Teaching High Ability Learners in an Authentic Middle School

Tomlinson, C.A., & George P.S. (2004). Teaching high ability learners in an authentic middle school. Middle School Journal, 7-11.


Tomlinson and George seek to share combined beliefs about issues that both drive and challenge middle level educations with particular emphasis on differentiation and accommodating gifted learners in the regular classroom. Although the article seems to be more of a “statement of beliefs” than a research article, Tomlinson and George refer to their methodology of as research gathered from career-long data collecting and practice. The authors conclude the following:
-Equity and excellence ought to govern educational decisions
-Schools must work to develop educational environments that affirm and extend the possibilities of students
-Schools must focus on providing all students with curriculum and instruction that reflect their best understanding of quality
-Schools must support each student in developing his or her capacity as fully as possible.

While this article is not totally related to action research and findings, Tomlinson and George rest on their professional expertise and reputation when writing this statement. There is no specific references to any schools that have been involved in case studies and while the research was completed over “career-long practice”, it gives little credibility to the authors. Had I not recognized the authors and known that both are well known in differentiation circles, this article would be of little use.

As I think about my own classroom and differentiation, I believe I am working towards what Tomlinson and George have concluded to be “best practice in an authentic middle school”. I feel slightly disappointed by the generalities this article makes about the goals of middle schools and the assumed knowledge of differentiation, however I feel that I should have known it would lack specifics due to the large topic as stated in the title of the article. In the future, I will explore the topic of differentiation with more specific questions and ideas to prevent another “statement of belief” article. I still have wonderings about successful differentiated classrooms; how exactly do they operate? How do parents feel about heterogeneous groupings? How is differentiation managed with 180 + students?