Another pernicious teaching technique is “Group Learning.” Teachers put weak students in groups with strong students, who will do most of the work on the assigned task. The group gets a grade, and it allows students who would fail to get a passing grade. Teachers thus escape liability.
Then we wonder why SAT scores continue to go down since the late ‘60,even though the standards have been relaxed several times in recent years.
The teachers are not the ones who thought of this, nor do they prefer to do it. They are forced to do so by county and state curriculum standards and policies. Elevating the slower students with such techniques improves the reporting statistics which facilitate advancement for administrators.
My daughter is deaf in her left ear due to a nerve damage she got when she came down with Meningitis when she was seven month old. She had the kind that affects the lining of the brain. She was a very sick child, but she had a good doctor. When she went to school we always requested that she be allowed to sit close to the teacher and that the teacher talk to her from the right. Later on when she went to high school the kids didn’t like it that she was always sitting up front close to the teacher’s desk. So she ended up hating school. She does have trouble now hearing with her right ear and requires a hearing aid, especially when she is on her phone.