Chpt. 4: Labeling and Tracking

Person-first language is something I never had considered before. After hearing it in my special education class and now reading it in this class, I am going to make an effort to phrase my sentences carefully. Children are impressionable and if you are demonstrating behavior that is unacceptable they will most likely follow suit (saying a bad word for example). There is a lot of pressure on teachers to be role models, treat everyone equal and to not make anybody feel inferior. It makes sense to use person-first language because a disability does not define who somebody is; it is just one of many characteristics about them; like the color of their hair.

It concerns me that I will be leading a classroom, yet I can easily offend someone with my lack of knowledge. As I commented earlier on April’s journal about the word “handicap”, I had no idea that it was offensive. I think as a teacher we need to be conscious of how our words and actions impact our students and we need to provide a safe environment for all of our students so they feel comfortable enough to learn.

Labeling is a huge issue in my mind, especially in the classroom. Teachers talk to each other about their current students and I think this is one way in which labeling begins. For example, a teacher may label a student as a “troublemaker” and tell other teachers about them. The following year another teacher has this child in class and this teacher may treat this child differently, without even being aware of it because there is a label of “troublemaker” attached to the student. This child may see this as a self-fulfilling prophecy and never work towards success or even respect from their teachers.

This also happens when schools use tracking. I know in my last job the students were well aware of why they were split up and who was in the low group and who was in the high group. I am sure it is easier on a teacher to work this way, but is it fair to the students? A sad experience I had with this was that last April a new student came to the school. She was from Russia and clearly English was her second language. She was put into the low reading level group to begin with because she couldn’t read out loud fluently enough. However, when she did an assignment it was quality work. She put sentences together better than any of the students in the average classroom. The lower reading level teacher suggested moving her back up, but nobody acted on it. So this girl has been “tracked” and her academic success will potentially suffer.

I think it is important as a teacher to recognize this. I think students would benefit from “untracking” because it exposes them to differing abilities. When there is a differentiated classroom, students are able to learn from one another. When a student is able to explain to another student the process of answering a question, not only does that student benefit, but the lower-level student benefits as well. Studies show that collaborative learning is effective. As a teacher, I feel differentiated classes could work best if you were able to provide extra help to the students struggling. Fortunately, your higher-level students could be this extra help and all of your students would be able to learn more effectively. Working with each other also teaches your students acceptance and tolerance for one another. It also teaches your students how to work with one another, which I feel is an ability that is lacking in students today (thanks to activities that do not require interaction, such as television and video games).

Another issue is standardized tests, which are constantly being debated over; whether they are effective or not. In my mind, I don’t find them to be effective. This is because it is teaching students to develop a surface-processing approach to learning. They are just memorizing their information in order to pass a test and then they forget this information later. I know that for me and many of my friends, we graduated high school with this learning approach. I think it is more important for teachers to aim to develop a deep-processing approach to learning. I do think that a differentiated lesson plan can assist with this because when students are attempting to teach other students, they must process the information well enough to explain it to someone else.

Finally, I think it is important, as a teacher, to not put much weight into IQ tests. In my opinion it is just another way to discriminate against low-socioeconomic status and differing cultures. I think that the schools need to move away from following the old standards of a white culture and need to become adaptable to the differing students enrolled in the classroom.