Segregation in classroom-ablity based - Page 2

Hi Debators , As we know in India there are some schools that categorise children on the basis of their ability .I don't know anything about U.S schools , so please feel free to add information . Example - Brilliant kids are in one section , while the regular janta is another section . The purpose being , the brilliant kids are kept in a special class where studies are more adavanced .

Now my question is that is this categorisation good for the children- Brilliant & Ordinary ? Does this help the brilliant kids in performing better than the rest ?
Is this a form of segregation that will affect the attitude of the brilliant child into believing he / she's more superior ?

Will the regular class be affected by this categorisation , where they will feel they aren't intellectually as smart as the brilliant section ?
Do you think this categorisation will affect the morale of the regular kids and so the performance will drop ?

Please give your views on this topic . I'll post mine later .😊
Edited by Aparna_BD - 18 years ago

Hi Aparna!
Great topic.
Well it also happens in here(Bangladesh). Putting the brilliant ones in one, the soso one in another, and dumb ones in the another one.
I think it is not a big deal to categorised them. The Brilliant ones need a different treatment from course teacher. The ability of understanding things of them are different from others. Where less brilliant ones need more attention and time from teacher to understand a particular subject.
And it may enthu the students to improve themselves ...and be part of the cooler brilliant section.
But ya there should be a common campus so that all can be interact with each other. Can take some good qualities from the good ones.

Chocolate

Let me tell you guys how i thought of this topic . My hubby was recently in a seminar and was shown a Video . This Video was about an experiment done by a teacher .This experiment was after segregation in U.S was done away with . Some 25 - 30 years ago .

A teacher in a classroom decided to do an experiment . There were only White kids in the classroom , so that they get a feel of segregation she told them - today i (authority/ teacher) have decided kids with Blue eyes are more Intelligent than the kids with brown eyes.Kids with blue eyes will get more playground priveledges and classroom priveledges . They'll sit apart from the brown eyes . The teacher noticed that the kids with blue eyes immediately got an attitude and the kids with brown eyes , their shoulders drooped and morale went low.

After a few days, she told them , sorry i made a mistake , its the kids with brown eyes who are intellectually more superior than the blue eyes and today the priveledges go to brown eyes .

Now at the end of the study , it was noticed that when it was annouced that Kids with blue eyes are intellectually superior than brown eyes . The performance of the kids with brown eyes dropped drastically .
Now the moment the teacher annouced that the brown eyes are superior , the performance of these kids with brown eyes went up drastically .....above the regular performance before the experiment .

Now this fascinating experiment was sent to Harvard for study . This showed the effects of segregation can have such drastic affects on children that it affects the performance .

Now i feel if all children - brilliant or average are kept together .An average child can aim higher . While the brilliant child can lead and set an example for the other children .
While those resources that are used to set up a seperate classroom , can be used to have more teachers per classroom , so that individual attention within a classroom is paid to both the average and the brilliant.Edited by Aparna_BD - 18 years ago

Well I haven't come across such categorization till now, but if indeed this happens then it is not fair, for the school and the child are equally responsible for his present gradation, whatever category may it be, whether brilliant, good, not so good, average or otherwise.

School should teach all students with the same efforts and teachings as any student, I believe every human being is special, and different in many ways including the grasping, one may pick up at the initial stages and may not be able to retain in the long run, similarly some student may be a performer all throughout whereas some one may be like proverbial tortoise story and may finish faster than any one and everyone.

So categorization is not only unfair but also very difficult, for the stage in which the students are it is very difficult to pick which has the potential, and who will ultimately turn to be brilliant, hence it is also undesirable. Regarding motivation going down, yes indeed any human being would be upset and dejected with this kind of differentiation.

[QUOTE=Willows]Well I haven't come across such categorization till now, but if indeed this happens then it is not fair, for the school and the child are equally responsible for his present gradation, whatever category may it be, whether brilliant, good, not so good, average or otherwise.
QUOTE]

I am not sure about other parts of India . But it happens in many Delhi Schools . And infact the most famous and the best ones . Like Delhi Public School .

Originally posted by: Aparna_BD

you may be right, for i passed out atleast 10 years ago and in mumbai so i would not really know about delhi.

categorisation is bad unless the school has children with special needs who are also in the mainstream. i say it is bad becos i believe it can be rather detrimental to many students. the brilliant not only develop attitude, but also face more pressure to do better. and failing which develop complexes, and move towards depression. they begin to think the world owes them a good living and slowly tend to become callous.

the average ones tend to think that strife is what life is all about and are under pressure from family and friends to do better. healthy competition which arises if all were put together would be ideal. the average ones slowly dont live their childhood and are soon lost in the striving to be like the joneses process.

all told segregation becos of the intellectual abilities is not good in the long run!

it happens here, i think it may make them feel enbarrassed, and less cnfident, but luckily, im not in a low class

Interesting, I have never come across any segregation that the system or the teachers do, they tend to have favorites.

Now when the segregation happened at DPS is this made public that -you are in 8D and not 8C because you are more smart-if that is true then I think that is hurtful thing to do. It's always good to have a mix of students in every section. My school interestingly always mixed the student every year from section to section until they were in highschool. The idea was you know everyone and are friendly with everyone but when you already know who your friends are by high school they let you stay in the same class as them.

But I have noticed how people make friends when they are younger and older too, typically with similar interests and likes. So segregation does happen outside the classroom among children. The cooler ones hang out together and such. Generally, there are exceptions as always. This definitely causes especially teens a lot of heartache at times when they are troubled or harassed for the way they dress or how dumb they are and such.

Edited by Rindam - 18 years ago

Originally posted by: Rindam

Interesting, I have never come across any segregation that the system or the teachers do, they tend to have favorites.

Now when the segregation happened at DPS is this made public that -you are in 8D and not 8C because you are more smart-if that is true then I think that is hurtful thing to do.Yes . The brillant ones are sent into the "ability" section It's always good to have a mix of students in every section. My school interestingly always mixed the student every year from section to section until they were in highschool. The idea was you know everyone and are friendly with everyone but when you already know who your friends are by high school they let you stay in the same class as them.

But I have noticed how people make friends when they are younger and older too, typically with similar interests and likes. So segregation does happen outside the classroom among children. The cooler ones hang out together and such. Yes that does happen all the time amongst children in the playground . But in my opinion the school authority should not justify it by making it inside the classroom too .What happens within school is the schoold responsibility . One can not do that much once they are outside school and form gangs on the basis of being cool or smart !! Generally, there are exceptions as always. This definitely causes especially teens a lot of heartache at times when they are troubled or harassed for the way they dress or how dumb they are and such.