What About the Whole Child?

March 30, 2010

By Rick and Becky DuFour

Here is a question we often hear at our institutes:

“All of this attention to academic achievement is a case of misplaced priorities. We need to address the needs of the whole child. What about the emotional needs of our children? What about their artistic side? What about developing their character? This is just another example of the fixation with test scores and trying to reduce a child to a statistic.” Continue Reading

Neglecting the Gifted and Talented

March 16, 2010

By Rick and Becky DuFour

Doesn’t PLC attention to struggling students and emphasis on intervention result in neglecting gifted and high-achieving children?

Educators who ask this question believe that focusing attention on needy, lazy, or low-performing kids deprives more gifted students of the resources and time essential to their development. The assumption behind this thinking is that education is a zero-sum game. Continue Reading

Tracking

March 2, 2010

By Rick DuFour

We received a question from a social studies department regarding leveling, or tracking. The school had taken steps to eliminate remedial courses, and in the first year of implementation, the department was questioning the loss of remedial social studies classes. Some members expressed concern that the more heterogeneous classes were stifling discussion because the students who had been in remedial classes in the past were not motivated to answer questions. Continue Reading