Education Today
By James Olsen, Ph.D. June 13, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

School expectations

Most schools have a tracking system. Their classes are organized into slow (remedial), normal and advanced instructional groups. The administrators have different euphemistic names for these groups. Thus in the first grade, for example, the slow group may be called the “blackbirds” (interesting, eh?) while the “normal” group is the “robins” and the advanced group is the “bluebirds.” (For me tracking or ability grouping of pupils is for the birds.) The rationale is that in this way each student will be at an appropriate level of instruction. A first grade child who is still learning pre-reading skills won’t be put with another youngster reading on a second grade level. 


The research demonstrates that this method of ability grouping has serious problems. First of all, all you have to do is listen to the kids outside of class talk to one another. One child will turn to another and ask, “What group are you in?” That child will answer, “Blackbirds, the dummy group.” Now we know that the student thinks he is stupid and has low expectations of himself. So how much academic progress do you think he is going to make that year? Children quickly internalize feelings of inadequacy when we brand them in this way and will meet those low to nonexistent expectations by failing.

A second problem is teacher expectation. When I got my “dummy” junior high school kids at the beginning of the year, my assistant principal defined success as “no chairs being thrown out the window into the street.” If the teacher doesn’t have high expectations for his class, they will meet his low expectations by their lack of academic success. Moreover, the best-qualified teachers will always be given the bluebirds because bluebird parents generally have high academic expectations. If things don’t go along well for their kids, they will make trouble.

That means that the children who most need the best teaching will have the least experienced teachers. Indeed, as my blackbird students achieved I was offered all SP (special progress) classes. I turned that opportunity down and my colleagues didn’t understand why. The administrators also didn’t understand why a teacher who could escape the problems these students presented, primarily the learning problems poverty creates, could be so stupid as to remain with them. “I like them,” I told everyone. “To whom else could I assign a composition and read about the cops breaking up a dice game on a rooftop and then allowing it to continue after receiving a bribe?”

The moral for parents is that without high expectations in life and in school for your sons and daughters, they probably won’t go very far. High expectations motivate people to do their best. Positive expectations help to create confidence because they are like a mirror that reflects back positively on the recipient. Ability grouping impedes high expectations for parents, kids and teachers. So help your child to succeed by communicating your high expectations of them.

The Olsens have worked in the field of education for 95 collective years. They can be contacted at 154-4374 or email sml 154-4374@prodigy.net.mx. 

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