An invisible line in Class One, Grade Nine — Hidden tracking in my junior high school
In Class One, everybody knows there 's an invisible line located in the middle of the class. Before the line is honor and success while after the line is humility and self-abandonment. No one really how it forms. At first, when the head teacher arranged the seats, he placed students from the front to the back rows according to their scores in descending rank. Gradually, two separate groups formed in one classroom and the classroom scene couldn 't be more extreme: when the class began, students on the front rows frequently took careful notes and raised their hands to ask questions while repressed laughter continues from the back row kids who were chatting or playing on the phone or sleeping. Sometimes, they skip the extra classes required for low-grade students; they always visit the video game center and bar area across the street on class time; they continue to dismiss teachers ' blame. …show more content…
Two groups of students seldom exchange words and stuck to their own friends. I even sometimes sense hatred from the back rows towards us. Similarly, front-row kids talk about the affairs of back-row kids with contempt. What 's more, the teachers, running out of patience, pretend that those kids do not exist since they are "hopeless" and "cannot enter prestigious high schools anyway", which facilitates their orgy.
Right now, I feel this line is no different from the demarcation of tracking: it divides students according to ranking, requires students to take different curriculums ( students in back-row (low-track) have to take extra classes), and also creates considerable harm. Below is a comparison between harm of tracking and the "invisible line", using the templates from Oakes 's paper The Two Cities ' Tracking (Oakes, 1902: p7-8).
Back Rows (Lower Tracks) Providing fewer
In Class One, everybody knows there 's an invisible line located in the middle of the class. Before the line is honor and success while after the line is humility and self-abandonment. No one really how it forms. At first, when the head teacher arranged the seats, he placed students from the front to the back rows according to their scores in descending rank. Gradually, two separate groups formed in one classroom and the classroom scene couldn 't be more extreme: when the class began, students on the front rows frequently took careful notes and raised their hands to ask questions while repressed laughter continues from the back row kids who were chatting or playing on the phone or sleeping. Sometimes, they skip the extra classes required for low-grade students; they always visit the video game center and bar area across the street on class time; they continue to dismiss teachers ' blame. …show more content…
Two groups of students seldom exchange words and stuck to their own friends. I even sometimes sense hatred from the back rows towards us. Similarly, front-row kids talk about the affairs of back-row kids with contempt. What 's more, the teachers, running out of patience, pretend that those kids do not exist since they are "hopeless" and "cannot enter prestigious high schools anyway", which facilitates their orgy.
Right now, I feel this line is no different from the demarcation of tracking: it divides students according to ranking, requires students to take different curriculums ( students in back-row (low-track) have to take extra classes), and also creates considerable harm. Below is a comparison between harm of tracking and the "invisible line", using the templates from Oakes 's paper The Two Cities ' Tracking (Oakes, 1902: p7-8).
Back Rows (Lower Tracks) Providing fewer