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I have heard complaints that with all the attention to children with issues, the education of the other kids, the “good kids” and the “smart kids” is being neglected. What do you think?
Don’t worry, they all have issues.
So why are they neglected?
yes, they absolutely are.
It’s good for the smart kids to lose out on education. Schools should output everyone at roughly the same level. Being over educatedis not a good thing socially, so they should thank the system that ignores them.
The world may miss their talent, but with every innovator getting sucked in to tech firms these days I say small loss. Who really needs a better cell phone.
For the most part, schools stopped tracking. In doing so, kids on different levels are placed in the same classes. In those situations, the teacher has to teach to the middle, leaving students on opposite ends out in the cold.
The results of this was/is, that the brightest students don’t get their needs met and tune things out.
The weakest students don’t learn either and end up feeling inadequate.
In both cases, some student get disruptive and in the ends, nobody learns.
You heard? Have you seen or experienced it?
I often find that teachers in general give special attention to:
(a) A child who misbehaves (both as a result of attention deficit or plain mischief)
(b) A child who is either more advanced or significantly less advanced than the average in the classroom. Those advanced are often offered the opportunity to develop their talent further, while those struggling are given the help to catch up.
The average, well behaved straight A student is not looked at. Sure, the teacher notices you. Sure, the teacher will give a raving report at the PTA. But you don’t get any attention.
And kids need attention. Warmth is a vital part of a childs maturing, and being noticed is the first step to any of that.
It makes a difference later in life as well. When you enter the Real World, and suddenly have personal/spiritual problems, you haven noone to turn to. There is no-one you can trust, who knows you and you know them, who is equipped. If every child was given the ability to develop a relationship with mentors during the period in school/seminary/yeshiva, they would have someone sound to approach.
Yes. The complaints.
BigBen2, A.K.A. ET2 – PTA? Really?
Its an interesting point which i have noticed and have been concerned about as well.
However, another problem, which leads to the aforementioned issue, is that almost every student has issues of some sort that requires therapy or other aid that requires more attention than the average student should be receiving which results in attention deficits for the “average student”.
I would suggest that parents who feel their child needs more attention than they are getting, should consistently call the teacher, randomly visit the class, and in general make herself a regular to the teachers. It could backfire and make the student on the teachers “black list” too though… Gotta use good judgement.
“almost every student has issues of some sort that requires therapy or other aid that requires more attention than the average student “
I don’t think that is true.
@Loibud: Being pedantic again? I meant Parents/Teachers evenings. My point was that while the teacher will notice the childs success, the teacher will still feel no necessity to give the child special attention.
bigben2: Many parents push and beg and plead with the BOE to give their child therapy. Believe me, I know quite a few cases as well as the many stories I’ve heard from the different therapists my daughter has had over the past few years.
My daughter is deaf and truly needs to have speech therapy. Unlike many parents, I feel that if my child does not need the full amount of services she was given in her mandate, I do not use it! She was approved for a few services of which she only really needs a few sessions of the speech and a few sessions of one other service.
I get her evaluated before the school year to make sure she did not fall behind in those other services that she was approved for, but in general, we use only what we need.
This is not the case of most children. And I’m not referring only to the children who have real disabilities and really need these services. I’m talking about those parents that find loopholes, find contacts, pull strings, etc.. to get their child free services.
So, yes, there are many children that have therapy and the teachers do give them more attention.
@miritchka: The fact that your daughter needed medical care doesn’t extend to ‘almost every student’. There may be many cases of therapy that the average bystander has no idea about, but that certainly doesn’t mean ‘almost every student’ requires therapy.
I was slightly confused by your post. Is your point connected to the original discussion? Are you saying that seeing a therapist of any sort causes extra attention from the school staff? Or were you pointing our [as it seems from your most recent post] that too many parents are trying to arrange free services they are not entitled too? Does the fact that they are getting free services cause their children to receive unwarranted attention? Please clarify.
@bigben2: I apologize for rambling on. I’ll try to clarify. The OP mentioned that the education of the “good/smart” kids who don’t have issues (which I took to mean children who do not receive therapy or extra help) are being affected negatively due to all the attention given to students with issues.
My original post was agreeing with the OP by stating that there are a lot of children who receive services of some sort, that they outnumber the amount of children who don’t receive services. The teachers have no choice but to give more attention to those students whether its spending time talking with their therapist, parents, and principals.
My second post was to try to support my statement by telling you that so many students do receive services whether they really need them or not.
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