POOL OF SMART STUDENTS

JOHN PATRICK D. SERRANO

One of the fundamental principles of education states that learning is a collaborative effort. It indicates that students learn well when they work together in the teaching-learning process. Without much to mention, group works are done in some classroom activities. These foster teamwork, interdependence, and many more similar virtues that contribute to the total human development of the child.

There are three major ways students are grouped. The first way is dependent to the complete authority of the teacher. The teacher prepares a group by strategically choosing specific members together. The second way is done by following rules such as counting heads up to a certain number and then students who had the same number at the end of the count make up the group or picking names randomly from a bowl. The third way is done by the complete freedom of the students. When instructed by the teacher, the students may choose whoever they wish to compose their group.

Concentrating on the third way the students may be grouped, they will surely choose their peers. This type of grouping usually come up to a homogeneous team such that all smart students go together a team and the other less smart students to other teams.

What would anyone expect in a colloquy where a pool of smart students are the players? Should sophistication on outcomes be expected out of powerful minds from mellow tongues? The answers are surprising.

By experience, the not-so-smart students tend to perform far better than those teams who compose of smart ones. Looking into an in-depth observation to these smart groups, there is one big problem to them that disables them from performing well— they are all smart.

In a team where all the players are smart, everyone has good inputs. Since these kids are smart, they tend to be naturally critical against all the members of their team. In the end, they fail to come in unison. As a result, they hardly perform well together to the activity given by the teacher. Or there are some cases that they perform well but only after their friendships have been ruined at the edge of the cliff.

This is one thing that young teachers may learn from the students. There are many cases that teachers, specially we, the young ones in the profession, have this know-all attitude. Many, if not all, young teachers are obviously attached to the ideals from the pre-service studies. This should better be corrected by realization because ideals may not always tantamount to realities. I must know because as a young teacher, I have also passed through this process. At the end, it was fulfilling. Work went so well.

There are times in the profession when it is okay not to be smart. These are the times when what the teachers need to do is to listen attentively to the words of their respective school heads. Teachers may learn a lot from their school heads. This learning could be maximized if they could open their minds to the principles of the school heads. When a teacher is always smart, he can only repeat or improve what he already knows. But when this smart attitude is minimized, he could be an empty sponge that could just absorb all learnings.

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The author is a Senior High School faculty of Mathematics and Research at Corazon C .Aquino High School, Tarlac.