Where’s Ara Dozier when you need her? My seventh grade social studies instructor called what she did in the classroom teaching. These days it’s being heralded as “differentiated” instruction or learning.

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee along with some parents, teachers and the principal at West Elementary School have come up with this interesting jargon and plan. The concept would allow teachers to establish different instructional models, within the same classroom setting, for students with disabilities, those who are considered gifted and talented, and others.

“It’s not just her driving this,” DCPS spokeswoman Mafara Hobson says. “It’s a joint decision involving parents, teachers and the principal. “But there is no plan yet. We don’t have a partner,” Hobson adds. The chancellor wants an external organization to run the effort at the Northwest school. The DCPS doesn’t have the capacity to manage the initiative itself.

Help us! What has happened to teaching and teachers? Dozier, whom I think single-handedly rescued more than a few youth from the wrong path, didn’t need the New Orleans school superintendent to tell her how to teach children of varying learning abilities, styles and pacing. And, she certainly didn’t have to wait for an external snakeoil seller seeking to separate taxpayers from their wallets while offering illusions of significant change. I remember Dozier put the students in my class in three groups.

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One was for the very slow learner who needed great assistance. The second group was for those who were somewhat slow or simply lazy and uninspired; I was a member of that section. The third group, called the cream of the crop, included fast learners, gifted students who required little direction from the instructor or hands-on guidance.

Grouping her students was an admission by Dozier that even in a classroom setting, the individual must be served and instruction should incorporate differences. Despite this acknowledgment, Dozier expected all of us to achieve a level of proficiency, learning the basics of the course.

That expectation meant she had to extend herself with her students. In some instances, she met some of my classmates for lunch to provide additional tutoring. Some she met after school. Still others, like me, simply needed words of encouragement or a swift verbal kick in the you-know-what to inspire us to reach our potential.

Dozier also enlisted students to help each other. For example, those in my group assisted the very slow learners. Yes, some of them didn’t always move to the next rung. But there were remarkable successes.

Without giving away my age, it’s been more than a decade since I was in seventh grade. But, a teaching model that’s been around for years can hardly be heralded as some new, reform thing, worthy of celebration even if it now has a fancy name.

Jonetta Rose Barras is the political analyst for WAMU radio’s D.C. “Politics Hour with Kojo and Jonetta.”