This seems like a practice that would work for some students and hurt others. Some students may not do well with a particular teacher. Being stuck for years with that teacher is a disservice to the student.
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.
*polluting with her awfulness the maximum number of students
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.
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.
It's necessary to deny any other factors, such as allowing choice by the students/parents.
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.
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.
I suppose there's an argument to be made about "preparing for the 'real world'" but still.
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).
I am sure the teacher was sick of me by the third year as well.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.