Positive discrimination in education

Teachers throughout New Zealand are required to complete a ‘class profile’, identifying the learning needs and foci of their charges. The object of the exercise is to make distinctions along gender and ethnic lines in a bid to focus professional knowledge and experise upon the correct groups within your school. The research suggests that Maori and Pacific Islanders are, educationally, at a disadvantage and need positive and purposeful interventions to allow them to succeed.

Even as I write I sense the tone in this last paragraph which smells of racism. Positive discrimination, to be sure. But is that not PC racism.

A teacher should KNOW their learner; as individuals not as collective, discrete groups. The needs of learners are individual. Streaming, differentiation and grouping are all tools which are employed by teachers to support classroom management. These approaches are not to replace of personalized learning but are a means toward that end.

Teaching and Learning are not mutually exclusive. If they are then teachers have failed.
Learning without the teaching is unstructured, disorganized, chaotic, unmanageable and un-measureable. Teaching without Learning fails to meet the needs of students and does little for motivating learners toward independence.

Balance is required and the professional judgment call as to what that balance should be comes from knowing your learners.

Related articles:
Raising achievement rates of Maori and Pacific Islanders
Our kids should be choosing life
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