One Track Mind

At City on a Hill Charter Public School, there are not separate classes for the smart kids and separate classes for the kids who just...can’t.  All students can do everything CoaH asks of them, and all students MUST do these things, or they will not graduate.  We never lower the standards for any of our students, but rather increase the expectations for all of our students.  We do not have “tracking” at City on a Hill. This notion of equality – not separate, therefore equal – helps our students succeed.

My high school had almost complete racial uniformity, but was still fairly segregated.  We were divided not by race or socioeconomic status (although I suspect there were strong correlations), but by ability, or, more accurately, perceived ability.  We were “tracked.”  There was a de facto elite who took all honors/AP classes.  There was a broad “middle class” who took some honors and mostly “college prep” classes.  Below them was a class of students, mostly invisible to me except in gym class and at assemblies, who took “the easy classes.”  Our school had some fuzzy euphemism for those classes, but to be honest I have no idea what it was.  Occasionally some students would work their way up or down, but from my position on top, everyone seemed content with their station.  In some sense, we all were where we believed we “should” be.

It was easy for me to make these assumptions because I was a member of the honors/AP elite.  We took the hardest classes because we were smart, and we were smart because we took the hardest classes.  It was a self-reinforcing mechanism, and one that had disastrous implications.  We didn’t need to work that hard because we had already succeeded.  After all, why else would we be “allowed” into the AP classes by the guidance counselors?  We deserved good grades because we were smart, and smart kids got good grades.  Woe betides the teacher who dared to give a “smart kid” a “bad grade.”

If that’s what it felt like for a “smart kid,” what must it have felt like for the student who just...couldn’t? Who couldn’t handle the “hard” classes, who knew at age 15 that he was not bound for college.  I’m deeply ashamed to say:  I have no idea.  I wasn’t friends with any of them.

City on a Hill does not segregate its students through tracking.  There is one rigorous English class for all freshmen, one for all sophomores, one for all juniors, and one for all seniors.  If you get less than a 70 in freshman English, you cannot go onto sophomore English, and you cannot become a sophomore.  Some students finish it on their first try, some need two or three, but all of our graduates have passed all four English classes.  The same is true for other subjects.  There is no pressure to pass students along with the grade level they “should” be in; the grade you “should” be in is determined by how you successful you are in your courses.  To those of us who were indoctrinated into the value system of tracking, this can seem at first excessively harsh.  But City on a Hill is quick to remind everyone that no students “fail” – the only grades are A, B, C and “Not Yet Passing.”  You are not a failure if you do not pass English I, you just need another try before you are ready to pass.

As these subtle language changes demonstrate, a lot of teaching is self-esteem management.  For too long, too many teachers have thought that if students were encouraged, then they could succeed.  In my high school, this resulted in a lot of students in the “easy classes” who were robbed of an education and given platitudes in exchange.  At City on a Hill, we reverse the logic:  if students succeed, then they will be encouraged.  Their teachers will provide the encouragement initially, but the students will eventually learn to encourage and motivate themselves.

Every student at City on a Hill has a tutor, and while part of our job is to make sure they succeed, an even more important part is to make sure they know they can succeed.  One of my students, who did not pass geometry last year and is a sophomore again because of it, stopped me in the hall this week to tell me good news. 

“Mister!” she beamed.  “Guess what my grade is in geometry.” 

She was too excited to wait for my obligatory reply and instead blurted “77!!!!” 

In my high school experience, I can honestly say I never spent time with anyone who was excited to get a 77.  I realized, though, that she had probably worked harder for that C+ than I had ever worked for any A.  I gave her a high-five and asked her if she thought she could get it to a B in time for report cards. 

“Of course!” she said, and cheerfully bounced along on her way to class.

Because she was not labeled a “failure” and because she did not get switched to another track that was “more her level,” she was empowered and encouraged to succeed at a subject that had been a genuine struggle for her.

I have been shocked by how quickly my previous assumptions have evaporated.  This is my first academic teaching job and I can’t imagine what it must be like to work in a school where it is implicitly or explicitly stated which kids can learn and which kids can’t.  I hope I never have to work in such a place.

Some of our freshmen enter here from middle schools where they were “the smart kids;” some were “the dumb kids” or “the troubled kids” or the “ones who just couldn’t do it.”  A few came from other schools where such labels were held at bay, if not abolished.  Yet every single one of our students will be “the smart kid” by the time they graduate.


Matthew Lawrence is a first year CoaHCORPS member at City on a Hill.  He received his B.A. in History and European Cultural Studies from Brandeis University.  He is originally from Vermont and visits there as often as possible.