This post is about why it’s problematic and educationally damaging to label kids as “high” and “low.” But first, I want to start by saying, “I get it, and I believe you”. You have high and low kids. If you’re a teacher candidate, you are probably in a classroom where kids are organized in high and low groups for math. You see over and over again that when you give some kids a math problem, they can just run with it, while other kids struggle even getting started. It seems natural to talk about your kids as high and low.
So what’s the problem?
There are at least four big problems with thinking of, and labeling, kids as “high” and “low”.
1. It’s the curriculum, not the kid
First, it’s simply not accurate that some kids are consistently high or low. I know, I know, I started off saying I believe you that you have high and low kids—just stick with me.
Kids are high and low when the teaching and curriculum are narrow. If math is mostly about computing answers quickly, then some kids will be faster or slower at that. But that’s not all math is (or at least it’s not all math should be). It’s very rare that someone will be consistently better at every aspect of mathematics, which can include:
Being creative in thinking of real-world connections
Coming up with many ways to solve a problem
Asking questions that lead in interesting directions or encourage others to explain
Drawing pictures that show what is happening
Persevering when problems are challenging
Explaining what they did and why it makes sense to them
Contributing unique ideas
Bringing in real real-world knowledge
Collaborating with others, including valuing their ideas
Supporting a group in working together
Many of these things are very difficult to see with traditional math teaching and curricula. If your classroom focuses on limited aspects of math, never draws in authentic real-world knowledge, doesn’t engage kids in explanation, and doesn’t tackle problems that can be interpreted in multiple ways, then it’s nearly impossible to see these other kinds of strengths.
This is one of the primary dangers of standards and how they are used in many classrooms. Most of the Common Core math standards are pretty narrowly written, so if you select a particular standard and think “how am I going to teach this?” there’s a good chance you’ll end up with something very skills based that makes it hard to see these many possible smartnesses.
Finally, you also need to consider other potential difficulties. Are they having trouble because they’re not familiar with the vocabulary in the problem or the real-world context you used? Do they need support in reading the problem? These are not related to math ability, but we often use them to limit children’s opportunities in math. Your job as a teacher is to figure out how to support them in accessing the math.
2. Kids know
Children know which group they are in. If you call them the “robins” and the “blue jays” they all know which is the “smart group” or the “good group”. And because they know, they start to believe it about themselves. This is especially destructive for the kids labeled “low”, but it can be damaging for the “high” kids too. Take a look at this short video:
3. Self-fulfilling prophecy
When you label some kids as “high” and others as “low” you end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You start to think of this as something inherent in who the child is. You give low kids less challenging mathematics to do and they fall further behind, while the high kids are pushed further ahead.
We see over and over again that when kids are given boring, repetitive, narrow versions of mathematics, they disengage. When “low” kids are forced to drill their “basic skills” before they can move onto the more interesting material they get less and less engaged in mathematics. While it seems reasonable to start with the basics first, evidence about how children learn math shows that they thrive in richer, more problem-solving based environments and they can learn the basics as they engage in higher order thinking.
Even in mixed settings (whether mixed-ability small groups or whole class activities), high kids get to talk more and have their ideas built on while low kids are sidelined. The kids do this to each other because they know who has been labeled high and low (#2 above), and you do it too. You will subconsciously end up responding to and positioning children differently based on how you have labeled them, only exacerbating the problem.
The research is clear: Ability grouping consistently causes the gaps between the groups to get bigger.
4. Equity
Poor children and children of color* are disproportionately labeled as “low” in schools across the country. And since labeling children as low only increases the gap between the low and high kids, labeling them exacerbates many of the race/ethnicity and class-based inequities we see in our society. We like to imagine that education is the “great equalizer” (Horace Mann, 1848), but with ability grouping, tracking, and unequal resources for different schools, it often turns out that schools are great unequalizers.
Can I ever group based on skill?
I’m not saying you should never pull kids together to work on particular skills they need support with. But you should not develop or use general labels of children as “high” or “low” and you should not group kids in these ways. While you definitely should not use consistent “low” and “high” groups because it will inevitably lead to them having different learning opportunities, you also need to be careful about mixed groups. For instance, it is also problematic to create groups with one “high”, one “low”, and two “middle” kids if you are planning on having the high kid help the others.
So what do I do?
The fundamental problem is thinking of children in terms of “high” and “low”. Instead you want to focus on identifying all individual children’s strengths and on how to incorporate and build on those in math lessons.
You need rich tasks that take a variety of math smarts. Several of the resources below offer ideas for this.
Many educators emphasize the value of random groups that change semi-regularly (maybe once a month or quarter). You may also take into account some other factors; for instance, if two students speak the same language they may be able to support each other in participating.
You also need to explicitly support children in learning how to work effectively in groups and whole-class settings so that they value each other’s thinking (again, several of the resources below provide support in this area).
Addendum: Thinking about students with disabilities
After reading this post, Rachel Lambert pointed out the importance of considering students with disabilities as well. I want to point to her website as a resource for thinking about this. Unfortunately, educators and researchers often buy into the myth that students with disabilities cannot engage in the same kind of rich mathematics as other learners. This leads to students with disabilities often receiving the same (or worse) treatment as students who are labeled "low"—a boring approach to math that fails to engage them in problem solving, which damages their math learning.
Further reading
Research summary: Moving Beyond Tracking from this collection
Youcubed is a great resource, and here is the section on ability grouping
Designing Groupwork by Cohen and Lotan
Smarter Together by Featherstone, Crespo, Jilk, Oslund, Parks, and Wood
Strength in Numbers by Horn
Mathematics Mindsets by Boaler
Funds of Knowledge by González, Moll, and Amanti
Mathematizing4All by Rachel Lambert
Catalyzing Change from the NCTM
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*This phrasing is not to suggest that White is not a "color" or "race".