I’m reprinting, in three parts, with a little added
commentary, a piece I wrote 20 years ago on a classroom that was working well
by imitating the natural learning that happens in a home. Part I described what
the multi-age classroom looked like. Today’s part II covers some of the
research, which was newer at the time, and possibly less adulterated by “experts.”
The Research
Howard Gardner’s “theory of multiple intelligences”[i]
for instance, has had an effect on how information is offered to students.
Gardner has identified seven intelligences—distinct ways that we come to know
our world. These are verbal/linguistic; logical/mathematical; visual/spatial;
body/kinesthetic; musical/rhythmic; interpersonal; and intrapersonal. Schools,
as well as standardized tests, have concerned themselves mostly with only the
first two. Students who could be geniuses in several other intelligences but
weak in those two could be labeled dull and slow. Children who are otherwise
bright fail school—or, more precisely, school fails them.
Child development experts base much of their work on the
theories of Jean Piaget.[ii]
Piaget was more concerned with how a child learned than with what the child
learned, and how ways of learning differ according to development. Further
studies have led to a teaching approach referred to as “developmentally
appropriate practices.”
Developmentally appropriate practices emphasize allowing a child
to develop at his or her own rate. No two first graders are expected to be at
the same level in their gradual development of reading, for example.
Recognition of beginning sounds comes before recognition of beginning and
ending sounds, which in turn precedes phonetically sounding out entire words
and full sentence comprehension. Reaching a new stage of development is an
accomplishment for each child, regardless of whether his peers have already
reached that stage. Developmentally appropriate practices are flexible enough
to allow development at a personalized rate, much the way a gardener allows
roses to bloom according to their own timing. (Please note the real meaning of kindergarten—a garden of children.)
Multi-age classrooms, or non-graded classrooms, are a
logical step in allowing the flexibility of developmentally appropriate
practices. While developmentally appropriate practices are recent improvements,
multi-age classrooms were around long before grade separated schools. What we
call a traditional school is actually only a century old. Grade separation was
an attempt to efficiently handle as many students at a time as possible. This
was done at a time when schools were assigned the task of taking children of
low income families off city streets and educating them. Ironically, the
students the education system targeted to save are the very ones most likely to
fail, be retained, and eventually drop out of school.
There is no research showing that students learn better with
same age peers. There is a growing body of research showing the opposite.
In a multi-age school environment, students are not expected
to be the same age. Nor are they expected to know the same things or be at the
same developmental level as the rest of the class. In this classroom it is all
right to know less than someone else. It is expected. Just as in the real
world, there will always be someone who knows more about something than you.
And there will also be someone who can benefit from something you know.
Some of the most difficult problems facing current school
systems disappear in a multi-age classroom. The question about when to retain
students, a difficult, life-affecting decision, is simply irrelevant. No one is
held back for developing at a slightly different rate from others born in the
same year. No one is labeled slow learner; everyone is labeled learner at his
or her own comfortable pace. Theoretically, even mainstreaming special
education students becomes easier in this environment.
What about incentive, if there is no threat of retention to
force a student to learn? Real learning, the ability to think, comes because it
is natural and interesting. Threat of failure is, at best, a negative
incentive.
Mrs. Crane is constantly finding incentives and
encouragements for students to do more than required. She does it without
requiring homework. Fifteen minutes of reading at home is all that’s expected.
Students keep track of their reading minutes, and most read far more than the
assigned quarter hour. They also may do their own math, science, or writing
projects at home. Students do it because it is their choice, because learning
is a joyful part of life rather than a tedious duty.
How is progress measured? Progress is measured continuously.
Portfolios, personalized goal charts, examples of student work are used in
addition to formal evaluations. Mrs. Crane can sit down with a parent at any
time and show exactly how the child is developing. A mini-grant for a video
camera is added this year, giving parents a visual record of their child’s
progress. The portfolio approach can be more satisfying to parents than report
cards and comparison with classmates. It can also be healthier for the child’s
self-esteem.
There is added stability in the multi-age classroom of
having the same teacher for two or more consecutive years. Teacher and students
already know each other at the beginning of the school year, reducing the slow
start-up time inherent in the current system.
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One thing I’ve found is that research is often interpreted
differently by different people. It’s possible the term “developmentally
appropriate practices” could be interpreted to fit square peg students into
round holes, to insist that students fit standard expectations, rather than as intended to adjust
methods to a particular child’s development. So knowing the right buzz words is
no guarantee of a curriculum’s effectiveness. Seeing the way something is put
into practice is a better indicator.
As for the portfolio approach of grading, I thought it made
very good sense. The portfolio approach was also used in the gifted magnet school my children later
attended. What I needed to see, as a parent, was the progress my child was
making—comparing where he was to where he’d been. The “data mining” that is
being pressed on schools through Common Core provides an overwhelming amount of
data, but coldly, without anything like teacher and parent getting together to
share delight over a child’s specific growth.
I clearly liked what was happening with my child in this
classroom. In Part III I’ll share the views of some of the other parents.
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