Anonymous wrote:

Maybe, but I've seen a lot of STEM kids grow to be great writers and speakers. I don't know many humanities scholars who took up physics in high school or beyond.

I was a humanities kid. Majored in humanities in undergrad. Went to law school.

And I'm a STEM person now. Not in the hard sciences, but there's no reason I couldn't if I wanted to go back and get the credentials. There's a lot more to STEM than physics. I also think it's easier to acquire humanities knowledge without the credentials. From the outside-looking-in there seems to be a lot more gatekeeping in the hard sciences. Fortunately, self study was sufficient for my STEM field. Within my STEM field, there are many people who didn't start out as STEM folks.

Tracking definitely hurt me....we moved around a lot. Some schools tracked based on their own tests (similar to CogAT), some tracked based reports from old schools.

What happened to me was we moved from the deep south to California. In the deep south school, I had problems -- I am Jewish and that was not acceptable by the panhandle school in 1975.

When I arrived in California, the old school reported me as below average and a trouble maker (I was suspended in the 6th grade for getting beaten up/fighting because I was a N***** Loving Polock Jew. Placement was in the remedial group. I had never been more bored in my life. I did not pay attention, did not work, and lost the second half of the sixth grade.

That summer, while my father was deployed, we moved back to NY area, and I did the first quarter of 7 in the same school district as 4 & 5. I was placed in the advanced group, and excelled. We moved back to California at the end of the first grading period, where I had straight A's....and I was placed in the remedial group. When from straight A's to 4 D's and and F.

After that, my father was reassigned to the philly area. There, they took my past performance coupled with there own IQ test and placed me in an average to slightly below average track. However, the teachers were good, and challenged me. I did better, and my grades improved. I took Algebra between 8 & 9, but my guidance counselor did not want me in Geometry in 9 -- did not think I was smart enough. The teachers disagreed, a private test was given (first we knew that a test was given to determine placement), and I was placed in Geometry along with the advanced group.

In the end, I would say that tracking hurt me because of bad evaluation of my ability. Because of the catching up I had to do to make up for the lost middle school years, I graduated HS in the bottom half of my class (in FCPS), but scored about 1300 on the SAT's (back when there were only math and verbal).

I could not get into a top college, but did find a decent school for 1.5 years where I excelled, then transferred to a excellent state school. Intellectually, I could have handled anything.

This is a long way of saying that I ended up okay, but tracking made the journey more difficult. I enjoy my work, do important stuff, and am paid well...as a research scientist supporting the Gov't.

You realize in 9th grade you are 14 years old? I don't know about you, but I was a pretty different person at 18, 22, and now than I was at 14. I still think that is pretty early for locking in on a trade or a professional career; people develop and evolve at different paces.
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Totally agree. Although, for a kid who truly struggles, it is probably a good idea to offer other options.

You realize in 9th grade you are 14 years old? I don't know about you, but I was a pretty different person at 18, 22, and now than I was at 14. I still think that is pretty early for locking in on a trade or a professional career; people develop and evolve at different paces.

Who said ten? How about in 9th grade before high school?

People were talking about Europe. I think at 9th grade, a kid should keep his options open as long as he is capable of doing the academic work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old mom here who grew up in the time of elementary and middle school tracking. I remember the top, middle and low classrooms. I was square in the middle. My sister was in the top.

Did it make me work harder? I can't say.
Did it emmotionally scar me or keep me from reaching my potential? No.
I made honor roll in high school and finished a bachelors degree straight out of high school.

What was your experience? Did tracking scar you emmotionally or cause you to be a low performer in school or unsuccessful in life?

I was tracked to the middle.
I did not make me work harder but I worked very hard for my mediocre grades. I did not find out why until I was 40, that I was dyslexic.
I would say there are a few scars. Since my spelling was terrible the assumption was that I was stupid. Teachers made comments about not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, checking if I was related to the rest of my family and maybe I wasn't college material. I have a lot of respect for good teachers, I have a chip on my shoulder when I meet a bad teacher.
I have a degree in Math and a Masters in Information Technology.

It makes me believe that measuring intelligence the way we do is missing the mark.

I think real great STEM kids are overlooked because they are not strong in reading and writing.

See, I have found the opposite to be true. STEM seems to be all anyone talks about these days, and the kids who are excellent writers or extremely bright in language arts are pretty much ignored.

+1

Maybe, but I've seen a lot of STEM kids grow to be great writers and speakers. I don't know many humanities scholars who took up physics in high school or beyond.