I was sitting at dinner tonight with my friend visiting from New York, an old mutual friend from San Francisco now living in New York, and my friend’s friend. The topic of old teachers came up, and so did the topic of my former teacher, who used to be the science teacher of three out of four of us. I mentioned to our mutual friend, who is currently a high school math teacher in New York City, that our former teacher and friend informed me that honors classes were eliminated in favor of classes that were made for everyone regardless of having high potential or learning disabilities. I expressed my disappointment at this concept, not necessarily for the high achieving kids, but mostly for the kids who are lagging behind and need extra help. How will they get that extra help? How will they go through life when they are being compared to people who are much faster at grasping concepts, and frankly who are just out of their league? On the other end of the spectrum, the high potential kids will get bored and not feel challenged. I’m not a fan of the idea of eliminating levels of classes.

Our math teacher friend said he did agree with me, but he also understood the other side. At the school he currently teaches at, they also do not have different levels of classes, and definitely no honors. But, there were “optional” honors-like classes where kids who felt that they wanted “more” could opt in. He said that the flip side argument was about eliminating “special treatment,” and making kids see the wide spectrum of abilities across kids their own age, which would ultimately help them develop more empathy. In honors classes, you are in a bubble where you think everyone is ambitious or has a certain socioeconomic status. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

So, I understand that from the perspective of someone in honors classes, but I still feel like this puts a massive disadvantage over kids who are slower or might have learning disabilities and be at the opposite end of the spectrum. They could get more learning anxiety by seeing kids who are far faster at learning than they are, and that’s not necessarily a good thing or something that would enable them to be more empathetic.

The state of our education system is more depressing to me the more I learn about it, and I don’t really know if it’s teachers who are to blame, or the politics behind the entire education system, or the lack of discipline with kids these days and parents acting like their children are perfect, or perhaps all of the above.