DIFFERENTIATION IS WORTHY OF DISCUSSION. Differentiation of learning based on ability is so much a standard part of our lives that if we watch for it, we see it everywhere.

Let’s say for example you want to learn the Shimmy Shake. What you don’t do is climb up on stage during the National Shimmy Showdown and give it a first go. You look for a beginner’s class. You shake it in private for a while.

If you want to learn the guitar, you don’t join a band and perform at their next gig. You learn chords and frets and “Stairway to Heaven.” You start with a handbook and a tutor.

We had a recent technology training day for teachers. The day before, each teacher was asked to select their ability level — beginner, intermediate, or advanced — and they were assigned to different classes based on ability. We didn’t all go into one room.

When searching bookstores while learning a new skill, you generally find training manuals differentiated into beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. First you buy Photoshop for Beginners, or Amateur Sharpshooting, Bowling for Dummies, Introduction to Hair Styling, or How to Cook One-Dish, Fifteen-Minute Meals.

Seldom do you find a book that reads Building Bridges for Everyone. Even if such a book existed, as a comprehensive encyclopedic guide, it would still be differentiated inside by sections, each of which would have to be mastered in sequence. Section one would be Basic Architecture and Safety, section two might introduce geometry and examples, and only the final sections would have the reader at the chasm’s edge with a truckload of building materials, a string of power tools, and a backup of eager travelers wishing to cross.

There is one place where we don’t differentiate, and speaking only for myself, I find it ironic. We used to, but we stopped recently. We don’t differentiate for teaching literacy and abstract math. Except for significant circumstances, we send all incoming students to the same levels of English and math. It’s a behaviorist concept with its static benchmarks for proficiency. All must cross the same line at the same age.

I’m not harping on our school district. This is a national fad in the streamlining of public education. We have, however, jumped on that wagon.

Children enter high school at age 13 and 14. On age tracking we are precise, another behaviorist regiment. Literacy levels at 13 and 14, however, are all over the map, and we make no adjustment for that. Struggling and accomplished readers and writers are brought together under one teacher who is given one hour to reach everybody every day. That’s a mighty tall order.

Even teachers at the top of their game, ahem, find it extremely challenging with a merely tolerable level of success and satisfaction, compared to the joy of teaching the old-fashioned way, by ability. I’m a fan of the old days when we sorted and specialized. I guess that’s why my time is up.

To be clear, of course, we have specialized reading and writing programs for our most struggling students. Also, many subjects can be taught with mild regard for ability level — sports, art, music, knowledge — but reading and math are different. They are both precise abstractions. They must be processed in sequence inside the individual mind to come into existence, and that process cannot be rushed, nor passed over. Raising the bar to make everyone jump higher doesn’t work as well as learning to jump.

OK, two more cents. Funny thing: when people hear the word education they immediately think of teachers. The words are Siamese-twinned together. Education is about teachers and the other which way as well. Funny thing though is that teachers have very little say in how the education system is designed. It’s stitched together by non-teacher educators, elected non-educators, corporations and politicians, and usually results in some whacked-out national program that infuriates teachers across the country. So why is that? Why aren’t teachers running education? Too many, I fear, are running from it.

Two more pennies’ worth: I’m a constructivist. That’s my pedagogy of choice. Behaviorism, sorry, lost favor in the sixties. Behaviorism says, “Here’s a line, now cross it. Change your behavior or fail.”

I prefer the ideas of Vygotsky, who said learning occurs first culturally, socially, and then individually. Children learn what their family and community values say is important to learn. The line, to them, is arbitrary. If they come from a place where reading and writing is not the norm, they will struggle in the read-and-write world of public education regardless of intelligence quotient. We must attend to classroom culture if we want more lines crossed.

Constructivists say start where the child is the day you meet him. Learn his current abilities and take him to his next step, not your scripted next step, not the masses’ next step. Measure progress from the point of origin, not simply from crossing the finish line. If Johnny raised his grade from 28 percent to 58 percent, that shows a level of learning that exceeds Mary’s grade that went from 88 percent to 92 percent. Mary earns an A, but does Johnny deserve to fail?

My charter school would be a reversal of the current system. It wouldn’t have grade levels. It would have only mastery levels. Age wouldn’t matter. Come in and learn your way through to the exit. Take as long as it takes, four years, two years, seven years. Repeat classes. When your teachers decide you’ve learned all you can handle to the best of your ability, you pop out the exit with your diploma.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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