Life is a Journey to be Savoured. Work it Faster, Do it Better, Make us Stronger.
I've suddenly been reminded of these two contrasting ideas. A slower paced lifestyle good for the soul and the heart; and a faster, stronger, healthier pace of life - good for the body and the mind. It boils down to personalities, I suppose. Or maybe to seasons, or to weekdays and weekends. Or country life and city life. Or even to two different hemispheres, or continents. It certainly has to do with movement. These are words used to express an appreciation and a savouring of life or dynamism and efficiency.
Since my stay in Mexico I've come to associate a joyous slower paced life with Latin America and a Faster, Better, Stronger need for an efficient lifestyle with more developed parts of the world, shall we say Europe. Thinking about it in Sofia, I would say North America (Canada, US and Mexico) are certainly living faster and more efficiently than our European joy in a slower more satisfying life. Who's to say? Points of view. Maybe it depends on your current geographical status, maybe it depends on where you love more.
Certainly these two opposing concepts help me define life almost daily. Like muscles in our body, slow muscles are good for long distance running, and endurance activities - they can work longer without getting tired; fast moving muscles are good for rapid movements, like jumping and sprinting, they contract quickly but get tired faster as they consume a lot of energy. Our muscles are made up of both types of fibres, our legs and back are made up of mostly slow twitch muscles to maintain posture, and our eyes are made up of rapid twitch muscles.
We find balance in the fusion, both types of fibres working together.
I'll try to relate these ideas to classroom organisation. A student's aptitude depends on their literacy, their learning success on their learning strategies. A learning strategy is how one gains, processes, and collects information (Gregorc, 1979; Davidson et al., 1992).
It's impossible to think of a group of students as uniform or alike. Classrooms are diverse, as much as we would like to adapt the system and form uniform groups of advanced students and slower learners. Even when an academic system lends itself to streaming students into ability groups there is still diversity within them. Grouping by ability may improve the academic performance of advanced students in the short run. High-achieving students tend to progress further when advanced academic courses are available. They need an incentive. They tend to perform better if higher standards are set and required of them. It is an idealistic notion that this can be achieved within the Bulgarian public sector, but perhaps it is not necessary. For every research reviewer who has concluded that grouping is helpful, there is another who has concluded that it is harmful. There is substantial evidence that streaming doesn't alleviate attitude and behavioural problems among students, it usually makes them worse, showing that grouping is more often than not biased and unfair. A result of streaming is a segregation by ethnicity and social class. As mentioned, students' academic performance may improve for some time, but over time their achievements tend to become more unequal. On the whole the method of streaming can be detrimental to the students' equal learning opportunities despite their abilities. It is a controversy that has gone on for almost a century. We fluctuate between mixed-ability teaching and a more conscious focus towards equality of educational opportunity. There are political, economic, and social factors that dictate this.
The practice of grouping by ability in school was popular after the Second World War. It subsequently fell into disfavour, as research proved that its impact may be negative. However, it continued to be practiced as a better means of raising standards, and over the last decade it has become common again.
In the ESL classroom, undeniably grouping by language ability is of importance, it gives students more opportunity to practice the language, and reduces class size. It facilitates the choice of teaching material. It does not guarantee high academic performance, but it provides a positive learning environment for students of diverse learning abilities, within a fixed curriculum, appropriate for that level. In order to appreciate better all the unique personalities that a language teacher comes across in a self-contained group, the instructor can vary the grouping arrangements. The students' seating, the types of activities, the layout of the furniture can be used to safeguard students' movement and behaviour, and assist a teacher in maintaining control over a group of pupils.
According to Freiberg and Driscoll (1992), the kind of classroom that would best support grouping practices is a cohesive classroom. In a cohesive classroom, students develop socially and emotionally and are able to be group members. In this respect, the classroom teacher should consider the norms of the class to determine its cohesiveness. Norms are shared expectations of how group members should think, feel and behave (Weber, 1994). Norms greatly influence interpersonal relationships because they provide guidelines that help members understand what is expected of them and what they should expect from others. Productive group norms are essential to group effectiveness (Weber, 1994). Therefore, one important task of the teacher is to help the group establish, accept and maintain productive group norms. (GROUPING IN THE ESL CLASSROOM Nor Azmi b. Mustafa)
As a teacher you gain appreciation of your students and subject through classroom diversity, be it at a joyous pace savouring all the profession has to offer, or faithfully teaching your pupils to be faster, better, stronger individuals.
The following links provide further reading:
Primary pupils' experiences of different types of grouping in school
Standards, Inequality & Ability Grouping in Schools
Grouping in the ESL classroom
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