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.
That one student should be able to switch to a different group. If all want to switch then there's a problem with the instructor.
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.
In U.S. public schools, this will not be allowed. Schools already do everything they can to discourage and deny teacher switching requests. Why? Because there is a large difference in quality between teachers, and everyone knows which teachers are best, but administrators aren't allowed to fire a teacher with low enrollment because of switching requests, and face class size limits in the case of the good teachers.
In this scenario switching is not just getting a different teacher, but an entirely new set of classmates as well, meaning the child is willingly walking away from all their friends and acquaintances they've made possibly over years.
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.
That's what happened to my student. He went to s small elementary school and didn't get along with a particular teacher. He switched schools and bam different kid entirely.
This was my experience in schooling two decades ago. I had the same teacher for Grades 1, 4 and 7. This teacher and I did not work well together and I noticeably got worse grades in grades 4 and 7 than I had in the surrounding years.
I am sure the teacher was sick of me by the third year as well.
Seems like, in aggregate, the question is whether adding variance to outcomes is net positive or negative?
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.
I had split 3/4 and 5/6 classes, where you stayed with the same teacher and students for both years, with either an older or a younger cohort with you to fill out the other grade
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
Also some teachers are better than others! I think two year in a row can have advantages. But different teachers bring different perspectives and different strengths. Sometimes a teacher will magically click in some way with your child and bring something out of them that other teachers hadn't managed.
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.
> This seems like a practice that would work for some students and hurt others.
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.
I had this exact experience. My sister loved our school, but also had all the 'good' teachers. I was in a different roster and ended up not enjoying my classes and eventually dropped out.
But that's life though. Even when you get a job there are people that you don't get along with, but you still find a way to make it work. If you would just move that student to a teacher that they preferred, might instill wrong perceptions of reality in the kid.
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.
> Even when you get a job there are people that you don't get along with, but you still find a way to make it work.
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?
But even in non Waldorf schools, it’s common to have the same teacher for the first 4 years, sometimes longer.
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.
I think in Finland I had one teacher for first 2 or 3 years and then other one for next 3/4. It kinda does make sense as those ages are very different.
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.
Common in Montessori schools as well. Children typically spend 3 year "sets" in the same classroom with the same teacher (called "guides" in Montessori though).
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.
Article was interesting, my comment pertains to the "electric schoolbus" paragraph lower on the page :)
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.
I have to ask, you never got the idea of using a bike? Only when buying out electric scooters from a broke company did you think there might be a better way?
I got stuck with a maths teacher in my second/third year of highschool who couldn't teach. Like, none of his students ever passed. literally NONE. it wasn't even a close thing. My grades went something like 70% year 1, 40% year 2, 32% year 3, 60% year 4, 75% year 5, something like that. I was one of the lucky ones in that my brother could help me with my maths work for those grades. I'm not joking when I say 1/3 to 1/2 the class would regularly get <10% on any given test.
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.
My brother had this opportunity in a public elementary school. "Mrs. F" was the teacher for the same group of students for 2 or 3 consecutive years. It was very much an experiment, but by all accounts it was a success.
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.
This shares the benefit of "looping" with homeschooling, which is sort of an extreme form of looping I guess. Homeschooled kids benefit tremendously from having a teacher who is _incredibly_ familiar with their previous experiences and learnings, which the teacher can draw upon to teach new ideas.
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.
Gonna need some citations on homeschool effectiveness (not written by homeschool advocates) because in my experience, I knew 1 parent that actually was knowledgable and engaged enough to provide the kind of teaching you are talking about. I have known several that homeschooled for religious reasons or "scared of public school and couldn't get into private school" reasons and the kids were clearly educationally behind.
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.
School just doesn’t do very much for learning so homeschool can’t have much of a negative effect. Unschooled children, those who receive no formal, systematic instruction whatever, are only one grade level behind their traditionally schooled peers.
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.
I don’t have an academic paper which, you’re right, this deserves.
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.
Readit News
https://archive.ph/vq67E
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.
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.
Deleted Comment
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.