I Want It All...

Okay, really I only want the one thing right now, but as it happens to be my new frivolous expensive toy (digital camera! Elph, which I love!), I want it NOW! My roommate just called to say it had arrived, and I want to go right home and play with it!

And yet today is the day I must work until 5:30 (later if possible) so as to put it within the range of possibility that I might work as many hours this week as I'm supposed to. In addition, I have a whole textbook chapter I must read and lesson plans to sketch out tonight.

But I WANNIT!

Oh. Poll forthcoming. Just remembered.

We don't need no thought control, or Achievement-based tracking in high schools

So I'm looking for some general information about high schools and tracking. If you didn't go to an American high school, you can still... actually, even better! The more kinds of schools I can learn about, the better. I'm supposed to debate tracking, and I'm really of two minds. As someone who left high school early, I remember GT classes being better than others (that is to say, slightly quicker), but I was still bored out of my skull. And I went to one high school which didn't have any such classes, but which drew its students from a highly-educated community AND drew only the fairly dedicated students. And on the other hand, there's this issue of the kids who aren't in GT classes at schools where they do exist -- does that send a message to them that they're dumb? Cause that would be bad. (Because honestly I think it has a lot to do with whether your brain happens to work in the way most high school classes are taught, which is less a matter of intelligence and more one of an array of equally valuable learning styles.) Is the good outweighed by the bad? Is there any good at all? And what about apparent racial disparities in enrollment? Is racism inherent in the system? Is classism? Could it be fixed? So I'm interested in gathering more information -- what were your experiences? Do you have an opinion? Anything I should have asked but didn't?

( Note: I apologize for the lack of 'ticky box' options in this poll. I am deeply ashamed. )

Pretty Fly for a White Teacher, or Ethnicity and Achievement Tracking

Okay, it's a kind of dumb name, but I like to keep up with my song-title subject lines -- rejected options included "Say It Loud, or Race and Class in Tracking" and "Black Boys on Mopeds, or Why Do All the White Chicks Take AP French Together?"

That's an education joke.

You know, it suddenly occurs to me I should have added similar questions about gender and about income. Ah well, feel free to discuss in comments. Honestly, if one could edit polls, I'd be all "Is our greatest weapon fear or surprise? Er, or nice red outfits? Wait, you can also choose diabolical cruelty. Oh! Or fanatical devotion to the Pope!" Shutting up now.

( Of course, I forgot the cut tag. Sigh. )