A Failure for the Ages

     Education almost always groups students by age, and that tendency is so ingrained that many students that do not meet performance goals or levels of accomplishment are passed on to the next grade anyway, because the stuff about self-esteem and social growth are far too often deemed more important than the academic part of learning.  Why do we continue to group students to successive educational levels by age? You’re gonna hate this, but it’s because that’s what we’ve always done since about 1850 or so. Even though student age tells us nothing about what each student can or might be capable of, that’s what we use.  That’s also why most teachers teach to the middle of the class; that is, they don’t teach above the level that most of the students can follow. They often do, however, teach above the heads of the students most challenged by the material, those that may not read, write or be as academically proficient as their peers for any number of reasons. This system has managed to perpetuate itself with little or no real research into discovering whether or not there might be a better way. Tradition, no matter how ineffective or inappropriate, is always a difficult hurdle to overcome.  Ever wonder where achievement gaps originate? Look no further than low socioeconomic status and a system that year after year teaches primarily to the middle of the class and every year leaves slow developers or those that missed the basic concepts of reading, writing and math further and further behind.

     Don’t blame teachers for this problem.  With oversize classes of 25+ students, there is no time for remediation and very little for individualized instruction. Class sizes like this might be ok for PE and band, but for core academic classes where test scores drive instruction, you can begin to see why there is a teacher shortage and our best instructors with the most experience are looking for a way out.

     What if employers grouped their employees in this manner? “I’m sorry Mr. Jones, but we’re only hiring 24 year olds for our company at this time,” or “Miss Smith, you would be perfect for our business if only you were 28 like the rest of our employees,” or my favorite “I’m sorry Sgt., but 25 is long past the time for incoming freshmen in our university, so in spite of your experience in the armed forces you just wouldn’t fit into our incoming class for this fall.”  

     This may come as an epiphany to many, but parents can vouch for the fact that no two children, even those in the same family, develop in the same ways at the same time. Just as no two children grow at the same rate or in the same ways, and certainly do not develop emotionally at the same rate, the maturation processes of each child’s brain are also a highly individualistic process. To assume that all 10-year-olds are ready to meet any measure of “average” for most 10-year-olds is akin to assuming that the way your spouse behaves in any given situation is pretty much how most spouses behave in the same or similar situations. Try that at your house and see how well your spouse responds.  Each individual child presents far too many variables in growth, maturation and development for any “basic assumptions” about children in general to hold much in the way of validity. Adults should never assume that a child has a disability because the development of cognitive and/or physical skills is uneven, and neither should they assume that developmental delays will always get better over time. Standardized assumptions are the enemy of individualized growth and educational practice.

    Grouping students by age is not a universal practice.  Dr. Maria Montessori eloquently presented the practice, science and reasons for mixing students across age groups, and asserted that doing so provides younger students with models to emulate and additional sources of care and emotional support. Older students learn to develop their capacities to nurture and to learn through teaching others that also expands creativity.   Developed initially as a way to assist special needs students in Italy, the Montessori model uses multi-age classrooms to normalize differences in children. Every student is surrounded by a range of skills and ability levels and learns that different doesn’t mean deficient or abnormal, and that everyone can learn from each other.

     Children naturally learn by watching others, imitating and integrating the reading, activities and skills they see in others into their own behaviors. Using this method, students also learn that every student has at least one skill they can effectively teach to others, and serving in the role of teacher to others leads to an acceptance of learning from other students in the same way.  The adult teacher’s role is to serve as a guide for students, and to demonstrate appropriate use of materials and methods before students use them on their own. Teachers move students forward within subjects when students or small groups indicate a readiness to advance. 

     Standardized tests have no place in the curriculum, and each student’s capabilities and skills are assessed daily through teacher observations, student work, student responses and mental skills and comfort using the provided materials. Since student interests are a key to teachers as they guide students through the curriculum, students grouped by abilities (as opposed to age) are often adept at reading and writing before age 6, and studies show many students progress as much as 2.5 times quicker than students grouped by age.

     Montessori teachers are trained to support relationship development among students, and assist them in developing self-discipline, self-control and learning the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Intense and specific training is required for teachers to master these techniques, and they are an integral part of the training required to support Montessori’s belief that teaches students not only what is allowed, but how to correct their own problematic behavior.

     Since the method places an emphasis on whole child development, Montessori believed “education must not be understood in the sense of teaching, but of assisting the psychological development of the child, including concepts of calmness, clarity, courage, compassion, wonder, joy, creativity, connection and playfulness.” Teachers are trained to serve the role of “unobtrusive director” in the classroom, and students work in small groups or individually at their own pace on things that interest them. 

     The point is that students are allowed to move at their own pace and are not kept in age restricted groups simply because of their date of birth. There are other models available that allow students the freedom to move forward or remain on a topic or with a group.  Waldorf Schools, Reggio Emilia Schools and High/Scope Schools are all methods that focus on the child and individual progress and learning and not necessarily moving - or being moved - from grade to grade because of their age.

     What we currently have - for a variety of reasons - is failing far too many children. Many of the problems are societal, like the degradation of the nuclear family, the focus on the indoctrination of children and far too many teachers and administrators that see students as just another tool for societal experimentation and exploitation of their own political ends and the abject failure and refusal of standardized testing proponents to propose and/or allow any attempts to remediate the lack of learning achievement they are so quick to point out.

     It would be easy to find systems to volunteer for pilot programs for any of these methods for a 3–5-year time period to discover whether or not they were superior to the Rube Goldberg system of early education that has been cobbled together for us over the past 50 years or so by local, state and federal education agencies and bureaucrats that know everything except how to teach. Where would the money come from? That should be easy - the USDOE says that from 2000-2019 the number of students in public education grew 7.6%, and the number of teachers grew 8.7%. The number of district administrators in public schools during that time period in the US grew 87.6%. The average class size in US public education is 25.  You can certainly see the possibilities for improvement in trading many of those administrative positions for teaching professionals.