KMAN suggests:
==================
If I may, rather than focusing on the "burden on the teacher angle"
let's
look at who it is for...students. If you are teaching Grade 6 math so
that
students will be prepared for Grade 7 math, but you have 3 students
with
intellectual disabilities in the class for "mainstreaming" purposes who
are
still at a Grade 1 math level and trying to get to Grade 2, who is it
that
the teacher is going to appropriately serve all of those needs?
==================

I take your point. But having been a teacher, albeit not at the
elementary level, I can speak best to the dilemmas faced by teachers.

Your point is very valid. But I'd like to suggest that, in the scenario
you propose, none of the students are well served. Further, given that
the students with disabilities tend to have parents and/or organized
lobby groups ensuring that the interests of their children are well
served (not that there's anything wrong with that), there is
considerable political pressure on teachers to serve those students.

Gifted students, too, tend to have activist parents. Too often, IMHO,
it is the very "average" child who has no one advocating for her.
Notwithstanding all the pressures on teachers to serve *all* the
individualized "interests", it is the teacher who must be particularly
vigilant, and to advocate if necessary, to ensure that the average
students' needs are not forgotten.

frtzw906

"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
KMAN suggests:
==================
If I may, rather than focusing on the "burden on the teacher angle"
let's
look at who it is for...students. If you are teaching Grade 6 math so
that
students will be prepared for Grade 7 math, but you have 3 students
with
intellectual disabilities in the class for "mainstreaming" purposes who
are
still at a Grade 1 math level and trying to get to Grade 2, who is it
that
the teacher is going to appropriately serve all of those needs?
==================

I take your point. But having been a teacher, albeit not at the
elementary level, I can speak best to the dilemmas faced by teachers.

Your point is very valid. But I'd like to suggest that, in the scenario
you propose, none of the students are well served.

That's what I'm saying :-)

Further, given that
the students with disabilities tend to have parents and/or organized
lobby groups ensuring that the interests of their children are well
served (not that there's anything wrong with that), there is
considerable political pressure on teachers to serve those students.

Sure, the teacher is the lightning rod for problems that they have nothing
to do with.

Gifted students, too, tend to have activist parents. Too often, IMHO,
it is the very "average" child who has no one advocating for her.
Notwithstanding all the pressures on teachers to serve *all* the
individualized "interests", it is the teacher who must be particularly
vigilant, and to advocate if necessary, to ensure that the average
students' needs are not forgotten.

frtzw906

For sure...your job as a teacher is to serve everyone, not just the loudest
parents (or the loudest kids).