Reflection #6

I was talking to the lady I nanny for and she was saying how her sons school put him in a lower math level than his grade.  He is in third grade, and this bothers her because she feels her son should be in a higher level.  This is the feeling many parents have, they want their kids to succeed and be at grade level in all things.  Sometimes I wonder though, why do we choose to put kids in certain math levels at such an early age? Sometimes it is obvious that a student needs extra help or time to learn something, but other times it may seem that a child is randomly thrown into a group.  This made me think back to when I was in 6th grade.  I have always been pretty good at math, and throughout elementary school I did very well.  But when 6th grade rolled around, I noticed a group of about 20 students got to go and do more challenging math while the rest of us didn't.  I didn't understand why I was never given the chance to be part of that group, because some of my friends were in it, and I felt I was at the same level as them.  It upset me at the time, because I thought they were learning things earlier than the rest of us, which gave them a head start in middle school and high school, and it turns out that it did.  Many of them remained in higher math classes, while the rest of us were stuck taking the "required" classes that they got to skip.  Looking back, I realize that teachers see our capabilities more than we think.  But I still wonder why we were never given a test or even an opportunity to be bumped up to the next level.  So I question what the best method of placement for students is. Should it be up to tests or just the teachers opinions?