[Oz-gifted] Re: oz-gifted Digest, 1. Ability grouping (Kristy)

[Sandy Horne]

"K" wrote:

>Actually, the more I think about it, the arguments for "grouping by ability"
>are strikingly similar to arguments for "grouping by behaviour". That would
>put the restless gifted kids in one room, the attentive quiet achievers in
>another and the thugs somewhere else entirely.
>
>It seems to me as though that's what some people would like to see happen,
>but they might be reluctant to admit it.

Sounds like nonsense to me.

The fact that a lot of the restlessness goes away when gifted kids are
appropriately educated means you wouldn't have a group of "restless
gifted kids" at all.

My husband went to primary school in one of those little one-roomed
country schools. It had just 17 pupils and each student was educated
according to his/her abilities. This was an ideal education, I think, and
he had a very happy and successful time. I think perhaps this is what
people might be aiming for when they talk about ability grouping.

Age grouping is merely convenient.

My son has had the benefit of grade skipping and subject acceleration
through his school years. At one point he skipped forward three grades.
He had completed high school science by the age of 10. He completed
his first Year 12 subject at age 11. He started university at age 16. Due
to the flexibility of his schools, he was able to be ability grouped in a
roundabout way.

He was (and still is) an academic and I just can't imagine what life would
have been like for him (and us!) if these accommodations had not been
available. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be the happy and productive young
man he is today if things had been different. All it took was a flexible
attitude on the part of schools. His friends are mostly a couple of years
older than him and there are zero problems with this, as far as I can tell.

As an adult, I am not restricted to working with people of my own age.
I have good friends ten years younger and ten years older than myself.
Grouping by age doesn't really make a lot of sense to me but it's the
system we are stuck with. There are ways to ability group within the
system (streaming, subject acceleration). For grouping you could
pick any arbitrary criteria (hair colour, height, wealth, etc) but we are
talking about education here and the idea is to enable learning. There
is just no point placing a child in an environment where they already
know everything being taught. Much better to have a group where
the kids are pretty much on the same page.

Sandy
horne at senet.com.au


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