the sweet spot
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:34AM 
Joanne Jacobs highlights a USA Today article today:
In USA Today, Willingham talks about Why Don’t Students Like School and why well-taught students do like school.
We get a snap of satisfaction when we solve a problem. But solving a problem that is trivially easy is not fun. Neither is hammering away at a problem with no sense you are making progress.
So the challenge for a teacher is to find that sweet spot of mental difficulty, and to find it simultaneously for 25 students, each with a different level of preparation. To fight this problem, teachers must engage each student with work that is appropriate for his or her level of preparation. This must be done sensitively, so that students who are behind don’t feel like second-class citizens. But the fact is they are behind, and pretending that they are not does them no favors.
My recipe for finding that sweet spot for a large group of children — helping them to each work at their challenge level — is multi-age classes and long-term projects.
Each child is working at their challenge level — with work that is neither too easy nor too hard. And because they direct and control their own work, because it is based on their interests, and because they are allowed to work together on something they find meaningful, they want to work. In fact, they demand to work — and they expect to be taken seriously.
Children working in groups, supporting and critiquing each other, buys the teacher the extra time to work with small groups while others work with little to no assistance. (This requires a classroom environment that supports independent learning.)
Multi-age classrooms allow children a greater range across which to find peers for friendship and peers who are working at their same level in a variety of subjects. It is very normal for a child to be doing “advanced” owrk in one area (say, math or reading) and “normal” work in other areas. A multi-age classroom has so much more diversity across the board, both academically and socially, that children can more easily find their place.
(Of course, the work is not advanced for him or her — it is only advanced according to our preconceived ideas about what children who have a particular birthday should be able to do with mastery. Just as work is not sub-par for a particular child just because they fall under that more-or-less arbitrary median. The challenge level is the sweet spot, and every child should be met at that place and assisted to move forward.)
Another benefit of multi-age classes: Children are not always the youngest, always the oldest, always the best reader. The classes are much more diverse and even if you are the youngest in your “grade”, you will not longer stay the youngest in your class.
A third benefit: Teachers keep the same students for at least two years; they get things under way much more smoothly each year because at least half the class is returning and already knows the ropes — and they assist in getting the new students used to the new routine. Teachers don’t have to spend time getting to know each student’s particular talents, issues, and idiosyncracies; they have a leg up on building a relationshiph with their students.
Long-term projects allow basic skills work to be integrated meaningfully, and they offer a large variety of entry points for children with different abilities and interests. The classroom becomes a community where a child can gain respect and admiration for what he has to offer whether or not it is on the standardized test. Those “21st-century skills” are blended with knowledge acquisition and problem solving in a seamless, authentic way.
But — we already know all this. And education has not meaningfully changed in this country in decades, except for small pockets of innovation. And so it goes.
Reader Comments (12)
I am still annoyed with all the paperwork though... I got a call from the bus company today! They need a locator card from town hall (which the school already has) because my son isn't in their system. We don't even know if we want him on the bus, but they can't tell us the route until they locate him. Or something. *Sigh*
multi-age classes, project-based curriculum, and small teacher-student ratio … sounds good so far! :^)
I always homeschooled. When we moved into a new neighborhood when my oldest was seven, I was glad I chose homeschooling because the school system we moved into had grades divided up so that every two or three years students moved to a new building. Imagine, not only do you need to get used to a new teacher in second grade, but a whole new building! It sounded very stressful to me. But whenever a school superintendent tried to change things, they ran across so many obstacles they eventually gave up and then left our district. There have been three (four?) superintendents since we moved here almost ten years ago.
when you read work written so long ago by john holt, ivan illich, paulo reire, john gatto, paul goodman, vivan paley … your initial reaction is *yes!* and then … wait … if we already knew these things so long ago, why hasn’t education moved in these directions?
your comment about superintendents leaving is so interesting because even before i read your second paragraph i was thinking about, i believe it was john holt — he said that he wished independent schools would work but they just didn’t, because they were too tied to a particular person, and when they left, it would fall apart. he said every time innovation occurs, it is because one very strong personality is pushing it forward; the general community can’t keep it going when they leave.
without a general agreement among parents, teachers, administrators, and policy makers, we can’t make any progress except in small pockets here and there.
gonzomama, thank you so much — that means so much to me. i really can’t express how much. thank you.
There is a desire out there for a concete set of standards and a predictable outcome...
As I type this it made me think of my husbands job. Within his field things must conform to certain rules and regulations or they will not pass inspection and those measures are set in place for the safety of the people who will eventually occupy the building being built. I see these types of "working standards" carried over into how children are educated.
Do we really want our kids to be held to standards like a building code?
This idea of multiage learning is one of the things that I really like about homeschooling. It makes it so easy to blurr the line of age and get all the kids to work/play together without much thought of age/grade. I see it just with my two at home... all of the things they learn from eachother... most good... some not so good... but just the same the divide is not there to tell them that they are not ready for something that holds their intrest. They can dive in to the best of their ability and let the rest come along in do time.
I see more and more charter schools going toward mulitage classrooms. This makes me hopeful... I also have experienced middle schools where students move up with their teachers (language arts/history and science/math) from grade 6-8.
Enough from me... Thanks for another great topic Lori!
and we would have to trust schools. the movement is *away* from trust and individuality and toward standardization, all the way from the top to the bottom, from the policymakers to the students.
re: “concrete set of standards and a predictable outcome”… the whole problem with standards is that they are predefined to meet some goal unrelated to your child. a standard doesn’t care where your child is; it simply sets a mark and says “this is where we want everyone to be.” what if your child is far below? or far ahead? a standard doesn’t say “this is what we need to do for amy” or “here is how we can support ryan.”
seth godin wrote something recently about quality control — how the first meaning is simply, did the job get done the way it was supposed to get done, but the second is … was this worth doing?
we have set up a kind of quality control for education — that, rather than measuring the *quality* of an individual child’s education, merely gives itself a gold star if it meets its own goals. goals that get lower and lower and more twisted each successive year, until our kids need bachelor degrees to get an education equal to a high school education in the 50s. there is something wrong with that.
re: multi-age homeschooling, i love watching my sons teach, whether it’s younger children or adults. that ability to transfer their knowledge, along with their openness to learning from anyone — again, from an adult to a younger child — is one of the things i love best about multi-age learning.
thanks for your great comment, dawn!
My daughter's preschool had three levels in one class. This is usual in the italian system, but it doesn't seem to work very well with one teacher (understaffing perhaps). My daughter had two teachers, plus extra teachers for music, sport and english. The older kids would mentor the little ones - they were paired up for things like going to the bathroom, going down the stairs, and on school trips. My daughter made friends with all the little kids, two years her junior.
In Italian primary schools, the teachers stay with the kids for the whole five years. One I first heard this, I was horrified - I imagined that children would risk being pigeonholed for their whole five years - but it does have it's advantages. My daughter's class has a group of three teachers who divide their time between two classes of the same level. Last year they also had a fifth grade class, which was nice, becuase during break time, the fifth graders would play with the first graders. My daughter made a lot of friends there too. The teachers have the chance to get to know their students well - and having a daughter with an intense personality, I have seen firsthand how a teacher can get a limited insight into a child in one short year.
Unfortunately, the Italian government is making cuts to schools and we will be going back to a single teacher per class - for five years.
The quote at the beginning of Lori's post makes me think of teachers bending over backwards to find that "sweet spot of mental difficulty". I hear many public school teachers complaining how they are expected to work harder and harder, while the children are expected to do less and less. It is a pity that the school systen can't see it in the more logical way that Lori presented it.
Alice
For my thoughts on what the current public education system is doing (hint: I don't like it), you can read my article at http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52265.asp/zzz
Thanks for this site. It's always a fascinating place to visit, and it does a real service to real thinkers.
On another note, here's a beautiful French documentary about a one-room schoolhouse in rural France: "To Be and To Have" [Être et avoir]
http://chipsquaw.free.fr/etreetavoir/
Best,
Jennifer