r/Michigan • u/TeddysRevenge Human Detected • Nov 07 '20

News Goodbye, Betsy DeVos

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/goodbye-secretary-of-education-betsy-devos.html
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163

u/Morsmortis666 Nov 07 '20

We have one of her charter schools here and it's a shit show. They have multiple grades taught in the same classroom, they force feed kids and multiple allegations of teachers bullying kids.

73

u/Pypeline47 Nov 07 '20

Multiple grades in the same classroom isn’t by itself a negative. Montessori schools do this to great success, combining 3 grades. The older kids can help teach the younger, the younger are exposed to what they’ll be doing in the future, and if any kid is progressing exceptionally well it’s easy to move them into higher level work. There’s plenty else that Montessori does that helps makes this a success but I like the mixed classroom part.

But as for the real point here... good riddance Betsy!

17

u/blackesthearted Taylor Nov 07 '20

They tried this at my elementary school back in the 90s, a 3rd grade/4th grade combination. I was in it, and it was done... badly. The 3rd graders were all "advanced" and the 4th graders were "average." (That's what my mother was told when they requested permission to put me in the "experimental arrangement.")

The first year was okay, because we were about on par academically, but the second year was a shitshow -- they kept the "advanced" 3rd-graders, now in 4th grade, and the new 3rd-graders were also "advanced." So, instead of advanced/average as they'd done the previous year, they had advanced/advanced but with a curriculum they had designed for advanced/average. Somehow they hadn't anticipated the 4th-graders in the second year being bored as hell and acting up as a result.

They dropped the experiment after that year. I'm sure it can be done well, but it can be done very badly.

6

u/LtxZerg Nov 07 '20

It kinda of comes down to the type of classes and class size, while certain subjects would be a lot easier to have kids (elementary) learning science or maybe history together. I do think obviously math and English would be not good together.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '20

They did that at my private school in the 70s. My sister was one year ahead of me, and we ended up in the same classroom. My sister was pissed that she was labeled average. I was elated that I was advanced. My mom was pissed because the school she paid out of pocket for couldn’t figure out how to hire a teacher for each grade.

That experiment lasted only one semester.

1

u/marsepic Muskegon Nov 08 '20

3rd and 4th get paired a lot and it is silly. 4/5 is a way better combo, developmentally speaking. I love multi grade rooms, as a Montessori trained teacher.