From Deseret News archives:
Bright students deserve more than busy work
This advice came from my department chairman, who said that if the brighter or more serious students "get restless" while I was directing my efforts toward the slower students, then I should "give them some extra work to do to keep them quiet."
I didn't believe that the real difference between the A students and the C students was in inborn intelligence, but thought it was usually due to differences in attitudes and priorities. In any event, my reply was that what the chairman proposed "would be treating those who came here for an education as a special problem!"
A few days later, I handed in my resignation. It turned out to be only the first in a series of my resignations from academic institutions over the years.
Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon, and is absolutely pervasive in the public schools. One fashionable solution for such "problem" students is to assign them to help the less able or less conscientious students who are having trouble keeping up.
In other words, make them unpaid teachers' aides!
It violates their notions of equality or "social justice," and it threatens the "self-esteem" of other students. As a result, too often a student with the potential to become a future scientist, inventor or a discoverer of a cure for cancer will instead have his time tied up doing busy work for the teacher.
Even so-called "gifted and talented" programs often turn out to be simply a bigger load of the same level of work that other students are doing keeping the brighter students busy in a separate room.
My old department chairman's notion that the better students "can pretty much get it without our help" assumes that there is some "it" some minimum competence which is all that matters.
People like this would apparently be satisfied if Einstein had remained a competent clerk in the Swiss patent office and if Jonas Salk, instead of discovering a cure for polio, had spent his career puttering around in a laboratory and turning out an occasional research paper of moderate interest to his academic colleagues.
Comments
- Teen girl killed in Kaysville crash 1:22 a.m.
- 1A All-state honorable mention 1:19 a.m.
- 2A All-state honorable mention 1:12 a.m.
- 3A All-state honorable mention 1:10 a.m.
- 4A All-state honorable mention 1:02 a.m.
- 5A All-state honorable mention 12:59 a.m.
- HIV study asks BYU biologist to help 12:57 a.m.
- Orem pair getting a rep for crime 12:56 a.m.
- McCoy to resign from Utah Senate 12:55 a.m.
- USU vs. BYU this decade 12:54 a.m.
- 2 citations issued at Y.-U. game
- BYU says Hall incident resolved
- Max Hall: a fixture in rivalry lore
- Witness: Mitchell wanted attention
- 'Grandfamilies' a growing trend
- Mitchell called intelligent, controlling
- MWC '09 season in review
- Jazz win 6th in 7 games
- Jazz ready to be without Harpring
- Daughter: Mitchell fed me my pet
- Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
904 - Cougars beat Utes in overtime
482 - Hall reprimanded by MWC
402 - Max Hall issues apology
387 - Hall's pain reflects self-betrayal
347 - Utes won't respond to Hall
275 - BYU says Hall incident resolved
236 - 2 citations issued at Y.-U. game
161 - BYU is champion of the state
143 - Religion in politics is tiresome
129
You would obviously only have second hand information about Obama's foreign...
I don't understand why we can't destroy opium fields, and cut off other main...
You need to join Dennis as co-poster child in the, "Max was actually right,"...
As an active member and Past Master of the Blue Lodge, and as the lone active...
Just get feztheb more minutes.
I remember as a student at BYU, President Jeffrey R. Holland reprimanding the...
Tired, not because he's not conservative enough (which he isn't), but because...
Sure. President Obama uses the fear card in an attempt to help the american...
Okurs not that bad when he isn't tired, or trying to save his energy; its...


You can be the first to comment on this story.