| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Carol Perkins: A teacher speaks out on groupings, testing "A very wise principal once said, 'Thank goodness there wasn't grouping when I was in school because I would surely have been a blackbird.' For the next earlier Carol Perkins story, click on Put that phone away! By Carol Sullivan I am not a brilliant person. One a scale of 1-10 with ten the highest, I am about an eight in most academic areas. I could never quite master algebra, trig, or geometry. Good thing I didn't go into engineering. However, I thought I was as smart as the smartest in my class except for Conne' DeVore Baker, my close friend and our class Valedictorian, who also tutored half the class toward graduation. The reason I never thought about my intelligence is because none of my teachers made me feel less than bright. I can't say that was true for other students, and I always wondered how they felt. By the time my classmates and I stumbled through the first month of first grade (no kindergarten back then) with Dick and Jane, we found ourselves grouped. Bluebirds at one table, redbirds at another table, and blackbirds in the back usually hitting each other. What does a bird do at the bottom of the nest? Pecks his way out. Blackbirds were crashing into windows Bluebirds were quicker to learn to read than others, redbirds were striking at their heels, while blackbirds were crashing into windows. A very close friend of mine remembers being a redbird. "I didn't want to be a bluebird because I didn't want the pressure, but I sure didn't want to be at that blackbird table." All is not fair in love and education. There were some at my bluebird table who couldn't read as well as some of the redbirds, yet how did they manage to fly up to the top group? Some parents of these redbirds were not going to stand for their children to be classified, so they pressured the principal who pressured the teacher. What parent wants her child labeled? Not a single one. If mine had been placed in a redbird group, my feathers would have ruffled someone else's feathers. Most of the blackbirds had no advocates. Along with bird groupings, there were other ways of detecting intelligence. During my elementary years, achievement test scores and IQ scores were the supreme indicators. Performance on a daily basis granted us grades, but THOSE test granted us twelve years of our scarlet letters: "S" for smart "A" for average or "D" for dumb. Teachers talked, sometimes too much. Every teacher had access to the highly guarded secret of a student's IQ. An IQ was a life sentence. If you fell within 90 -109, you were of average intelligence, supposedly. I never knew my IQ score and never wanted to know. If it had been too average, I might never have gone to college and might have ended up on medication for low self-esteem and had issues with my self-worth. What child would dream big if he were told he had an IQ of 85? Tests also tested teachers These tests also tested teachers, which made them edgy near testing time. From grades one through eight, we students were in self-contained classrooms, so if we did not soar, the teacher was usually given a class full of blackbirds the next year. Teachers graded the achievement test by an answer "key" sent from Frankfort, unlike CATS, which is scored by the State, whoever that is. The goal was to score grade level or above, not below it. So teachers knew the results immediately instead of six months after the fact and before long, most students knew how other students scored too. I hate to say it but some of the ones whose scores split the roof couldn't figure their way out of a paper bag. Finally, grouping became what it always was-damaging and unfair. Finally, students' stop taking IQ tests and teachers stopped assigning worth to that score. There are still many problems with labeling students, but not nearly as many as there were "in my day." ACT and SAT tests are moneymaking schemes Before I hop off my stump, I must address my frustration with the ACT and SAT. Moneymaking schemes. Students often take them two or three times, hoping to raise their scores. How can higher institutions place a value on seventeen or eighteen-year-old graduates' ability to succeed by what they score on an ACT or SAT? Too often students are tested in areas they have never been exposed to because the courses were either full, closed to them because they weren't accepted into "honors" classes, or weren't offered at all. These tests test NOTHING and thank goodness I never had to take one. The truth is that when it comes to labeling a child (or anyone), we shouldn't and we certainly shouldn't allow anyone in charge of our children to do so either. We shouldn't label him, compare him, classify him, or speculate about his intelligence whether he be a genius, gifted, average, below average, or mentally challenged. A very wise principal once said, "Thank goodness there wasn't grouping when I was in school because I would surely have been a blackbird." There are no blackbirds; just kids who took off on the wrong wing and had it clipped one too many times. I don't want children to feel unworthy because someone has placed a label (noose) around his neck. Schools can make or break self-esteem and let's face it; many people have grown up with scars from being labeled. Now I'll get off my stump. About the author: Carol (Sullivan) Perkins is a lifelong resident of Edmonton, KY, in Metcalfe County where she taught high school English at Metcalfe County High School until her recent retirement. She is a now a freelance writer. is married to Guy Perkins and they have two children: Carla Green (Mark) of Brentwood, TN and Jon Perkins (Beth) of Austin, TX and six grandchildren. Her latest book, Let's Talk About, is a collection of over 70 of her works, and she is presently working on the second book in this series. Carol's ties to Adair County go back to Breeding where her grandfather, Rufus Reece, and her grandmother Bettie Strange, began their married life and later moved to Metcalfe County. You may contact Carol at cperkins@scrtc.com or write at P.O. Box 134 Edmonton. If you would like a copy of her book, you can order through email. Watch for her next story next Sunday. IF YOU'VE ENJOYED READING CAROL PERKINS' STORIES on ColumbiaMagazine.com, you'll love her book, "Let's Talk About It. . . ." The books are $15 plus $4 for shipping. Send check or cash or money order to Carol Perkins, P.O. Box 134, Edmonton, KY 42129 They can be bought at the Herald Office in Edmonton, KY, or Terri's Fine Jewelry in Glasgow, KY. This story was posted on 2009-08-09 06:58:02
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Carol Perkins:
Carol Perkins: Put that phone away! Carol Perkins: The Shoe Carol Perkins: Potlucks Carol Perkins: Grandparents' Camp Carol Perkins: At The Funeral Home Carol Perkins: The Name is Perkins Carol Perkins: The Gift of Music Carol Perkins: Don't Make Me Go Carol Perkins: Sally Was a Good Girl Carol Perkins: All Gave Some, and Some Gave All View even more articles in topic Carol Perkins |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
