This often results in public school teachers being less willing to answer advanced questions, which are beyond the prescribed curriculum.
This is what I do not understand - if the lesson plans do not include a particular topic (let us say, a 2nd grader wanting to know a single extra detail about tectonic plate movements which is out of the teacher's scope and knowledge - after the teacher talks about tectonic plates in the class), what effect does answering this question have on the "achievement gap" between students in a public school classroom? If the teacher took 2 minutes to answer that question, the whole class would have learned something new and the topic is guaranteed to never appear in a 2nd grade standardized test and hence has zero effect on capping the growth of top students or widening any gaps in knowledge between students. So, why shut a genuine question down? The student obviously thought a lot about a concept and wishes to understand some thing.
There may be many answers to this question; This is just one answer with three facets:
- A teacher answering a particular child's question may be perceived by some as favoritism toward that child; the child may be viewed as privileged. Especially if the child is told that his/her question is a good one, and if the other children in the classroom may be aware that the child is "smart" or advanced or gifted, etc. The child who asked the question may be encouraged whereas other children may feel poorly as they they have not been complimented.
- If the teacher provided an answer, that answer may be understood by the child who asked the question whereas other children may not absorb the information. For some children, the presentation of that extraneous information may hinder the uptake of other necessary information.
- Capping the growth of the children at the top may include removing their desire to ask questions.
This old
post includes a list of some practices used to close the achievement gap on paper, generating the same grades for a wide range of students.
The antidote?
- Remembering that students are individuals, not demographic statistics.
- The aim of "schooling" should be a personally meaningful education for individuals, not the contrivance of statistics.
It is possible that going forward more of the Great Teachers as described in this thread may be found in private, independent, parochial, or alternative schools where they are free to teach curious minds as much as possible, and are rewarded for doing so.
