Friday was a difficult day for me. On my way to my student teaching placement I had finished reading this article. Towards the end of 7th period (out of 8), I was setting up my side of the classroom for my stand-alone ENL group that I was about to pick up. As I wrote the aim on the easel, the middle schoolers on our floor were transitioning to their last period of the day and were quite loud, “rowdy”, and excited. They were 45 minutes away from the weekend. But one of the teachers in my department went on a bitter rant:
“They’re criminals. All of them. I swear I’m going call 311 or something and report this. This is ridiculous. I don’t even know why we waste our time on them”
I stared at her in disbelief as a million and one things raced through my head and her words rang in my ears. My eyes swelled up and it was as if my voice had been taken away from me, after what seemed like an eternity in this stare, all I could say was “are you serious?”.
Each one of those students is either 14 or younger. They are children. They’re supposed to be excited about the weekend. Unfortunately, this teacher is convinced that these “lower track” students need to be more docile and obedient or face the consequences.
What hope is there for a the students of an openly discriminatory teacher who has already labeled some of her students as lost causes, others as criminals, and others as a waste of time?
Tracking has made sure that these students have a less enriched curriculum. Tracking has made sure that their teachers focus on order, obedience, and silence rather than content and creativity. Maybe I’ve only seen the bad side of tracking but I’ve seen it do more harm than good. My overall question becomes: Why are we still tracking? Why won’t we stop?
Thank you so much for sharing Martina. I don’t want to believe this is a commonality among frustrated teachers, but unfortunately I think it might be. It is a painful truth that tracking and other standardizations have turned teachers into babysitters instead of educators. Obviously in this situation there are some other deep rooted biases. None the less, I’m sorry you experienced this first hand.
I really loved your post, Martina. You raise some really great questions–if educators have and voice this opinion of their “lower-track” students, imagine the image these students have of themselves? We have to consider as well how tracking affects the self-esteem of the students who are being grouped. The students know exactly what is going on, and someone who is labeled as a “lower track” student will lose self confidence in their skills and abilities. Instead of fostering and promoting student growth, tracking is hurting how these students see themselves, and may even rip away their motivation to try in school all together.