Tonight's School Board Community Meeting

I would like to share my impressions from tonight's School Board Community meeting. First, I think it is wonderful that the School Board is taking the opportunity to listen to the Community. The question posed during the meeting was "Is your child engaged in learning?" From there, we broke into three groups with a School Board member represented at each group's table. 

My group discussed what engagement means. Some of us felt that engagement is not necessarily the best barometer for learning and being challenged; often children may be engaged because it is fun or easy. Others felt strongly that children should "own their learning" and that their education should be customized as per the specific student's interests. We seemed to all agree that students do much better when class sizes are smaller. I believe this should be one of the top priorities of the District - - small class sizes for all grades (small class sizes will allow for more customized teaching and one-on-one instruction). Teachers, of course, make all the difference too. But, when a teacher is teaching a class of 23 students with a range of aptitudes and interests in learning, customization becomes overwhelming. 

With this, I fail to see how heterogeneous classes effectively engage all learners, especially in the higher level grades.  I believe that a tiered system is more effective at targeting the needs and abilities of individual students. Unfortunately, the meeting ended before we could delve into this issue. 

I look forward to future debate on whether or not heterogeneous classes are most effective for engaging learners. Additionally, I would like to see debated some of the curriculum issues I have posed in earlier posts. I am optimistic that this is a first step in what I wish to see happen in our District, that is, open debate about academic priorities.