and get distracted, and not finish her work. Colt will make fun of her for that too. Later she will get yelled at for being slow, and also for reading too far ahead.
By the way, I’m thinking about trying to move us to a place with top schools.
The place she’s in is fine. But I don’t think they know what to do with her, really.
The main problem with being “inclusive” is that you are effectively catering to the lowest common denominator of the class for any particular subject.
I don’t see this as viable in the long-run because you can have kids that are:
not great at sports/great at math
And they will be severely limited in their learning over time because you have to keep catering to the people that feel “excluded”. This is basically a never ending slippery slope.
So yes, I very much agree with streaming for Math, English, and other specialty subjects. The kids with higher ability can attend those classe (gifted/enriched).
As a counter-argument:
I was not great at drama/theater when I was at school (didn’t interest me much) but I would not try to limit the kids that were good at it (and not at math) simply because they had to cater to my own limitations.
Thats clearly unfair.
There’s still honor role, and valedictorian, and class rankings, so it’s still pretty competitive, especially at private and elite schools.
As for who the hell would optionally choose to do math…lol, probably most of us here. I was on the mathletes team in high school! And I was on the Power of the Pen team in middle school, and I was a grading TA for geometry for all 7 semesters after I took it (which is funny because geometry was my least favorite math class).
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I’ll let you know when my gifted kids aren’t able to learn anymore because they have SPED kids in their classrooms. So far, hasn’t been an issue. My poor, poor gifted children, having to suffer like that! eyeroll
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Eh, I think SPED and Gifted are similar. They both basically just sit there not learning things.
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Not really, not anymore. A lot of schooling today is done on chromebooks, on individualized paths and automatic recalibrations.
Having the kids in the same classroom for larger discussions is helpful for all types of students (socialization, leadership, and empathy can’t be taught on a chromebook and a lot of gifted kids have a lot of work to do on these things), and being able to learn some things on a tailored basis (math, reading) fills in any gaps.
Yikes. It sounds like the school you have is really not a good fit for the little one.
Yup
You can have trophies within the gifted tracks. Kids who generally do well at math don’t mind competing for best of the best, and medium and special-ed tracks don’t have it shoved in their face.
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Maybe this is a bigger thing with your kid’s school? I don’t know.
My kid does use chromebooks, but I think it’s more to play games, or maybe drill problem-sets than rather actually teach entirely different things.
I very much wish the reading and writing teachers would just ask her to read and write quietly by herself.
And I wish she could learn all the weird and hard math of the world.
I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen her do homework coded to her “level” one time. She was all, “dad what does spurious mean? what about turpitude???” And I was like WTF.
Every other time she’s like, “I need to circle all the nouns.”
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I’m in a public city school district that on the whole is not super high achieving. We aren’t a wealthy suburb. Our district is one of the largest in the state, maybe the largest.
My kids were able to be identified as gifted because of how they are educated now, and would not have been identified in my school days. And why? They have ADHD, one has ASD, they don’t necessarily present as smart in traditional settings, but when they are able to be tested on their individual paths regularly, it comes through. And I’m really grateful for that.
They’re getting a much better education than my husband did. My husband was labeled as dumb, lazy, disruptive. You know what he actually was? A boy with ADHD. He was slow-tracked to cater to the bright and typical kids. No reason for that.
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HS (even middle) is super competitive because of human nature, imo. If you take out the academic competition it doesn’t go away, you just get it in ways that matter far less, like sports, beauty and popularity.
The most popular guys in my HS were the ones who started on the soccer team because the starting line up got posted in the hall for everyone to see. Yet we were a tiny private school of nerdy kids, how are we glorifying soccer? The best soccer player in my high school eventually got recruited for a D3 soccer team and now works as a plumber.
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