I enjoyed last week's discussion over the pros and cons of No Child Left Behind and tracking. This might seem weird for a Bio major, but last year, I was impacted by an educator and her drive to change the way we teach.

My role model, for lack of a better word--because truly, she is more of a friend than anything else--has the remarkable idea that she can teach every single one of her students. She believes she can do this through IEPs, or individualized educational plans, to be used on every student. Through this, she will teach all of the necessary skills, and grade upon whether or not they can demonstrate said skills in a portfolio type format. This way, poor testers do not necessarily have poor grades. They can demonstrate that they know a skill in class.

Another advantage of this system is the ability to give students assignments that appeal to the student, which can self-motivate the student to learn. In an ideal world, the assignment would be cross-disciplinary and would help reinforce concepts taught in other classes. In effect, it would teach students to connect ideas taught in all classes and help them incorporate this type of thinking into their everyday life.

My teacher had a better way of describing it, but I don't remember it anymore and I lack the ethos to preach. But I do know that I want my children to go to school in a system where the teachers want to help their students as much as she did.