I am about to tell you a short story. This story is nothing new though because if you have attended primary school in Zimbabwe you most probably can relate to this story one way or the other. When I was in primary school I was a bright student. Being that I was bright that meant that I sat in Group A which sat in front of the class very close to the teacher’s table.
To be honest even if I wasn’t a bright student I still would sit at the front of the classroom because I have poor eyesight and my mother always requested that I sit in front of the class always. So, I had a back door to a seat in Group A if things didn’t work out for me!! Group A was a source of pride we were the cream of the class. To be honest we were the favorites.
I believe the reasoning behind this system was to promote competitiveness because the idea was if you started slacking in your studies then you would be moved to a lower ranking group. It sounds like a good idea, but let’s face it that was not the case at all. For starters the groups hardly changed at all. It was basically the same people through out the school year.
Then if by any chance one person from Group A started slacking or was starting to have disruptive behavior (behavior counted too) he/she would be moved to a lower group mostly Group B which consisted of bright students as well. The teacher would then be hard on that particular student the following week until that student gets his/her act together then they are brought back into Group A. So, the system really promoted favoritism rather than competitiveness.
This, to be honest created a sense of hopelessness in students rather than the competition that was intended. The students in the lowest group which was Group D settled in there they told themselves that it was where they deserved.
The other thing, all the students who were having difficulties were placed in one group so who was going to help them. They couldn’t ask help from their peers from Group A it was a different territory. The teacher? Please the teacher sat close to his/her top students. So group D kids had no help and that is one of the reasons why things never changed.
It is also interesting to note that the students who were placed in the last group were the students that were the common culprits for disruptive behavior. The teacher’s attitude will immediately be “These good for nothing students all they are good at is to act out.” However, could it have been because the students never got attention and thus this was their way of getting it?
Remember this was primary school, almost every child wanted attention. Except for my brother or so he claims, he wants to give me an impression that he was a cool kid!! I still don’t believe him. To top off on that if a student from Group A started to misbehave the teacher would check if she was now hanging out with some of the kids from Group D and the teacher would advise the student otherwise. So basically, interaction was prohibited.
Let me give you a picture of what my classroom looked like. It had two boards on each side. The board that was mainly used was the front one. At times the teacher would use the back one though. Since I had poor eyesight, when the teacher wrote on the board at the back of the class I would move to the back of the class for that particular lesson. So, I moved around in class a lot.
I would sit in Group B when I wanted to see a section on the back board, Group C when I wanted to see a certain section on the front board and Group D when I wanted to see a certain section on the back board. To be honest I loved it, the guys from Group D were really funny. There was this guy I was actually close friends with who sat in Group D. Now I will not mention his name of course but to avoid confusion and so as to avoid saying my friend from Group D all the time I will just name him Mr. E (minimizing typing by all means necessary!!)
Now from time to time I would let Mr. E copy my work. However even when I gave him my work to copy Mr. E would not copy it right and would make spelling mistakes and write things that were not there. I didn’t get it then but now I realize that most probably my friend Mr. E had a learning disability. No one helped him though. To the teacher he was just another bad student in Group D.
Right now, I am studying psychology at Johnson C Smith University in North Carolina. I work for the university as well and my supervisor has dyslexia (a learning disability that makes it very difficult or impossible to read or write). The man is brilliant, he writes plays and he is an alumnus of the school. He has his college degree and continues to write his plays.
I am saying this because I think that’s the condition that Mr. E had, I repeat I am guessing. The difference between my supervisor and Mr E is that no one ever noticed the condition with Mr. E, and no on was willing to help. When primary school ended and we all went to different high schools I never saw Mr. E but anywhere he is I do hope he is doing great.
This is a system that I believe is still in place in primary schools right now, maybe it’s time we start to ask ourselves is it really beneficial.
Tawanda Nyahasha is a Zimbabwean studying towards a degree in Psychology at Johnson C Smith University, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. You can reach out to him via Facebook.
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8 comments
I was part of this system and did not even realise it… Maybe it’s the why in the real world we don’t share ideas or with together on a project because think we can achieve it all alone and unwilling to share the profits… The smart kid want an advantage so they won’t help out the weak ones… There’s an easy solution… The class won’t passed till everyone passes… This will force the smart one to interact and teach the weaker ones for a common goal… All for free
That’s a very valid point. Even the smart kids are not benefiting from the system because the very purpose of having knowledge is to teach it to other people. But since interaction was prohibited they are unable to do that.
I like that idea. dont pass the whole class until everyone passes. nice one
You’re right. Perception is key, I had never seen it that way and I just began to wonder what such a setup was devised to accomplish anyway.
I am a product of that system and with naivety enjoyed my days in the A group during the early primary school years. I did not enjoy it in the later years of primary school and made it a policy to during secondary school years not to sit in front. The group system was a systemic colonial era technique to create an elite social class tapering with a chosen few at the top and the labelled ‘barbarous multitudes’ at the wide base of the pyramid. Admittedly education is the bedrock of personal and social development, but our skewed, mostly British based curricula has been churning out a highly certified people (seemingly literate) with qualifications that are mostly irrelevant and do not meaningfully address the economic challenges of our country and continent
Surely, the author being a university student ought to now have a sense of the boundaries of their knowledge. Please consult an educator, and look up the Montessori school model.
The issue is not about students sitting in groups though. The issue is about the classification that comes with it when it comes to our education system. The model you referred to says nothing about Group A or Group B
I fucking hate Private Skulls & I hate Private Skull rejects.