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Since the topic of ability grouping came up (To Stream, or Not to Stream, on March 25), I have this memory relapse about my junior high school in Taipei. No one at my school would believe the traumatic experiences I had with testing and ability grouping in junior high school except our ESL teacher from India. I guess she was traumatized in her past as well. I don’t remember much of the fine details because it was way too farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrback in my past. Maybe I have been trying to suppress my memories of junior high trauma. There were incidents, however, that I would never forget no matter how old I am.
Once upon a time, I went to a very competitive junior high school, Da Li Girls’ Junior High School in Wan Hua District in Taipei. The female principal at the time was notorious for the “tight grip” and“quality control” on her students’ academic performances. I remember she used to live on the school property, and had a tight control of the school from close by. Furthermore, she made sure that her graduates have one of the highest admission rates to the top 7 senior high schools in Taipei. At that time, we had to pass city-wide and nation-wide exams in order to go to a senior high or a university.
My first year in junior high was a fun year though. I had a male teacher who really promoted sportsmanship. I was the leader of the class and heavily into track and field like everybody else in class. I had the high time of my life until my first IQ test, which I did not know much about then. I was naïve, and I could care less at the time. I still remember the day when my teacher called me to his desk, and asked me with a stern face if I actually took the test seriously. Apparently my score was 75. (Ha.ha.ha, 75 is considered developmentally challenged.) He was very upset with me because he knew me well, and no way that I would only score at that level. He was a very kind teacher. In fact, I went to school with his son in elementary school.
In my grade seven class, we had about 49 students in a class and there were 21 grade seven classes! Yes, 21 classes! There were more than one thousand grade seven students in a girls’ school! The grade seven students were not streamed at the time because that was our first year out of elementary schools. We were given the opportunity to adjust to the new environment of a super big school for a year. It was not easy to be in a large school because you tend to lose your personal identity so easily in the large crowd.
I remember vividly that every morning all students would gather in the super sized school yard for national anthem, and then listened to the Principal’s daily lecture and instructional broadcast. At the end of each day, we would be dismissed after another gatheringin the field. If the weather was not cooperating, we would have the broadcast over the P.A. system.
Later into the first year, I realized that there was more to the regular gathering and announcement. My principal actually dismissed the senior students by their test scores! Yes, dismissal by TESTSCORES! At the time, I was so scared to listen to her criticize those senior students and then to see how those Grade 9 students be embarrassed and dismissed at the end of the day. (I guess no principal is allowed to do that now in Taiwan.)
The gradual dismissal was based on the test scores of every mock-entrance exam. We used to have a lot of those in high school to help students prepare for the entrance exam after Grade 9. The principal would call out the expected test score, and students who passed the mark were allowed to leave first. Then the principal would have a lecture about how terribly unprepared those remaining students were. Then she would call out another test score, and let another group of students go. It was awful to see the last group go through the ordeal. I felt sorry for them and dreaded the same destiny that I had to take. Thank Goodness, the principal was later promoted to become a high school principal at a top notch senior high school.
In Junior High, only the top students could participate in extracurricular music programs, either in the choir or in the band. I was able to fit the criteria to audition for the music program. The prerequisites for these two programs were high academic achievement from the Grade 7. After the choir and band members were selected,the rest of the grade seven students were literally streamed and grouped from the first class to the twenty-first class based on their academic abilities. Each month we ranked the classes by the results of monthly and term exams.
This was how my junior high grouped students for Grade 8 and 9. The first group of top notch students who could sing went to the choir class. Unfortunately, I did not make the choir but I was lucky to be sent to the band, which was considered the second best class. (I called myself the choirs reject.) The rest of the grade seven students were grouped from the 3rd class to the 21st class. We were totally streamed or grouped according to our testing abilities from the highest group to the most challenging one. The last two classes were more or less geared towards vocational route, which people often teased as a cow-herding class. Nasty!
There were 53 students in my band class in Grade 8 and Grade 9. Even though my class was the top second class, let me tell you, it was not fun to be the lowest student in that class. (This is why I hate the TV show, the Weakest Link. That name bugs me! I was the weakest link in my Grade 8 and 9 class, I suppose.) Can you imagine being the lowest student in all academic areas in your class for two years? Even though I was in the top academic group among the one thousand Grade Seven students, I felt totally useless in my own class. I really enjoyed being in the marching band and playing the trumpet for two years, but I hated my class with a passion. I guess the conventional exam-oriented education was not my cup of tea. My classmates looked down on people who lagged behind in class. Can you blame them if that was the way teachers talked to us in class? Children could be really cruel toeach other, too.
I wanted to leave Junior High sooooo badly. The low group would never get sufficient praises and encouragement in that environment. As far as I am concerned, this is how a child’s self esteem is destroyed. First you put her in a class with 52 other top students for two years, and ranked them constantly by their academic abilities. Then ask them to compete every day in and day out. Even though the child was one of the top students in school, but all that child realized then was that she was the bottom one in class. She was never good enough in her own class no matter what. All she had heard through out those two years was that she was not as good as the rest of her class. That was ME! I felt worthless all the time because no matter how much I tried, I was always the bottom one in class. To tell the truth, without the fun of playing the trumpet in the band, I would have gone insane in junior high. I was totally traumatized. So, if you ask me what I think about ability grouping or streaming students based on their academic performances, you know what I will say. NO! NO! NO!
Once upon a time, I went to a very competitive junior high school, Da Li Girls’ Junior High School in Wan Hua District in Taipei. The female principal at the time was notorious for the “tight grip” and“quality control” on her students’ academic performances. I remember she used to live on the school property, and had a tight control of the school from close by. Furthermore, she made sure that her graduates have one of the highest admission rates to the top 7 senior high schools in Taipei. At that time, we had to pass city-wide and nation-wide exams in order to go to a senior high or a university.
My first year in junior high was a fun year though. I had a male teacher who really promoted sportsmanship. I was the leader of the class and heavily into track and field like everybody else in class. I had the high time of my life until my first IQ test, which I did not know much about then. I was naïve, and I could care less at the time. I still remember the day when my teacher called me to his desk, and asked me with a stern face if I actually took the test seriously. Apparently my score was 75. (Ha.ha.ha, 75 is considered developmentally challenged.) He was very upset with me because he knew me well, and no way that I would only score at that level. He was a very kind teacher. In fact, I went to school with his son in elementary school.
In my grade seven class, we had about 49 students in a class and there were 21 grade seven classes! Yes, 21 classes! There were more than one thousand grade seven students in a girls’ school! The grade seven students were not streamed at the time because that was our first year out of elementary schools. We were given the opportunity to adjust to the new environment of a super big school for a year. It was not easy to be in a large school because you tend to lose your personal identity so easily in the large crowd.
I remember vividly that every morning all students would gather in the super sized school yard for national anthem, and then listened to the Principal’s daily lecture and instructional broadcast. At the end of each day, we would be dismissed after another gatheringin the field. If the weather was not cooperating, we would have the broadcast over the P.A. system.
Later into the first year, I realized that there was more to the regular gathering and announcement. My principal actually dismissed the senior students by their test scores! Yes, dismissal by TESTSCORES! At the time, I was so scared to listen to her criticize those senior students and then to see how those Grade 9 students be embarrassed and dismissed at the end of the day. (I guess no principal is allowed to do that now in Taiwan.)
The gradual dismissal was based on the test scores of every mock-entrance exam. We used to have a lot of those in high school to help students prepare for the entrance exam after Grade 9. The principal would call out the expected test score, and students who passed the mark were allowed to leave first. Then the principal would have a lecture about how terribly unprepared those remaining students were. Then she would call out another test score, and let another group of students go. It was awful to see the last group go through the ordeal. I felt sorry for them and dreaded the same destiny that I had to take. Thank Goodness, the principal was later promoted to become a high school principal at a top notch senior high school.
In Junior High, only the top students could participate in extracurricular music programs, either in the choir or in the band. I was able to fit the criteria to audition for the music program. The prerequisites for these two programs were high academic achievement from the Grade 7. After the choir and band members were selected,the rest of the grade seven students were literally streamed and grouped from the first class to the twenty-first class based on their academic abilities. Each month we ranked the classes by the results of monthly and term exams.
This was how my junior high grouped students for Grade 8 and 9. The first group of top notch students who could sing went to the choir class. Unfortunately, I did not make the choir but I was lucky to be sent to the band, which was considered the second best class. (I called myself the choirs reject.) The rest of the grade seven students were grouped from the 3rd class to the 21st class. We were totally streamed or grouped according to our testing abilities from the highest group to the most challenging one. The last two classes were more or less geared towards vocational route, which people often teased as a cow-herding class. Nasty!
There were 53 students in my band class in Grade 8 and Grade 9. Even though my class was the top second class, let me tell you, it was not fun to be the lowest student in that class. (This is why I hate the TV show, the Weakest Link. That name bugs me! I was the weakest link in my Grade 8 and 9 class, I suppose.) Can you imagine being the lowest student in all academic areas in your class for two years? Even though I was in the top academic group among the one thousand Grade Seven students, I felt totally useless in my own class. I really enjoyed being in the marching band and playing the trumpet for two years, but I hated my class with a passion. I guess the conventional exam-oriented education was not my cup of tea. My classmates looked down on people who lagged behind in class. Can you blame them if that was the way teachers talked to us in class? Children could be really cruel toeach other, too.
I wanted to leave Junior High sooooo badly. The low group would never get sufficient praises and encouragement in that environment. As far as I am concerned, this is how a child’s self esteem is destroyed. First you put her in a class with 52 other top students for two years, and ranked them constantly by their academic abilities. Then ask them to compete every day in and day out. Even though the child was one of the top students in school, but all that child realized then was that she was the bottom one in class. She was never good enough in her own class no matter what. All she had heard through out those two years was that she was not as good as the rest of her class. That was ME! I felt worthless all the time because no matter how much I tried, I was always the bottom one in class. To tell the truth, without the fun of playing the trumpet in the band, I would have gone insane in junior high. I was totally traumatized. So, if you ask me what I think about ability grouping or streaming students based on their academic performances, you know what I will say. NO! NO! NO!
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