Education for all

DR Subhash Appanna wrote (FT 16/3: “How can a student who has failed to master the content of learning at Class 1 cope with the more demanding requirements set at Class 2?”

The assumption here is that in Year 2, the student will not be taught at her/ his level of achievement. Teachers are called, not to teach content, but to teach children. These children have individual characteristics and needs.

A classroom situation requires teachers to know just how the child’s ability and her/his achievement in content and skills.

About 100 years ago Lev Vygotzky showed that the teachers must present contents and skills that are just a little beyond the child’s reach (the Zone of the Proximal Development) but can be achieved by the help of the teacher (known as the More Knowledgeable Other).

This is particularly for those at the extreme end of the learning spectrum: the intellectually handicapped child and the genius child.

In every classroom there will be children with a spectrum of learning skills that require a corresponding spectrum of content.

Therefore, the curriculum of knowledge and skills for each year must take account of a range of levels of ability and achievement, one size does not fit all. In Wellington in 1957 I learned that my class of 65 nine years old must be divided into five steams or levels for learning reading skills. Some who were fast learners helped the slower ones, and they all made progress in literacy.

A child in Year 2, who has not received appropriate teaching in literacy will not advance further because he or she will not be able to read the material presented.

In Suva Marist Champagnat Institute receives Year 8 students who are not able to read a simple sentence or write the letters of alphabet in order. They missed out on proper teaching in Year 1 and 2 and were not taught at their own level in the following years.

Classes that are too large (30 plus) make the teachers’ task difficult, but not impossible. FERGUS GARRETT Marist Brothers, Vatuwaqa