okay, i might be stepping out on a limb when i say this: i dont think grouping is necessarily all that bad. now wait! dont hate me just yet! i was grouped as a student in public schools. heck, im still grouped by ability now in college because im in the honors program! so im only saying i have personal experience. i cant speak for anyone else - just my own person. i was one of the infamous "AG" kids. there, i said it. i knew i was different. other kids told me i was different. i was treated differently by teachers. etc, etc... but i didnt care. i liked going to a special class for English because i was bored out of my mind with everything else. im not being cocky because im far from it. but i mean, admit it - everyone gets annoyed when they sit with someone of a "lower intelligence level" and have to listen to that person read, discuss, or try to grasp a concept. and after so long of that, you just kind of give up and quit listening. so yeah, i suppose im just agreeing with a few people that grouping for the "AG" is quite nice. i wouldnt have wanted to go through school without that special class for English.

but what about the "low intelligence/ability" level kids? well, in elementary school and middle school, i knew a few kids who went to their separate class during the day to get their extra tutoring and whatnot. i dont know if it helped. but in high school, they were placed in the regular "normal" class with "normal" and average students. however, the catch is that because they still couldnt function so well, a special teacher had to come in to assist the student while the regular teacher went about business. in other words, it was like having a translator there for you. i dont know about academic results or statistics. frankly, i could care less about them. i'm more for how it makes a student feel. and to me, having to sit with other students who you know might know more about shakespeare than you do, but then have them stare at you while the "special" teacher helps you personally just seems absolutely humiliating. i mean, it was a fact that we knew which kids were "AG" and which were "LD" and outside the classrooms, we could all talk and get along. you just didnt mention your "academic status." nobody talked about that stuff. but when you put a learning disabled student in a classroom with others who function at a higher level, its pushing that fact into the students' faces and they cant help but see it and pay attention to it. i cant say what i wouldve felt like if that had been me, because thats never happened to me. i can only speak for myself. im just assuming that something like that would be a bit embarrassing to a student.

so maybe im one of those people who just complain and offer no solutions. oh well... but im not really complaining about grouping. im kind of an advocate for it. i dont mean in all circumstances and i dont mean everyday - all the time. i guess youd just have to present me with a specific situation to find out if if i think grouping would be bad in that one specific case. but im not totally against it either. maybe if we talk about it tonight in class, i might be able to explain better.

even if the educational institute doesnt group students based on ability, dont you think they'll group themselves? i mean, students are clueless. they figure things out. and if a student feels like another student is absolutely ten times more intelligent than he/she is, then he/she is not gonna ask that other student to work in a group with him/her! i mean, am i wrong here? is that not something you guys noticed when you were in school/teaching in school now?

i meant to say "students AREN'T clueless." ARE NOT CLUELESS! oops.

Casey, I agree with what you are saying. My oldest daughter is in second grade & she is an "AG" kid. She gets bored so easily and needs to be challenged. So, I'm for the ability grouping in her situation. I'm already in the school system & honestly I don't see how we can get away from ability grouping. For instance in the elementary schools we have to have different level reading groups in the classroom. All children do not read on the same level. You just can't put those children in with higher leveled readers. They would struggle & that's not fair to them. Also, like you said it can be aggravating and distracting to the others in the group while waiting on one to stumble through the words. It makes it hard for all the students. So, I just don't think there is a way to get completely away from grouping children.

I too am confused as to what another solution would be. I like everyone else has experienced grouping. I try to look at it from both sides. I know what it is like to be on the side that is waiting a someone and the one being waited on. When I was doing the waiting, all I wanted to do was scream. It was really frustrating hear somethng explained over and over again. But, I have also been waited on! This too can make one want to scream. I don't really know if there is a way to get around grouping completely. I know that it can be very helpful to group and not to group. I hate when people are halted in their learning, but I also know that I have been helped by people who were waiting on me and I have helped others that I was waiting on. With grouping, this could not have occrued because I would have been with people who were right there with me. They either got it or they didn't. Nobody one have been around to help! But I also know that those who are halted in their learning by waitning on people would have a better chance at learning had they not had to wait on someone. This is why I'm not sure what to do about grouping. The only thing I can say is that maybe we should switch it up a little more. Allow for grouping where it is most helpful, and where it seems less helpful we should leave grouping out.

I too was an AG kid and that set me apart a bit in middle school a little, but not to any detrimental degree. I interned with a second grade classroom while I was in high school, and the teacher had the students grouped into higher, middle, and lower learners, but she did it very well. The higher levels were the Snickers, the middle level were the Starbursts, and the lower levels were the Red Hots. Each group was bound together and they were presented to the rest of the class as above or below each other. They all had something to be proud of and I really admired this method

In my ED PSYCH class we have been discussing grouping some & I thought you might be interested to know that in studies at all age levels, grouping at a higher level has been the ONLY grouping that has shown to be an effective method for teaching. In fact, they say grouping kids HIGHER than they actually are is the best way, which can be done in a class without these groups by offering challenging work to the ENTIRE class. It makes the slow kids work really hard, slightly challenges the average kids, and gets material across to AG kids without boring them. Just thought you might want to know what the "experts" say.

i dont think that you are wrong by any means. Yah it is really hard to be in a classroom with students that have a "low intelligence/ability" . It makes the lectures completly boring and you feel like you do not get anything out of the class. I was in all the AG classes as well and i know exactly what you mean. Look at it this way, if someone with " low intelligence/ability" were to be put in a "higher" class then they would be bored and feel out of place too right? I mean i think that it really works both way.