Clasification of students: competitiveness and diversity

Silvia:

Aspects of competitiveness and diversity during primary school where quit different then in high school. If I try to remember the primary school first I noticed less competition during the four years (as a child). Is was about being good enough to tell the parents about the grades. I tried to be as good as I can, just to make my mother proud. It was a hard time for me, I remember studying a lot after school with her, but my grades at the end where good. I think no body in this age is really jealous if you get good grades. I would say that contestability in class was up to everybody which was left to oneself and support at home. The education at home is a benefit for young growing up children during school and that is why parents are very important in that age.

In general we had a great team spirit in primary school, helping each other in some tricky moments.. But unconsciously we knew who was a good pupil and who needed extra more help.

My view on competitiveness and diversity in high school is a little different:

We started to become ten years old and tried to reach higher standards in grades and compliments. The competition became more at the ending years of high school. Everybody tried to work alone, without sharing the results. Within the ages of 14-17 (maybe) thecompetitiveness grew and pupil became different in the way of learning things and sharing them in a working group. The fact that you change yourself in that age, changes also the way of working and studying in school.

 Cecilia:

On my school of primary and secondary, there was lot of diversity. My school was a religious (catholic) school but there was some people of different religion. In addition, there was pupils with mentally challenged but they were very integrated on the school and on the class, with teachers and mates. Sometimes they were with us in the class, other times, they were in a class with teachers of special education but they were so happy.

The competitive didn’t appeared (or I didn’t realized it) until high school. On secondary school hadn't competitiveness, there was people that did an effort to get good marks, but they didn’t compete.

That year, the competitive was so hard. People did everything to be the best and there were very little comradeship. They always tried to be the best of the course, I didn’t really like it.

On the new high school there was a little of competitive, or rather, like in secondary, there were people that did an effort to get good marks but not competed. And there were lot of comradeship.

Noah:

1. Competitiveness:

 In this word, first I think about competition. Especially about competition between students, which takes place every day. On the one hand, I believe that competition can bring some of the students to more power. On the other hand, I think for the other part of the students this pressure can not withstand. This creates a large gap between the students.

 I have experienced competitiveness in my school days only in physical education. For me as a good athlete thus created positive pressure to perform, which has led me to perform better. But I now know that this competition was too muchfor other stundents in my class. They thought it would be too high expectations placed on them. Thus they have not tried to improve and they perceived competition as negative.

I believe that competition is important, but only in certain situations and a small extent. You as a teacher have to pay attention  which students are in your class. And that brings us to the second term.

2. Diversity:

Diversity is an issue that is increasingly important in our education systems. It was recognized that diversity can contribute to good learning and it takes an important role fort he future of our society. By diversity Children learn to see different characteristics of other children.

It's not just to make the lessons more open to culture, because even foreignersmight be in your class. It is also important to learn with children with for example  learning difficulties or with children with disabilities.

 I come from a rural area where not many children have lived. We all came from a similar family home. When I went to secondary school, it changed. The school is in a major city and I have met many new kids.

Form me, it was fun to find new friends. Sometimes there were children who had difficulties with the language, because their parents came from other countries. I found it great if the teacher has involved the countries of the children in class. I have learned many new things about different children.

Paula:

In my shool the classes were organized with 25-30 students per class. In the classes always were down´s syndrome boys and girls. They spend the time with us, but sometimes they need a special teacher or meybe they were to other class, but not too much. So they can socialize with all of us and we can know how were that kind of people and we learned to be with them, help them, and make them happy, as we do with other people.

I think that this is an amazing experience that not everybody can say, because there is people who think in down´s syndrome people like if they were weird or sick.

Águeda:

If I get down remembering how the equality in my school was, the first I think is that my school was inclusive, because there was children of different social classes and we share our class with the disables ones (they were with us almost every time).

But if I stop and think about that it wasn’t totally inclusive. It was a “semiprivate” school (we doesn’t have to pay enrollment but we have to pay for “materials”, the “dining-room” or some outdoors activities) so, it doesn’t was a school for ALL the people, maybe some of them wasn’t afford it. And I remember, for example that some partners never go to the trips because they didn’t have money.

In addition, although we shared class with the disables children and we had a good relation with them and loved them, we never had the same relationship with them like with the others children; we saw them like they were younger than us.

In the other hand, as I said talking about the relationships, the labels that teachers put to the students increased the inequality, because they didn’t were the same as theirs partners at the eyes of the teachers.

Finally, another thing that increased the inequality and the competitiveness were the exams and the calcifications. There always was the group of the “intelligent” and the “hopeless”. Although teachers never speak about these groups, we (the pupils) do it.

Burcu:

Looking at these two keywords “diversity & competitiveness”, I want to divide my school experience in three sections –primary school, secondary school and high school.

At that time I was one of the few pupils whose parents were not originally from Germany. It was neither one of the schools which had rather difficult children such as learning disabilities or an attention deficit disorder. I can clearly remember that there was only one boy in my class who was displaying social and emotional behavioral problems. And this only child was sent to a “special school” because the teacher couldn’t handle him. Looking back on that time, I see now that this child was unfairly treated. He had family problems which were reflected in his school grades, his level of attention and his social behavior. So basically, the school was quite homogeneous regarding its pupils.

In secondary school it was quite similar, as most of my classmates went over to the same secondary and high school (2 in 1) which had basically the same reputation: high level of education, low amount of foreigners. Although we were more students with migratory background, we still represented the minority. Furthermore, there were hardly any children with disabilities. When it was the same in high school, I decided to change schools and went over to another high school with lower reputation, as it was more diverse. I eased my mind immediately because not only the classmates but also the teachers were different.

Same with the competitiveness. In my last years of school, the pupils were more welcome to help each other as they saw everyone was being in the same situation. Proving to the world, that they can absolve school equally. Whereas on the other schools I attended before, the competitiveness was much higher. Everyone wanted to be the best, as the parents wanted them to be. Also the reputation of the school made the students feel like they have to compete their classmates to be the best at the end.

I can speak from my perspective, that these two factors “diversity & competitiveness” are decisive for the harmonic atmosphere inside a school. This again is a main factor for motivation and willingness to learn.