Essay on Grouping

The National Association for Gifted Children describes homogeneous grouping as “grouping students by need, ability, or interest.” Many children at schools all of the world are subjected to homogeneous grouping day and day out. Some children may be upset because they are not receiving the opportunity to show that they could do well with harder work, and some children may have the feeling of unworthiness because they are unable to keep up with the day to day class work. Our book that we have currently been reading, Teaching to Change the World, describes another type of grouping that may be more beneficial. This type of grouping is called heterogeneous grouping. Heterogeneous grouping would involve all types of students being in the same classroom no matter what their intellectual level may be. During this essay I will share with you an example of my past experiences dealing with homogeneous grouping and a classmates past experiences. I will also discuss the the perspective of our textbook, Teaching to Change the World.
During my grade schooling I was subjected to homogeneous grouping on numerous occasions. However, no occasion stands in mind as prominently as one did when I was in the second grade. A couple days of the week a teacher by the name of Mrs. Hamilton would come in to our class room and work with a selected few students. She would work with the students that were falling behind in the every day school work. She would do activities that looked fun and interesting. While she was doing all of these activities with students, the rest of the class got to sit in our desks and go over the lessons that the teacher had planned for that day. This was some what frustrating to me because I would much rather have been doing those fun activities instead of the boring math, science or reading that the rest of the class was doing.
Catie (whose homogeneous experience I will be sharing) was put through something similar, but on the other side of the spectrum. Five students were chosen from her class to go to an accelerated math program. Catie, however, was not one of the selected five students to join this program. She felt that she was not given the opportunity to show that she could succeed in that accelerated program.
Teaching to Change the World feels that more schools should implement heterogeneous grouping. I am not sure how I feel about this particular issue. I know that sometimes students may feel that they are not being challenged enough in the classroom. I also am aware that students sometimes feel that the class work is very demanding and difficult. However, I don’t know if it is necessary to split the two groups of children. I feel that it could possibly be beneficial if both the accelerated and the slower groups of children were paired together. Maybe the accelerated students could possibly help the slower children understand the concepts and the lesson of that day.
In today’s classroom we give the teachers an extreme amount of power. Teachers may have just as big of an impact on children as parents do. The teachers are the ones who get to decide whether or not the students are in accelerated programs or not. This could effect students self esteem and possibly hurt them in the long run. In conclusion I feel that after typing this essay I am more for heterogenous grouping. I feel that there are many positives that could come out of it and we as a community should do what we can to put it in to effect in our school systems.

State, By. "NAGC - Information & Resources - Glossary of Gifted Terms." NAGC :: Home. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. .