 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
You
are here: Why Parents Who have Experienced Multi-Year Classrooms
for their Children Love Them!
Most of us went to elementary schools where every June we said goodbye to our teacher, and every September we had a new teacher. Most of us went to middle schools or junior highs that followed the same pattern, except we had four or five teachers to whom we said goodbye.
Why "Goodbye Every June?"
Most parents continue to send their children to schools, public and private, that follow this same pattern: new teacher(s) in September, goodbye in June. No matter how much the teacher has learned about the child's strengths and weaknesses, gifts and struggles, learning style, sense of humor, and emotional well-being and needs. No matter how much the child and teacher have come to value and care about each other. No matter how effective the teacher has become at teaching this child--and how effective the child has become at learning with the guidance and care of this teacher.
Do parents act this way in any other part of their parenting lives? Do they find a new pediatrician every autumn? A new dentist? Even new babysitters? Of course not. But we are all so used to the yearly cycle that most parents--and educators--fail to question it.
What is the Harm of Single Year Relationships between Students and Teachers?
Does it make any sense to toss out all that teachers and children have built together over the course of a school year--the knowledge, the relationship, the caring, the safety--every June? Of course not. It's completely irrational and profoundly wasteful. It harms every child who has built a caring and nurturing relationship with his or her teacher, because we know that the quality of relationship between child and teacher is one of the two most important variables in determining how well a child will learn and grow in school. (The other key variable is the teacher's competence.)
"Goodbye every June" harms all children, but it is likely to harm those who are at risk of not doing well in school the most. It harms children whose families are poor. And it is likely to harm children of color who have white teachers. Why?
Children who are at risk of not doing well in school depend even more than most children on having teachers who know them as individuals and who are committed to helping them learn. Children from poor families often have parents who did not do well in school and who have ambivalent feelings about school. For them, a teacher who cares deeply about their child and who establishes a bond of trust with them, the parents, can make all the difference. And children of color who have white teachers need to know that their racial identity does not matter to their teacher, except as an element of their identity; they and their parents need to know that the teacher values and respects the child and his or her family.
All of these qualities of relationship take time to develop, usually many months at least. Despite this, we continue to toss out all of these profound values in June and start all over again.
Why Do We Organize School the Way We Do?
We're all so used to the idea that this is how school works that we fail to question the wisdom of starting over again every September. How did school get to be like this? Here's the unlikely story.
Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France, defeated the army of Prussia, the most powerful German principality, in 1806. As a result, leaders of the Prussian state committed themselves to reforming their school system, which was the first wide-scale public school system in human history and the only one in existence at that time. One of their reforms was age grading--putting all children who were the same chronological age into the same grade, for example, first grade or fourth grade. This was 150 years before developmental psychology, and it seemed logical and efficient to the Prussian leaders to put all children of the same age together and make them learn the same things. Age grading then led to the idea of giving children a new teacher every year. Indeed the Prussians very intentionally wanted to keep their boys (schooling was not "wasted" on girls in 1806) from becoming too emotionally involved with their teachers; this could be prevented if students were shuffled to new teachers every fall.
Horace Mann, the most effective American proponent of "common schools"--what we now called public schools--toured Prussian schools in the early 1840s and advocated for the inclusion of key elements of the Prussian school model in the common schools being founded in Massachusetts. Two of these elements were age grading and a new teacher every autumn. Many parents and teachers resisted age grading at that time; particularly in small, rural communities. The practice made little sense to people who saw their young people interact with children of various ages every day. It took sixty years, but eventually age grading became the standard practice in American schools. So did "goodbye every June."
Despite several efforts to remove age grading during the 20th century, it is still the norm in our schools. And so is the practice of assigning children to a new teacher each and every year.
What We Gain from Multi-Year Relationships among Students, Teachers, and Parents
We don't have to continue this enormous waste. We don't have to continue to enact "innovations" that were invented by Prussians 200 years ago. We don't have to continue to use school structures that were created before we had any scientific understanding of human development.
All across the nation there are exemplary schools that are focused on the kind of personalization of learning and growth for children and teens that we can only nurture when teachers know their students as individuals and care about them deeply. This can only happen when teachers and students work together for two years or longer. And parents whose children attend these schools know very well what the value of this education can be, particularly since most of these "multi-year schools" are schools of choice.
The conclusions that follow are drawn from my study of multi-year relationship schools over the past twenty years and, in particular, the months I spent in 2004-05 in two elementary schools and two middle schools in the Seattle area; all four are public schools. The comments from parents that follow were all shared with me by parents at one of these four schools.
Personalization of Learning. One key value that parents perceive when their child is taught by the same teacher for two or three or four years is personalization of learning. Personalization means that each child and teen is known as an individual by her or his teacher, and that the teacher is providing and supporting learning opportunities and challenges for each child based upon his or her current capabilities and needs. A parent explains:
The benefit that we have experienced here is the relationships that my daughters have established with their teachers. The fact that their teachers know who they are and what their needs are. For my older daughter, her teacher has recognized that she's a very independent learner. The teacher just has to tell her, 'This is what I need you to do,' and she can go and do it. Whereas my other daughter needs a little more direction, a little more guidance. Over the years the teachers have come to understand each of my girls' personalities, and they adjust their teaching to fit each of them, which is, I think, absolutely amazing.
Safety, Respect, and Care. In each of the schools in which I observed, the students feel safe and cared for. They feel respected by their teachers, and they respect the school, their teachers, and each other. The students also feel very much "at home" in these schools--the school is "their place," too. Children learn and practice caring and compassion--and the acceptance and valuing of human differences. Another parent notes. "There are always those kids in middle school who are different, and they often become targets for other kids. But here, because everyone knows each other so well, the kids treat each other better and take care of each other. I haven't heard of any bullying or anything like that."
Student Responsibility and Commitment. In all of these schools that I visited recently--and in most of the multi-year relationship schools that I have visited over the past decades--the children organize and manage their own activities to a significant extent. They make a lot of choices about their activities each day, and they take a significant amount of responsibility for themselves and for their learning and their behavior. Also, because the children and teens have strong relationships with their teachers, they care a great deal about how their teachers view them. A third parents comments:
With four years, you have a relationship between child and teacher. So now you have a child who is responsive to this adult, who then is more likely to become responsible. When he's asked to do something, he is very eager to please that person because they've developed this bond, as opposed to doing something just because they have to do it. This dynamic plays out in academics, so the kids are going to be higher achieving for this reason.
Desire to Learn. In each of these schools in the Seattle area, nearly all of the students want to learn. They want to come to school because they like being there and because they are treated with respect. Another parent explains:
Something that is very powerful in this school is that the teachers empower these students to take responsibility for themselves, for what they do and their school work. When they take kids out into a public forum, the teachers truly step back and let the kids speak. And there isn't this coaching going on to say, 'Now, when you get up there, don't say anything about X, Y or Z because that might be embarrassing to us.' The teachers step back, and sometimes the kids say things that are so painfully honest about slogging around at camp and being wet all week--at a parent meeting, where prospective parents are looking at this school. But everyone knows from the kids' perspective, that's what they were focused on. So there's this empowerment to say we value who you are and what you have to say, and we value that to the point that we're not going to come swooping in as the adult and take over and tell you what to do and what to say. That dynamic is extremely powerful. And it's a dynamic that would not develop unless you had this longer-term relationship. It generates a confidence level that these kids have that you don't see in other places.
In all of these schools, parents are involved in a positive way in their child's education. The parents and teachers also have more positive relationships with each other because they have more time to get to know each other. A parent notes:
For parents, the three year relationship means that you know what to expect from the teachers. You develop a relationship adult-to-adult. The teachers know me, and they know what to expect and what I can do. And I know them in the same depth. If I bring up an issue, they'll know it's important, because they know me well enough . . . The three year commitment also means that we get this dedication from the parent volunteers and this willingness to be part of the school and do whatever is necessary.
All of this means much greater efficiency of time use for learning. One parent explains:
The wonderful thing about a three-year class is that your child does not have to spend that time at the beginning of the year with this complete, total stranger. The teacher knows where your child was at the end of the last year and can figure out what the child has gained or lost over the summer. The teachers here are good at assessing what were the child's experiences over the summer and how did that possibly add to her education.
Another parent continues:
With each one of my kids, they're excited about school at the beginning of the year, but it takes them three months to build the relationship with the teacher so they can really getting down to work. So here, the second year with their teachers, we're talking about a three-month additional learning period. So that was just huge for me. That was the biggest thing. There is so much time at the beginning of the school year that normally is fun but sort of plodding. They just were right at it. They were into projects so much more quickly.
One parent summed up her daughter's experience in a school with three-year classes in this way:
It just is such a seamless experience. It feels like a synchronicity with the natural rhythm of life. My children are developing along their continuum. Their teacher follows that continuum intimately and knows them. She or he will have to check back in after the summer to see where they've gone, but for the most part they sort of pick up where they've left off, with a few adaptations. It's just lovely.
Schools that feature multi-year relationships among students, teachers, and parents offer profound academic and social and emotional advantages over single year schools. They provide personalization of learning for each and every student, more efficient use of time, greater emotional support for every child and teen, more pro-social learning, more acceptance of responsibility by students and the development of stronger skills for self-management, more enthusiasm for learning, and more productive and harmonious relationships between parents and teachers.
Don't all children and young teens in our nation deserve a school experience as rich and supportive as the one offered by schools with multi-year relationships?
Suggested Readings
Barnes, H. (1980). "An Introduction to Waldorf education." Teachers College Record, 81(3), 323–336.
A. Bingham (1995). Exploring the multiage classroom. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.
Burke, D.L. (1996). Multi-year teacher/student relationships are a long-overdue arrangement. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(5), 360–361.
Gatto, J. T. "How public education cripples our kids, and why." Harper's Magazine. September 2001.
George, P., Spreul, M., & Moorefield, J. (1987). Long-term teacher–student relationships: A middle school case study. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Hanson, B. (1995). "Getting to know you-- Multiyear teaching." Educational Leadership, 53(3), 42–43.
Jacoby, D. (1984). "Twice the learning and twice the love." Teaching Pre K–8, 24(6), 58–59.
Lee, V., Bryk, A. & Smith, J. (1993). "The organization of effective secondary schools." Review of Research in Education 19,171.
Leeds, A. and Marshak, D. (2002). Teaching and learning in the intermediate multiage classroom. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press.
Lincoln, R. (1997). "Multi-year instruction: Establishing student–teacher relationships." Schools in the Middle, 6(3), 50–52.
Mazzuchi, D., & Brooks, N. (1992). "The gift of time." Teaching Pre K–8, 22(5), 60–62.
Milburn, D. (1981). A study of multi-age or family-grouped classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan, 62(7), 513–514.
Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory At Brown University (1997). Looping: Supporting student learning through long-term relationships. Providence RI: LAB at Brown University.
Palestis, E. (1994). "Lessons from Reggio Emilia." Principal, 73(5), 16–19.
David Marshak is a professor in the College of Education at Seattle University. He has studied multi-year relationship schools first as a parent, then as a school district administrator, and finally as a researcher. For this paper, he has interviewed more than 200 teachers and 150 parents from multi-year relationship schools in five different states. Email Professor Marshak at dmarshak@seattleu.edu
Read another article by David Marshak on this website: Why Every Child in America Deserves a School Where She/He is Known and Valued http://www.newhorizons.org/trans/marshak.htm.
©January 2006 New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org
info@newhorizons.orgFor permission to redistribute, please go to:
New Horizons for Learning Copyright and Permission Information