I've not written a post in sometime, because I've been working hard dealing with the "realities" of the public school system as it exists today. I see lots of people talking about how an overhaul of the public school systems is urgently required; I see yet others claiming that the system needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt from the ground up. Yet I also thought about some possible ways to solve the problems in the current system; here's one that's been pushed around for a while, so I'm going to add my voice to this, apparently relatively easy fix.
Why do we insist on grouping children by age. The chronological approach to teaching is inflexible, dogmatic, and archaic. It serves no purpose other than to enforce bright kids to study with kids that aren't as bright or maybe have difficulties in certain areas. If child gets held back a year because he hasn't learned the content sufficiently (and when I say content, of course I actually mean "to pass the test"), it's a source of humiliation to the child (you just made him look dumb in front of all the other kids that managed just fine) and to his parents ("Hey how's Johnny doing? He's in 5th grade now right?". If the kid was acting out because he realised he wasn't at the same level as the rest of the class, then by holding him back a year, we've just entrenched his resent for the school system even more deeply. Do we expect him to come back from this and do great things with his life? I think not, all the positive reinforcement and sticker charts in the world are unlikely to make these kids a cheerleader of the school system. Also we only get to advance the bright kids once a year, doesn't matter how much smarter you are, you get advanced with the rest of your class, no matter how stellar your performance (with the exception of very very rare instances, where the parents and school both agree and push for this, I can count the number of times I've heard about this happening on the fingers of one hand)
Isn't it much smarter to advance these according to ability, as needed? Let's look at this for one moment. There would be no need for a "No Child Left Behind" program since each child would be taught according to ability rather than age. The kids that are naturally smart would get advanced once they outgrow the capabilities of the class they are currently in. There would be less stress on the teachers to feel like they were neglecting the kids that need extra help because everyone would be at a similar level in the classroom. The stress on the students that were unable to advance as fast as the other kids would be reduced, since they would always be surrounded by intellectually similar peers.
And if you take a look at vocational education and qualifications this is exactly how it works, and works very successfully I might add. Can you imagine the absurdity of wanting to train a project manager as a natural progression of your career and being told I'm sorry, you can't take that course/learn that material until you're <N> years old. No, it simply doesn't happen except in our broken education system. If I'm capable of taking a course and can meet the prerequisites of attending that course and/or exam, then I do so. I might have 18 year olds on the course, I might have 58 year old students on the course with me, and no one cares, no one cares in the slightest about any age difference since we're all there to learn the same information.
I'll admit I'm biased, because it's an idea I think would work. I'd love to hear the reasons why this wouldn't work.
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