Posted on 10/15/2025 7:05:31 AM PDT by karpov
“Meet them where they are” is great one-on-one, or in groups where they’re all at the same level. But in a regular classroom, it just turns into “catering to the lowest level.”
Our public school system has failed miserably for decades, we have not done much to correct this.
If you try to meet students where they aren’t, then you will have no meeting. The student won’t be there.
Unfortunately, “meeting students where they are” is necessary when you have 11th graders presenting with 3rd grade reading levels. Most are passed on through the system from elementary school and somehow “expected” to catch up, or become the next year teacher’s problem. There are MANY such problem, the vast majority in some schools.
If you rightfully flunk them, b/c they cannot read the textbook - or they are disinterested in education - YOU, the teacher, will be held accountable.
It’s a no-win situation, teaching to the lowest level, which hurts higher achieving students who are held back b/c equity.
Students can no longer be separated by ability, which is considered racist - no honors classes allowed.
It’s far easier just to pass them on.
As opposed to meeting them where they aren’t?
Sorry, I disagree with this title. I have to meet the student where s/he is. They’re not going to reach out to me. But, you are right, alanc, we are to take them from where they ARE and move them to the knowledge they need and get them where they ought to be.
I am remediating a student who had trouble reading and the new teacher made errors. A bad relationship developed and the student thought that reading was impossible for her. So, I met that student in August and started from the beginning. The student was at a pre-1 level then and now is on a late 1st grade level. I am hoping that by the end of the school year, by building confidence and reinforcing basics and good habits, i.e. training your eyes to focus on the word and the line of reading before moving on to the next one, the student will be at a late third or early fourth grade level. Yes, this student is responding this fast.
If I had started where the student ought to be, we would be making little or no progress.
That never happened in STEM whether physion, chem, physic etc.
Sometimes people would be allotted more time on tests but we had groups, partners, labs higher math and the scheduling to get a student from point A to end of book for the next class was hard work.
You met the teacher where they were or dropped.
Physio...learning to type with fat fingers on phone= fail.
“coordinator of student academic success at UNC”
We have too many people getting degrees that are having trouble paying on student loans.
New federal student loan money should only go to students the college certifies as having above average academic ability in both math and writing skills.
High school level education should be provided on an online basis.
That's part of the fix. Imagine being able stream classes with the absolute best teachers teaching the subject material - that can be done with today's technology and should be available to high school students.
“meet students where they are.”
Never heard that before. So, if a 12th grade inner city student is reading at a fourth grade level, you are supposed to encourage they keep up that great performance? Not to strive to be better and raise oneself up?
Public schools have been dumbed down so that Dontavious and Shartiqua don’t feel bad about themselves.
No.
If you have a >4th grade student reading or ciphering or writing at a 4th grade level, you begin teaching him there. Throwing “higher level” concepts at him that he’s not prepared to understand does nobody any good. Take him from where he is to where he needs to be.
Unless you think trying to teach differential equations to 2nd grade students is a good idea. There are a whole lot of things the student needs to learn before DiffEqs even make sense as a concept.
There are many problems with your hypothetical 12th grade student reading at a 4th grade level
1) WTF were his 5th through 11th grade teachers doing? Is the kid literally stupid? Did he just refuse to learn? Did his teachers utterly fail to do their jobs?
2)People don’t all learn at the same pace ... because people are not all equally intelligent. Social Promotion is a grave disservice. To carry on with your example ... reducing the entire Senior class to 5th grade level because of one student is a disservice to the rest of the class. Sending a late teenager to 5th grade because that’s his learning level will probably not be good for the regular 5th graders. Collective education isn’t always the right answer.
3) That “12th grade inner city student[s] ... reading at a fourth grade level” even exist is a damning indictment of the entire government school enterprise.
I just watched an interrogation video of Nicholas Jordan.
This low IQ beast was ON SCHOLARSHIP at USSC, can barely speak English, was put up in student housing, where he killed two white students for complaining he lived like and animal and trashed the place.
That’s what “meeting students where they are” does.
Looks like a “gravitas” message went out..
The problem isn’t new. I remember a newspaper article from more than 40 years ago where a mother was upset that her son was rejected by the Army because he had only a third-grade reading ability, although he was a high school graduate.
I always think of the line James Earl Jones used in “Soul Man”....
“If you have to work twice as hard as these little white s___s then you damn well better work twice as hard!”
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