Tracking Detracking: Sorting through the dilemmas and possibilities

Ability Grouping
Name
Institution
Ability Grouping
I went to a primary school that had a large number of students and limited teachers. To ensure that students were provided with personalized education, the teachers grouped students according to their academic strengths. I remember that for every subject, students would be grouped according to their performance in the specific subject. For instance, the math teacher would group us according to our performance on the last math test. The groups consisted of about 10 students. The teacher would arrange the students from the student with the highest score to the student with the lowest score. Then, they would pick the first ten students in the order of performance and group them together. Teachers would give the students in the “best performance group” more challenging tasks than those in “poor performance group.” However, students in the groups that performed poorly received more attention from teachers in terms of time, learning materials, and practice. They would be left behind after classes to receive additional help. In many cases, the groups had the same group members because students within the same group somehow competed with each other. There was little change because only a few students moved up to the next group within the class. Those are the students who felt motivated to do better and join a better group. However, most students remained in the same group and were hardly motivated to move up the groups. I remember how kids in the best groups used to make fun of the kids in the poor groups. This happened mostly when it was time to go home because the students in poor groups would be left behind, which was not such an exciting thing since everyone was looking forward to going home.
Reading through the research materials, I have recognized some aspects of ability grouping that were present in my school’s grouping practices. For instance, ability grouping presents some f...