Social Promotion
Jun. 9th, 2007 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jsburbidgeThis story in the Globe and Mail about social promotion reminds me of one side of this issue that's rarely canvassed.
Stories like this -- about the various reasons for the disappearance of "failing a grade" in the public schools -- tend to have a great big unstated assumption: that the North American model of teaching -- one curriculum per grade, centrally set and common (at least) to all the children in a given class -- is an unchangeable norm. (I suppose I could just as easily call this the French model, since it also applies to the Lycée system -- which, however, incorporates far more streaming of individuals early on.) However, this model is not, and historically was not, the only system, although there was significant political bias in favour of it when it became the dominant/exclusive model in North America in the first half of the twentieth century.
Other models (which have, for example, been tried in the Netherlands) where each student effectively works to an individual contract worked out with the teacher at the beginning of the year within very broad constraints decouple the social and academic aspects of progression through the school system so that the conflict between the two is much reduced for students who depart markedly from the average.
(The other side is the issue which isn't addressed in the article -- the fact that if students with greater needs for "catch-up" are promoted in a cadre system, they may be better served, but it drains away resources required for other students, and tends in the long run to drag down the level of the curriculum. But that's another issue.)
Stories like this -- about the various reasons for the disappearance of "failing a grade" in the public schools -- tend to have a great big unstated assumption: that the North American model of teaching -- one curriculum per grade, centrally set and common (at least) to all the children in a given class -- is an unchangeable norm. (I suppose I could just as easily call this the French model, since it also applies to the Lycée system -- which, however, incorporates far more streaming of individuals early on.) However, this model is not, and historically was not, the only system, although there was significant political bias in favour of it when it became the dominant/exclusive model in North America in the first half of the twentieth century.
Other models (which have, for example, been tried in the Netherlands) where each student effectively works to an individual contract worked out with the teacher at the beginning of the year within very broad constraints decouple the social and academic aspects of progression through the school system so that the conflict between the two is much reduced for students who depart markedly from the average.
(The other side is the issue which isn't addressed in the article -- the fact that if students with greater needs for "catch-up" are promoted in a cadre system, they may be better served, but it drains away resources required for other students, and tends in the long run to drag down the level of the curriculum. But that's another issue.)
