Some people think teaching children with different abilities together benefits everyone, while others think intelligent children should be taught separately and given special treatment. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

This

essay is aimed at addressing the old, emotionally charged issue of whether streaming or mixing should be recognized as a positive approach to educating

children

. Generally speaking, I should argue that the latter outdoes the former. Streaming, unsurprisingly, enables

students

to learn in a more efficient manner.

This

is easily imaginable for anyone who has experience in a mixed-ability class:

students

vary in what they are good at and how fast they acquire knowledge or basic skills. Teachers, confronted with

such

variation, must slow down so that those who lag behind still manage to feel relevant in the classroom.

Such

approach inevitably makes smarter ones see lessons repetitive and uninspiring. When high achievers are grouped together, it can be expected that they learn more efficiently and actively.

However

, the argument raised above does not necessarily justify the adoption of splitting

students

into classes based on ability. Effective as streaming may seem at

first

glance, the drawbacks can be severe and long-lasting. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree separating

students

into groups uniform in ability and sometimes even gender is as unnatural as it can be for us to educate the

next

generation. Growing in the simplified and artificial form of education,

students

are more than likely to struggle with the great variety of interpersonal interaction later on, which should render the extended periods of education less meaningful and fruitful. Mixed-ability classes,

on the contrary

, provide an environment to suit exactly what

children

need for their growth. The diversity of talent and interest should act as a catalysis: it creates occasions where quick leaners are required to tutor their peers, while slow ones are allowed more opportunities to learn and base their success on cooperation

instead

of competition.

Such

natural interaction encourages the development of valuable skills that can be later employed in the workplace, where stratification is the norm. After presenting arguments for both sides, we can safely draw the conclusion that streaming, while spurring better learning results, fails to create a natural environment where

children

are able to reach social maturity, and

thus

it is more desirable that

children

with various abilities are grouped together in the same classroom.