Which+child+left+behind?

Classrooms in Progress

Currently, our country is in an educational depression. We are unable to keep students wanting to learn. We make it difficult for students to advance their education. Using school to its maximum ability is a learned technique. Children should be taught that education is a value. Unless we start at the basis, we will not be able to ever get our education system back on the right track.

Every Student has Different Motivations

For instance, some students are more technical and others like science or government. Some students have no motivation to learn in a classroom full of students that cannot understand the information nearly as well as they can. Other students have no motivation to learn in classrooms where they are the underdog. Students placed in the same classroom as students of the same learning abilities are more likely to have the same, higher motivation. Why? When every student in the classroom is on your level of learning you have a reason to stick with the class. Your no longer being left with questions or being held back. Teachers are even more motivated because they can easily reach everyone's standards instead of reaching only the majorities.

Keeping the students [|motivated] is the key to success. In order to achieve success, opportunities for success must be available. Some students learn in small successes and others learn in big leaps of success. Perhaps every students is aiming for the same goal but not every student will take the same path to reach that goal. Different maps of success should not be traveling together. Students taking smaller steps should be allowed to do that. To make that possible we need to separate our students into classes where they are all learning on the same level. When we mix students of different paths into one big classroom, we lose success rates. Why? It's simple. If student A is learning in small steps, but Student B,C, D, and E are all learning in big leaps, then student A can feel pressured to take bigger steps. Student A is losing opportunities of their own success while doing this. Teachers do their absolute best to keep all students motivated to their goals but when you have a large class and not every student is on the same route then you end of taking detours and many dead-ends. The more success a student sees in a classroom, the more motivated they will be to continue succeeding.

"We the People"



What people are we really talking about? We the People is a term used in our United States Constitution. "We the People" is thought to mean every single United States citizen. In most cases, anyway. When it comes to our education, though, it means something different. It means the average. Our government makes nation and state wide laws and acts, like "No Child Left Behind", that end up being a paradox. Education is something that should not be considered by averages. It's the students that reach out of the average that will make a difference to our country and our world. So why should they be put into an average group? Why should their needs be pushed aside to reach the needs of the "majority" ? It is true that most students are not "gifted" or highly developed. But that does not mean that they should just be accustom to slower learning. Teachers should be equipped to teach every student. Isn't that what our government promises? Free education to everyone?

Promises are something that should not be broken. Especially when promises come from our leaders and representatives. Highly gifted children are constantly pushed down. Their parents are told that they should not expect teachers to be able to teach them differently since they were not schooled to teach students of such high IQs. Instead of placing students in a high academic course from grade school, students are put into their aged peers. How can holding a students potential back be helpful to the student?

[|Full Inclusion] is a term used by educators to describe the mixing of children with disabilities in a regular classroom. This can be done for some of the school day or the entire day. We already have a contradiction. If the student was capable of being the classroom it would be an all day, every day affair. If the student is not capable of always being in the classroom, they are not capable at all. This hurts the disabled children more then anyone. How can they possibly learn the same material at the same pace as a children who is mentally well? How can a deaf child learn the same material at the same time from the same teacher as a child who can hear perfectly fine? People were made unique for a reason. The reason is not to be forced to be uniformed.

Full inclusion is a perfectly good way to ruin a gifted students education. It's already a controversy that a student of the highest abilities be put in a classroom with fixed expectations but then you add in that a student of the lowest abilities must learn with them also. Is it fair to put restraints on a child's ability? Can the government promote equality while giving unequal opportunities to it's youth's education? Diversity is a fantastic movement. We should understand all different types of people and interests. But adding diversity into a classroom is a classic form of favoring the underdog. Gifted students are unnoticed for the academic achievements in a classroom unable to give them higher goals.

So, what do we want? We want our government to understand what it's like to be a student. We want our government to understand what it's like to be a teacher. I'm sure everyone knows the old saying "put yourself in their shoes." That's exactly what we want and what we need to fix the glitches in our education system. If you were a student sitting a classroom full of kids learning on different levels then you, how would you feel? Would you be able to learn as well as you could in classroom fit for your needs? Consider this: teachers feel the same pressure as students feel. Teachers have a job to do. If it wasn't made obvious before hand, their job is to teach. Imagine yourself having to work with so many different types of learning abilities in one classroom. Imagine teaching the same information to every student in the one classroom with all those different abilities and disabilities. President Obama, come into my classes for a day. George Bush, did you try being a teacher in a mixed classroom before signing the No Child Left Behind into law?

References

"9 ways to keep students motivated in classroom."//heystudents//. N.p., April 17, 2010. Web. 12 Apr 2011. .

Kearney, K. "Highly gifted children in full inclusion classrooms." //davidsongifted.org//. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr 2011. .