Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
newsnationnow.com
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I am sure the teacher was sick of me by the third year as well.
Let's look at the opposite end of the spectrum. Student loves an instructor but is needlessly switched to someone new. My point though is that the flexibility to change or stay in the same group should exist.
This is, emphatically, not even close to true. If someone told you this, they were lying or just had no idea how schools work and were guessing.
> early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students
A perfect example of how you're veering away from reality with your faulty premise: teachers don't like super-early starts, either! Except the coaches who like having plenty of time for long after-school practices with the sun still up. Parents of athletes may like it, too, just so only one end of their daily schedule changes when their kids' sports are in season (as opposed to having to get them in for an early practice, and pick them up late for a late practice, unable to use the school bus for either end). The justification given for keeping it is usually some combo of "parents want it" (do they? I'm a parent and I fucking don't—but then I don't have any high school athletes in my house yet) and, overriding all other concerns, school sports. Adjusting those schedules may also mean elementary kids start earlier so that the high schoolers can start later, because districts want to be able to stagger bus schedules so they need fewer busses—again, not because teachers are demanding it—which I guess maybe some parents don't like (I'm a parent of elementary kids, and yeah, I'd like them there earlier and the high school kids later, reverse of how most districts do it, but maybe some parents do in fact want their elementary kids starting at 9 o'goddamn-clock when they've already burned 1-2 of their most alert hours for the day, and the high schoolers starting before 8:00, for some reason). It is absolutely not because teachers are demanding to start school before the sun's even up in the Winter.
I don't believe there is any purpose in the current school start time, but it's been this way for ages. I'm sure it works for at least some people - but I don't see any reason why student athletes couldn't practice in the morning and spare the rest of us.
-A teacher I was talking to last week
Point is, test scores aren't perfect.
That's the only power any worker has. Pay and/or other powers tend to correlate to how often the worker ceases to work and/or how expensive it would be to replace them (true for both union and non-union workers).
The teacher was openly derogatory towards her when she didn't understand a concept and refused to help her during open study periods. The child was flat out depressed when having to do anything with the class. We had enough and had a conference call with the principal, her assistant, and the teacher. Our kid was in a new class the next day.
*polluting with her awfulness the maximum number of students
It's necessary to deny any other factors, such as allowing choice by the students/parents.
Many of those were pretty much universally disliked often mainly due to the amount of work we'd have to do compared to others.
But when our class would get merged and we'd get one of the more 'popular' teachers, we were often kinda surprised how little the other half knew/had learned.
People have been commenting on the early start especially for high school students and claiming it won't change because of sports. Our school district starts elementary schools at 7:30am or 8am, middle schools at 8:30am or 8:50am and all high schools start at 9:30am. The varying start times for elementary and middle schools is due to bus scheduling. Some of our neighboring districts have similar schedules and others still have HS kids starting early again showing that sweeping statements regarding U.S. schools aren't accurate.
I suspect the vast majority of students will choose to stay with the current teacher, even if a very poor fit for them, because of that.
I suppose there's an argument to be made about "preparing for the 'real world'" but still.
Do they (correct me if I am wrong)? What I have seen in the USA, children indeed would switch classes, but relationships are continued on, especially middle and high schools where free time and extra curricular activities are often in shared space and time across classes.
To someone such as myself that didn't share a lot of classes with my good friends that doesn't seem like a big deal. To someone that may have already spent a couple years with these people all day long? That is likely a very scary thing to consider at a young age.
Obviously mixing like that does not work if you want to keep the kids with the same teacher.
Some students will receive multiple consecutive years of excellent instruction, others will receive multiple consecutive years of subpar instruction. Does the upside contain innovation and social mobility? Does the downside contain increased disillusionment with school and education broadly?
We pull the goalie when the odds are against us and increased variance is desirable. Is this such a case? Sadly, it may be.
Theres at least one benefit outside of having a good teacher for two years - - the teacher starts the second year with context about your skills and what needs improvement. Eg. They can spend the summer knowing how many students are ahead and plan relevant coursework
The downside was around not interacting with the students who have the other teacher much for a couple years. Much harder to retain those friends
Some bullet points:
- Many kids “learn the same”. From the perspective of schools, it’s true that differences in children can sometimes actually be differences in teachers
- In some school systems (such as Western public school) the teachers are all railroaded in to teaching the same and having the same attitudes in class. In that way, it’s also possible that a student who has issues with a particular teacher would have issues with many teachers throughout school
- Even among the kids who “learn the same”, there are massive differences internally. What we don’t see are the kids who work twice as hard and think that’s the amount of work everyone is doing, or the kids who are auditory learners but learn to read the words aloud in their head in order to remember them, or thousands upon thousands of ways that “non-typical” kids learn to mask their differences while thinking that it’s just what everyone does
- Objectively a lot of kids learn differently. We’re at the stage where teachers are taught this as a normal thing. On one hand the school system screens for all sorts of differences that might cause learning issues (like dyslexia), and on the other hand teachers are bringing different teaching styles in to classrooms so that all the “typical” kids can learn in their own style.
They're both humans. Humans can talk and reason, why not use that to try and solve the issues?
Edit: Feel free to down vote, but I'm of the opinion that adversity builds character and even more, it makes you into a person that people can rely on in tough situations. I know that parents these days want to make the lives of theirs kids so smooth that they'll never see a 90° degree angle in their life, but that's just not how the world work. At least the majority, I don't know how it's in US and huge cities. I'm from a village where everyone knows everyone.
Learning to be able to tolerate and deal with people that you don't like or don't get along is an incredibly valuable thing.
You expect a 6 year old to have the insight and emotional maturity to work around with a terrible teacher? Why would they even need a teacher if they could overcome that kind of adversity by themselves?
We need to figure out how to enact school practices in a way that different people get different practices; ideally lined up with what works for those people.
Obviously, if the school is small enough that it's one teacher per grade level, you can't have some kids in the grade loop and others not.
Free markets work through mutual consent between provider and providee.
I remember having the same English teacher (as in English literature) for five years (slightly accidentally - we got randomly allocated a couple of times and I ended up with her each time) and I think it gave me a rather narrow view of the subject.
All the advantages -- and disadvantages -- that you might imagine.
At least it’s common here, in East Germany.
I also think it is kind of important that it is this way, because kids learn FOR their teacher. A positive relationship must come first. Of course conflicts can happen. If this is the case and parents feel their children don’t grow to their full potential there are lot of ways to resolve the conflicts.
For next 3 years we had 1 retiring and then one taking over "home room" teacher. But at that point every class was with specialised teacher.
We did have repeat teachers for 3rd/4th grade (as the article described, it was probably due to staff shortages at the time), but by 5th/6th grade we moved to having different teachers for every subject.
Just opinion but I think kids benefit from different teachers teaching styles and personality.
And in case you get a bad teacher or a teacher who is not a fit, then the problem is resolved by passage of time within 12 months.
In fact my boy did get a bad teacher in primary school and exactly this line of thinking played out.
I'd never send my child to a school that did this.
Slightly off topic but I also don't think it is a good idea for kids to go to the same primary school and high school (i.e. some schools have kids all the way from prep to year 12). I think its good for them to have a different set of peers, teachers and environment after primary school. 13 years of the same is enough to make anyone sick of all of those things.
When I commuted between the South End and Cambridge MA for work right after college my roommates and I would make bets as to who would end up being late to work because the Cambridge Public High School electric schoolbus would break down, blocking a major road. For those who don't know, there's no great way with public transit to go from one end of Mass Ave to the other on any given day during rush hour. Train is about 1.1 hours, bus is 40 min best case scenario.
I kid you not - this was in 2019.
Ironically, also around the time Bird attempted to launch in Cambridge. This commute problem was later solved after we asked a Cambridge Police officer if we could buy impounded Bird Scooters in bulk. We each picked up 15 scooters at $8 per pop (basically brand new - sans new controller) and kept the rest in our basement. Ergo, "free" transportation for the next two years. Granted, NEVER buy a Ninebot product, the scooters on average would last around 105 miles prior to having a major mechanical or electrical failure. For those who are still reading, scooter cut the 40min bus commute to around 14 minutes.
My parents(and many others) complained to the school. They couldn't fire him for a bunch of reasons I don't want to get into, beyond "south african public school".
When people talk about keeping a child with one teacher for a long duration, I think about that maths teacher.
It's like a democracy, rotating people in power around highlights problems, and also limits the damage of the bad ones. I don't think any teacher should ever teach any child for more than 1 subject for more than 1 year, in an ideal world.
I recognize that this is just an anecdote, and there is the potential to get stuck with a bad teacher as other commenters have pointed out, but at least in his case, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I wish that I'd had the same opportunity.
The class formed an especially close bond with each other and the teacher, and that led to some really unique extracurricular activities. At that age, parents are often still very involved in their children's education, and Mrs. F was able to form relationships with the parents as well, allowing the class and their families to go on special weekend camping trips, visit museums, participate in science competitions, among other things.
Years later, many of them still keep in touch, and I think just about everyone involved went on to higher education, many at very prestigious schools.
If a teacher has an even slightly better understanding of what their children already know, they are set up to succeed at helping them learn new things.
It's not the only factor that matters, but it is a big deal especially for earlier grades.
To answer your anecdata: There are kids in public school who are clearly behind, too. In fact, I wonder (also without data!) if the same kids from the same families would be behind in public school. And then I wonder whether they'd be more behind or less behind.
As I said, no data. But it takes heroic amazingness from the school to make up for a badly-screwed-up home environment.
And that's really depressing, because I don't know of any policy that can fix badly-screwed-up home environments. You could take the kids, and we do if it's bad enough, but the bar for that is very high, and rightly so.
As far as it goes, I was personally homeschooled 1-5th and had a really positive educational experience. I certainly know the kind of people you are talking about, though.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Odette-Gould/publicatio...
Educationally behind who? In New York less than half of students met "proficiency standards" in English and Math in 2019 - before the pandemic when NYC schools were closed for over a year. A look at how incredibly low a bar it is to be considered "proficient" makes this stat much worse than it looks at first glance. A functionally illiterate homeschooled child who was unable to do basic math would be on the same level at ~60% of New York public school students.
http://www.nysed.gov/news/2019/state-education-department-re...
Sometimes your teacher gets replaced for one reason or another, but unless that happens, the default is that a given subject (such as maths) is taught by the same teacher from beginning (middle tier school) to the end.
Students end up informally calling their teachers by the subject since threre is no ambiguity - "the geographian" or "the english".
I noticed this most often on topics about education, transport and housing.
Imagine this new hire is your boss. Who stands in front of you all day every day and watches you work.
Imagine that no one in the company – not even the CEO – can fire them.
Imagine being unable to quit this job for any reason.
Imagine this is your first job, and you are a child, and your boss is an adult.
At least you're guaranteed to get a new boss next year.
Now imagine this guarantee is taken away. It's because a study in "EdWorkingPapers" found that taking it away is "associated with small increases in academic achievement".
My son had his 1st grade teacher loop; he loved her and she loved him. It was a joy to have him feel comfortable with his teacher two years in a row. As a kid with a harder time socially as well as an anxious personality, it was wonderful for him to feel at ease two years in a row and have that stability! In addition, it was especially great for us as we received a unique look at his progression at that age.
No one was REQUIRED to loop. The teacher as well as the student and/or parents could request a student not loop.
My literature professor in high school knew literature. His class was amazing. He spent each period bringing the material to life and telling stories from authors’ lives, the background behind each story and poem, additional anecdotes etc, and really put the whole thing in context. Then for the last 10 minutes he explained what we needed to know for the standardized curriculum.
It was great
On the other hand I could see how teaching one and the same class over and over might lead to a bored teacher and a narrow perspective.
I don't think that's literally true, even if you're correct that looping for more than a year is suboptimal. A proportion of teachers are teaching a curriculum for the first time even "without looping" (i.e. looping for only a year). With two-year looping, teachers only take a year longer before they're teaching a curriculum they've taught before.
Is there any advantage in looping for less than a year (e.g. changing teachers each semester)? What's the optimal amount of looping?
(Source: I helped to start and taught at a charter school in the early 00's. For better and for worse, that school grew into a fairly large charter management organization. Classroom management - which boiled down to convincing a lot of very jaded kids that we actually cared about them - took months at the beginning of each year, and no substantive academic work was possible during that time. Looping in two-year windows struck a good balance between amortizing that cost and preserving teacher expertise.)
Indeed! However, school isn't exactly one of those places. If anything, it's designed to prepare people for that corporate life and to be cogs in that machine. I refer to the explicit population-management goals of the founders of modern education in the US — figures such as Horace Mann, Barnas Sears, W.R. Harper, and Edward Thorndike.
I'm in the opposite end of this, end teachers being close to students in anyway. I hated hearing about their personal lives, trying to be "pals", expecting some sort of social engagement,etc... again I lament people not knowing the right place for the right thing (I've been arguing on a different thread against politics and religion at work). I just want to learn $subject and go home! I have no desire to be indoctrinated or form relationships with teachers and this shouldn't be the norm either. Teachers are like a 3rd parent these days. Why do they do that when they don' even get paid enough? I mean, I hope if I ever have kids ML algorithms and online classes will teach them instead of humans so I can do the parenting. </endrant>
This feels like a statement that needs some serious backing up, since the implication is that most teachers are racist.
Assuming it true, then it’s pretty surprising how we can simultaneously call teachers heroes and racists without much debate.
The point is that this is an ingrained bias that is fundamental throughout our culture. No teacher says to themself “This kid is black, so therefore I will punish him more harshly because I am a racist”. It is far more sinister, subtle, and unconscious than that.
Actually the implication is that some teachers and/or administrators are racist. If even one teacher is racist, then that would skew the numbers a tiny bit.
"Some members of X profession are racist" is almost certainly true for any X.
It references multiple studies which show evidence that this discrepancy in disciplinary action is not due to a difference in offenses committed by black students.
It's probably not a coincidence that we see these same sort of harsher penalty in the justice system for sentencing of black folks for committing the same crimes committed by white folk. It's the same systemic issues at play.
I think our school system is approaching a local maxima where the idea that learning sucks and should be avoided is embedded in as many young brains as possible.
Are they kidding?
If I recall my early years correctly, we had one 'main' teacher, but the rest of the subjects were done by other teachers. It maintained some of the benefits, while still exposing the kids to the world outside their class. Come to think of it, one my 'main' teachers really did not like me ( and advised my parents to move me somewhere else ).
I've never been a professional elementary school teacher, but that doesn't seem to be a Herculean task.
I suspect much of the "lesson plan" submission stuff is TPS-level busywork.
Yes and no. The submission part is certainly pointless. No one reads them after the day they're used.
But having a plan each day is kind of important and well supported by data as a beneficial practice.
Source: Escaped Teacher.
Right now a teacher is saying the same thing about a web developer who can't even figure out why their Word keeps crashing.
The high level skills are similar, but the details are all different.
Changing grades is like starting again as a brand new teacher.
Nevertheless I recommend everyone to read "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/I_would_never_send_my_kids_to_sc...
Something is fundamentally wrong with the educational system and it's holding humanity(/your children) back big time.
Edit: I was wrong! :D
(I don't have a source for that on hand, that's mostly from discussion with relatives who teach.)
In general I think they provide different functions, though: stability of environment from the looping teacher, and diversity of information sources/instructors from the other student age groups.
Where I was wondering if there might be a connection is that a multi-grade classroom also (particularly in small schools) means that a student probably will have the same teacher for multiple years (2-4, in most of the cases I've heard of). I realize that's much less extreme than some of the cases mentioned in the article, but it may still be a secondary source of benefit.
in kindergarten I couldn't wait until my kid gets through a year to get better teacher next year, now in primary school we are first four years stuck with oldest teacher in school, we won a "lottery", at least I teach my kids not to take teachers very seriously because with these salaries nobody competent will keep teaching (and don't get me started 95% teachers in school are females, very healthy ratio to have diverse views presented), same goes for telling kids if they won't study good at worst they can always join police force where bottom of the barrel ends