Tracking (Jeannie Okes)

 

Reading the Oakes article, I thought back to when I was younger. The memories were of teasing and joking and the feeling of not being good enough. Jeannie Oakes explains the ideas of different leveled classrooms and "tracking". In middle school we all started at the same level in math. My grade was all in the same class and then they split us all up. From this one class, came an accelerated math, moderate math, and "math". Except this "math" by all the other kids was called SPED math. I was decent at math and was placed in the moderate math class where we did worksheets group work etc. except at some points the other kids in my group and class were understanding things a bit faster than me, scared to ask questions because I didn't wan to get laughed at, I fell behind and was placed into the "math" class. This class consisted of maybe at most 7 of us. We would work in a big group with one teacher. It was difficult in that classroom as well because I was able to have more one on one time with the teacher but from that I was excelling in this math class but was stuck in it. It was also difficult because we couldn't really move on from what we were doing until everyone was on the same page which took up a lot of time. It was a lot of give and take and I really see that being one of the reasons for some of my learning gaps. Towards the end of middle school this idea of "tracking" evened itself out a little better. More of us were at the same level and there was an even medium found. I understand the idea of having higher and lower courses, but I wonder too that if I was challenged a little bit more and given the comfort in asking questions in class if it would have placed me in a different direction.

   http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct92/vol50/num02/On-Tracking-and-Individual-Differences@-A-Conversation-with-Jeannie-Oakes.aspx