Tracking and the SSC: Chicken or the Egg?

[Thomas White]

The SSC, an accessible space for students to come to catch up on missing work or receive the assistance of a tutor, fills an interesting role within the structure of the classic American high school. The center’s function is remedial by nature– it helps students make up missing or late assignments. While this is undoubtedly an important “safety net” of sorts to make sure students don’t fall too far behind, how this happens has important implications relating to school diversity.

The most obvious connection to diversity is if and how the SSC promotes tracking. In the article “The Gap is in Our Expectations,” the author discusses how tracking students into “basic” and “advanced” tracks at schools puts the students in the basic track at a distinct disadvantage. The problem, according to the author, is the connection between teacher expectations and student comfortability and motivation to learn. The majority of the students who use the SSC for help are those who take “regular” classes. The other day, I talked with a student who complained about his class saying, “I don’t understand how we have so much homework… this was supposed to be the REGULAR class!” While this student enthusiastically sought my help on an essay and articulated an interest in the material, I couldn’t help but wonder how considering oneself “regular” would influence motivation to accomplish work assignments. Thus, it becomes the job of the SSC to combat similar feelings of disinterest caused by tracking.

The main way the SSC approaches the challenge of motivating students is by prioritizing simply finishing the assignment over quality. Ms. Bataglia, the teacher in charge of the classroom, is great at motivating students to get their work done. Today, she told a student, “you just have to finish these two assignments and then you will be FREE for the weekend.” Working with this student on these assignments, I could tell he wanted to be done with them as soon as possible. Because the assignments related to an interesting part of American history, one of my academic passions, I was slightly disappointed at his lack of interest. This led me to wonder if prioritization of quantity over quality actually serves the students or if they are being taught harmful messages about the importance of learning.

However, now that I think about it, I don’t think the blame of tracking belongs to the SSC. If anything, the SSC only alleviates the worse effects of tracking (complete burnout and failing out of high school). Of course, in an ideal world there would be no need to ever prioritize quantity over quality, but schools would look much different if this were the case.

Additionally, it is important to consider the demographic diversity of the students and teachers at the SSC. Bandura’s theory of observational learning highlights students’ need to learn from teachers of a variety of perspectives, especially teachers they feel they can easily connect with. Does the SSC serve students of many backgrounds? Are teachers reflecting a wide range of racial, gender, cultural, and economic backgrounds? It is impossible for me to know the answer to all these questions, but I can draw assumptions from what I have observed. I have worked with students from a range of racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds, but the large majority of students who work at the SSC are white. However, the SSC shares its services with two other classrooms: TORCH and the credit-recovery center. While these other classes are technically separate and run by separate teachers, students from those classes often come to work with an SSC tutor. Unlike the SSC, the majority of students in TORCH and the credit recovery center are of color. For TORCH, this is by design– it is a space for disadvantaged students to prepare for life after college, often being a space for college preparation. The credit recovery center, on the other hand, seems to highlight another failure of the American school system not adequately serving disadvantaged students. Strikingly, almost every staff member (not including Promise Fellows) that works across the credit recovery room, the SSC, and TORCH is white. This seems to suggest that there is a lot of room for improvement for these spaces.

Aside from this conversation, the SSC seems to be doing well. Students are in good spirits and motivated to work on their assignments. Today, I witnessed the delight of a student finding out that their hard work in the SSC helped her ace a quiz in math class. This was a wonderful moment to see– it emphasized to me the importance of giving students the opportunity to engage with schoolwork in alternative settings like the SSC. This may even counter some of my earlier assumptions about the SSC being mostly “remedial”– in this case it helped a student not only catch up on work but be prepared enough to ace a quiz. Seeing a student work hard and accomplish a goal is an incredible aspect of teaching, one that is pushing me to pursue a career in it!

[Kara Sun]

Hi Thomas,

I enjoyed reading your blog about the SSC, especially because I am in a Prairie Creek classroom which is a pretty different setting. Your thoughts about how teacher expectations interact with student motivation are really interesting. I especially relate to the distinction between quality and quantity. I used to get bothered in high school when I felt like my teachers emphasized quantity over quality by giving us busy work that I didn’t feel like I was actually learning from. Instead of rising to expectations of high quality work, I dropped to the expectations of just getting work done. I realized that there was a flaw in the system when I was able to get good grades (by completing work thoroughly) without really learning or being interested in the material. It is easier and takes less effort for teachers to evaluate students based on how much work they’ve done instead of how well work was done, but is this the best way to encourage intrinsic motivation and hold students to expectations that ask them to challenge themselves, engage critically with material, and rise to their best selves?

[Molly Schwartz]

Hi Thomas,

I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think your discussion on tracking and the role (even if inadvertent) that academic support centers such as the SSC, TORCH, and the credit recovery center play in perpetuating the negative effects of tracking is super interesting. As you say in your title it is very much a chicken and egg situation. I have definitely felt discouraged when working with a student that is behind who is more interested in finishing the assignment than the quality of what they turn in or the process of learning something. It can be challenging as a tutor to not just start a discussion with a student on a topic if the goal is to help the student finish the assignment. I think there needs to be a new way to incentivize students to learn. This may come in a change in the curriculum to make it more relevant to them or just having more opportunities to be graded on their discussion/learning process rather than assignments turned in.

[Author]

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