First of all, high achievers are just that, and even without teachers they will achieve their goals, as long as they are motivated. We don't need to give them extra attention, we just need to give them the information and possibilities to go further while the teacher concentrates on people who can't follow... Ofcourse they could go faster if the teacher concentrates on them... They could go even faster if you give every one of them a teacher of his own...
Reading teachers comments here who give up on students because their grades aren't as high just sickens me... I had the same problem (low grades), and teachers didn't care about me anymore, I dropped out before the end of high school... Problem was that I was just demotivated, not 'dim' nor 'stupid'. had the teachers concentrated a little more on me, they would have noticed, and they might have been able to motivate me.
Luckily for me, I had my father and some other people who wouldn't let me go, and now I'm a consultant for a Linux company (most of the time I do the programming..). Why? They were able to motivate me, point me in the right direction... They didn't need to teach me, I'm autodidact (they didn't even notice that in school).
I always said to myself that 99% of people are made for school and that I'm in the 1% that isn't made for school (I actually love working, while I hated school), but reading the prevaling mentality oozing out of this discussion I'm starting to believe that it wasn't entirely my fault that I dropped out of high school...
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First of all, high achievers are just that, and even without teachers they will achieve their goals, as long as they are motivated. We don't need to give them extra attention, we just need to give them the information and possibilities to go further while the teacher concentrates on people who can't follow... Ofcourse they could go faster if the teacher concentrates on them... They could go even faster if you give every one of them a teacher of his own... Reading teachers comments here who give up on students because their grades aren't as high just sickens me... I had the same problem (low grades), and teachers didn't care about me anymore, I dropped out before the end of high school... Problem was that I was just demotivated, not 'dim' nor 'stupid'. had the teachers concentrated a little more on me, they would have noticed, and they might have been able to motivate me. Luckily for me, I had my father and some other people who wouldn't let me go, and now I'm a consultant for a Linux company (most of the time I do the programming..). Why? They were able to motivate me, point me in the right direction... They didn't need to teach me, I'm autodidact (they didn't even notice that in school). I always said to myself that 99% of people are made for school and that I'm in the 1% that isn't made for school (I actually love working, while I hated school), but reading the prevaling mentality oozing out of this discussion I'm starting to believe that it wasn't entirely my fault that I dropped out of high school...