Motivating Students by Race?
It seems an absurd idea to me, but a school in Concord, CA has done just that. They decided that students needed some motivation to boost test scores, and split them up by race to do so.
The whole thing just reeked of stereotypes, if the description of the article is even remotely accurate. Jazz music for the black students. Various Asian flags for the Asian students.
The principal’s excuse for this is that she didn’t want students harrassing each other based on race because the test results are broken up by race. Clearly she just doesn’t get it. Her quote that “In this country, race is a very uncomfortable topic, and it’s time we got over it,” just goes to show the depths of her ignorance, not to mention the hypocrasy. If she wanted to get over it, why separate the students?
It would make more sense to me to separate the students by actual achievement. You know that not every student of a given race did the same, right? Averages be damned.
Motivate the students by what they really need. Some will need more help than others, and that’s a very simple fact. Maybe there will be more students of particular ethnicities in the various achievement groups, but I can pretty much guarantee there will be some of each ethnic group within the group that needs more help.
Those are the children, regardless of race, who need the extra attention. Getting over paying attention to race doesn’t mean splitting the kids up by race (how does that logic work anyhow??), it means paying attention to real differences in behavior and accomplishment. Anything else is a big step in the wrong direction.
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Filed under: Controversial, Education, Politics
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