Here is a copy of an e-mail I wrote for the Choice listserv, another attempt to add perspective to the debate/conversation about mixed age grouping, written in response to one parent’s wish to understand the practice at our evolving alternative program. Not the best piece of writing ever, and many gaps, some of which are there because those ideas had already been shared by other parents, others there because my daughter is here and I am needing to follow up on my promise to read Judy Moody in the morning.
Hi,
I wanted to add my perspective as a parent and as a teacher and child care provider. Our three children have been in looped classrooms (teacher stays with same group for two years, in Choice this is first and second grade) and mixed age classrooms (two or more grades in one classroom, at Choice this happens for third and fourth, then fifth and sixth grade) and straight grade classrooms (only one grade of students in a class, at Healey this happens in the seventh and eighth grade). I have taught or student taught in five public and private schools in mixed grade classrooms and it was a subject of fascination for me as a college and graduate student. I now run a family day care program where mixed age grouping has gone haywire! We have kids in our program from one to thirteen (fifteen if you count the time my oldest son helps out).
I could go on and on and on about the benefits I see to mixed age grouping. I write and talk about it a lot. It was definitely one of the reasons we chose Choice for our oldest, and I believe it has been, or will be (our youngest is in her first mixed age class as a third grader this year) a huge benefit to all three of our kids.
Our boys in particular found stronger friendships in many cases in the group of boys a year younger or older than themselves than in their own grade, and being in class with those boys was great. Because the boys are two years apart, they also ended up sharing some friendships as they were alternately in class with the same group of kids.
Our kids each learned to read in their own way and on their own timeline. While the looped class allowed for their first/second grade teacher to take her time with their progress and to get to know them over time, if instead of being in a looped class, they had been in a combined class with both first and second graders together, I wonder how the wider range of development and the more experienced/less experienced reader/student dynamic would have worked for my kids.
As a teacher, I find working with mixed ages incredibly satisfying and normal. For the kids it reminds me of my life as a kid growing up in a neighborhood and extended family of kids of all ages who played and got along together over many years. As an adult, I get to know the children really well, and to develop long term, lasting relationships with the children and the families. I find discipline issues to be significantly diminished, no doubt in large part because my relationship with children is more substantial, but also because when children are in mixed ages, they shift roles, and seem not to as easily get into long term ruts. One year they are the youngest and receive help and attention from the older kids. Another year they are in the middle and can just feel their own presence in the group. Another year they are the oldest and can be the leader or nurturer, the one others admire.
Also, in a mixed age group, I find that children, if given the freedom, and the open-ended materials and projects, take a lot of initiative to challenge themselves and to support one another. I think this happens in particular at Choice in third and fourth and fifth and sixth grade when classes work on interdisciplinary projects such as the Greek Breakfast or Colonial Days. In these sorts of projects, where many skills are needed, a student’s contribution is less about age, and more about perspective or skill or interest. Like in life, this allows students and adults to see an individual for his/her strengths and challenges and contributions, rather than for her/his age. I would much rather my kid be known as the bassist in the band or that older boy who is really good at helping kids at recess to make soccer games fair than as that long haired seventh grade boy. The more we can provide opportunities for our kids’ diversity and individuality and contribution to community to be celebrated, the better. I think mixed ages can really support those goals.
My bias here is probably very obvious. The real challenges in doing mixed ages as I see them are: having teachers who are interested in working with mixed ages, as well as comfortable and experienced and skilled enough to pull it off (I think it probably is more work), who enjoy working with kids and families over time and having a really wide developmental range within their charge, and who have time to work as a team, if that is how the mixed age groups function, within teams of teachers, and having the freedom and/or the support to do mixed ages in the era of standardized testing. The more curriculum is standardized by grade level, and the more we use standardized tests to assess our students’ growth, the more challenging it is going to be to do lots of creative things that come from students and teachers which are not standardized. If we are trying to individualize instruction, or to create interdisciplinary units that might alternate years so mixed age classes don’t study the same thing two years in a row, or to integrate the arts or to provide more time for relationship building or to prioritize social or emotional or artistic or physical development along with academic achievement, we might have to balance out our need to teach certain things at certain times to certain groups of students against our teachers’ and students’ ability to choose and to make decisions about what is right at a given time. Mixed age grouping is just one piece of the complicated dilemmas teachers and schools face in implementing developmentally appropriate or constructivist education in the era of standardized testing. I vote for supporting mixed age grouping and for thinking about how we can continue to make it work. I also know it may mean thinking hard about the choices we would have to make to keep mixed age grouping in the age of standardized testing in order for our kids to be prepared for MCAS (or not) and for our teachers’ work lives to stay sane (or not).
I am glad the conversation is begun and I wonder how it will proceed as we continue to explore the options ahead in transforming our program and school (and district).
Maria
