Why Schools Need Acceleration and Support
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why schools should offer both accelerated classes and extra support time so students can learn at the pace they need.
Key Takeaways
- Acceleration Matters - Schools should offer advanced classes so highly capable, motivated students can move faster and keep learning.
- Tracking Isn't the Answer - Moving away from rigid fast, medium, and slow tracks makes sense, but schools still need ways to accelerate learning.
- Students Learn at Different Speeds - A one-pace-for-everyone model doesn't work because some students need more challenge while others need more time.
- Extra Time Is Essential - Support periods, study halls, and intervention classes can give struggling students the time they need to stay on track.
- Support Expands Opportunity - When students know extra help is available, more of them can take on challenging coursework without falling behind.
Full Transcript
I don't think we should go back to tracking, but I think every school should offer acceleration. If you saw Nicole Hannah-Jones' essay in the New York Times Magazine, or if you've seen any of the reaction to that, you know that a lot of what went wrong in this situation was that her daughter went to a school that offered basically no acceleration.
There was... what seems to me like teaching to the average of the students in the school, which was below average.
And of course, if you have a highly motivated, very, very capable student who can move a lot faster and you don't let them move a lot faster, then they're just not going to learn as much. And that seems to be what happened here.
I think every school needs to offer accelerated classes. And we've kind of rightly moved away from tracking. I think there were some problems with tracking and saying, okay, this is the fast track, this is the medium track, this is the slow track. I think it's probably a good thing that that system went away,
but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't accelerate.
See, I think we have to recognize the fact that students learn at different speeds. When you have kids who are ready to move on, when they are ready for more challenge, it doesn't make sense to not give it to them out of this belief that everybody can just learn at the same pace.
Kids cannot all learn at the same pace. They learn at different paces. Some kids learn faster, some kids learn slower. And if we want everybody to learn everything, That means that the kids who learn slower are going to need extra time.
And time is something that we're very reluctant to provide in schools. We're very reluctant to differentiate time to the point that we pretend that we can differentiate other things. Like, oh, we'll just teach them slightly differently in the same class in the same amount of time. That's often how schools promise to meet the needs of faster learners or slower learners. And we don't even like to say slower learners. That sounds like an insult.
But it's also just a fact that some kids learn faster and some kids learn slower. I think we have to grapple with that fact if we're going to get this policy right. So I think the best approach is to offer some advanced classes, as many as you can,
but also to offer support classes. And that support class could be as simple as a study hall, so that if there is homework or if a kid needs some extra time to finish their classwork, they can get that done during the school day.
Or, that support could be a specialized class taught by a teacher certified in that area. It could be a math lab, it could be a reading lab, there could be some sort of more intensive intervention that's provided in that class.
But kids need time, right? It's not going to work to say everybody has to learn everything at the same speed and everybody's going to be appropriately challenged. That just is never going to work. And I think when we provide extra time, a neat thing can happen. More kids can take on challenge. Kids can choose to challenge themselves knowing that they'll get some extra support.
And kids who were going to fall behind under the previous system, with that extra support, they can get back on track and not fall behind. So, I think every school needs to offer extra time and every school needs to offer acceleration. Let me know what you think.