So torn on this! Thinking back on my best teachers, they had a huge impact on my development and what I thought of school. On the flip side, some teachers made me count the hours every day until I could be done with their class. It won't happen, but it would be pretty interesting to see merit increases tied to this (retention of students, requests to join/leave group, etc.).
Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
31–40 of 142 posts
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#32Wait, when did this stop being the norm?
My district stopped it a few years ago because teachers complained that "it was too hard to learn to teach both third and fourth grade" (and so they wanted to only teach a single grade). I've never been a professional elementary school teacher, but that doesn't seem to be a Herculean task.
> I've never been a professional elementary school teacher, but that doesn't seem to be a Herculean task.
Right now a teacher is saying the same thing about a web developer who can't even figure out why their Word keeps crashing.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#33Wait, when did this stop being the norm?
My district stopped it a few years ago because teachers complained that "it was too hard to learn to teach both third and fourth grade" (and so they wanted to only teach a single grade). I've never been a professional elementary school teacher, but that doesn't seem to be a Herculean task.
If you're a professional programmer, it would be the same as asking you as a full stack developer to develop a monolith in a datacenter using java on Windows this year and then next year asking you to develop microservices in Python using linux on Kubernetes.
The high level skills are similar, but the details are all different.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#34Imagine being unable to interview the new hire. You're not even told their name until the day before they start.
Imagine this new hire is your boss. Who stands in front of you all day every day and watches you work.
Imagine that no one in the company – not even the CEO – can fire them.
Imagine being unable to quit this job for any reason.
Imagine this is your first job, and you are a child, and your boss is an adult.
At least you're guaranteed to get a new boss next year.
Now imagine this guarantee is taken away. It's because a study in "EdWorkingPapers" found that taking it away is "associated with small increases in academic achievement".
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#35Imagine being unable to interview the new hire. You're not even told their name until the day before they start. Imagine this new hire is your boss. Who stands in front of you all day every day and watches you work. Imagine that no one in the company – not even the CEO – can fire them. Imagine being unable to quit this job for any reason. Imagine this is your first job, and you are a child, and your boss is an adult.…
Yes, I've had both good and bad teachers, and it would be horrible to have been stuck with a bad one for six years.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tried this. Was not allowed to switch because it would cause an uneven class size. At least, that's what I was told the policy was for.
It's probably true; schools are generally run for the benefit and convenience of teachers, not students. The former have a strong union with outsized influence on local elections, whereas the latter don't even vote. The same incentives lead to early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students (particularly teenagers who generally have 'later' circadian rhythms).
Are teachers really the ones pushing for such early starts of school? Anecdotally, most teachers I know don't love waking up at 5am in order to get ready and get to school on time. I always thought the early start was to have enough time in the afternoon and evening for after-school activities, but not sure.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
My district stopped it a few years ago because teachers complained that "it was too hard to learn to teach both third and fourth grade" (and so they wanted to only teach a single grade). I've never been a professional elementary school teacher, but that doesn't seem to be a Herculean task.
If you're a professional programmer, it would be the same as asking you as a full stack developer to develop a monolith in a datacenter using java on Windows this year and then next year asking you to develop microservices in Python using linux on Kubernetes. The high level skills are similar, but the details are all different.
The details of 3rd and 4th grade are that different now?
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#38The mother of a friend of mine did this as a grade school teacher in Denmark. Same kids for nearly a decade, multiple runs (she's retired now). I'm not sure they still do it this way, but I suppose as long as the kids are exposed to other teachers it's not so bad. This way there's someone the kid is familiar with, while still having a variety of teachers for various classes.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tried this. Was not allowed to switch because it would cause an uneven class size. At least, that's what I was told the policy was for.
It's probably true; schools are generally run for the benefit and convenience of teachers, not students. The former have a strong union with outsized influence on local elections, whereas the latter don't even vote. The same incentives lead to early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students (particularly teenagers who generally have 'later' circadian rhythms).
> It's probably true; schools are generally run for the benefit and convenience of teachers, not students.
This is, emphatically, not even close to true. If someone told you this, they were lying or just had no idea how schools work and were guessing.
> early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students
A perfect example of how you're veering away from reality with your faulty premise: teachers don't like super-early starts, either! Except the coaches who like having plenty of time for long after-school practices with the sun still up. Parents of athletes may like it, too, just so only one end of their daily schedule changes when their kids' sports are in season (as opposed to having to get them in for an early practice, and pick them up late for a late practice, unable to use the school bus for either end). The justification given for keeping it is usually some combo of "parents want it" (do they? I'm a parent and I fucking don't—but then I don't have any high school athletes in my house yet) and, overriding all other concerns, school sports. Adjusting those schedules may also mean elementary kids start earlier so that the high schoolers can start later, because districts want to be able to stagger bus schedules so they need fewer busses—again, not because teachers are demanding it—which I guess maybe some parents don't like (I'm a parent of elementary kids, and yeah, I'd like them there earlier and the high school kids later, reverse of how most districts do it, but maybe some parents do in fact want their elementary kids starting at 9 o'goddamn-clock when they've already burned 1-2 of their most alert hours for the day, and the high schoolers starting before 8:00, for some reason). It is absolutely not because teachers are demanding to start school before the sun's even up in the Winter.
Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years
#40Imagine being unable to interview the new hire. You're not even told their name until the day before they start. Imagine this new hire is your boss. Who stands in front of you all day every day and watches you work. Imagine that no one in the company – not even the CEO – can fire them. Imagine being unable to quit this job for any reason. Imagine this is your first job, and you are a child, and your boss is an adult.…
Looping is stupid though because whatever small benefits accrue they don’t justify teachers learning a new curriculum every year as they bounce from grade to grade. I want my grade eight history course taught by someone who knows grade eight history well. I don’t want it to be taught by someone who spent the last three years on completely unrelated topics in previous grade’s history.