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Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

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Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#61

Post by fennecfoxen »

dangerwill wrote: post #50
beefman wrote: post #34

Imagine 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.…

It is profoundly weird to look at everything through the lens of corporate life. There are places where the relationship isn't that of a boss with their boot on their employees' neck.

> There are places where the relationship isn't that of a boss with their boot on their employees' neck.

Indeed! However, school isn't exactly one of those places. If anything, it's designed to prepare people for that corporate life and to be cogs in that machine. I refer to the explicit population-management goals of the founders of modern education in the US — figures such as Horace Mann, Barnas Sears, W.R. Harper, and Edward Thorndike.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#62

Post by evancoop »

lumost wrote: post #3

This seems like a practice that would work for some students and hurt others. Some students may not do well with a particular teacher. Being stuck for years with that teacher is a disservice to the student.

Seems like, in aggregate, the question is whether adding variance to outcomes is net positive or negative?

Some students will receive multiple consecutive years of excellent instruction, others will receive multiple consecutive years of subpar instruction. Does the upside contain innovation and social mobility? Does the downside contain increased disillusionment with school and education broadly?

We pull the goalie when the odds are against us and increased variance is desirable. Is this such a case? Sadly, it may be.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#63

Post by [deleted] »

atomicUpdate wrote: post #44

“There’s evidence that Black boys are more likely to be suspended for the same behaviors as other children, right?” This feels like a statement that needs some serious backing up, since the implication is that most teachers are racist. Assuming it true, then it’s pretty surprising how we can simultaneously call teachers heroes and racists without much debate.

[deleted]

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dangerwill wrote: post #55
iambateman wrote: post #49

This shares the benefit of "looping" with homeschooling, which is sort of an extreme form of looping I guess. Homeschooled kids benefit tremendously from having a teacher who is _incredibly_ familiar with their previous experiences and learnings, which the teacher can draw upon to teach new ideas. If a teacher has an even slightly better understanding of what their children already know, they are set up to succeed at…

Gonna need some citations on homeschool effectiveness (not written by homeschool advocates) because in my experience, I knew 1 parent that actually was knowledgable and engaged enough to provide the kind of teaching you are talking about. I have known several that homeschooled for religious reasons or "scared of public school and couldn't get into private school" reasons and the kids were clearly educationally behind…

Yes, data would be good.

To answer your anecdata: There are kids in public school who are clearly behind, too. In fact, I wonder (also without data!) if the same kids from the same families would be behind in public school. And then I wonder whether they'd be more behind or less behind.

As I said, no data. But it takes heroic amazingness from the school to make up for a badly-screwed-up home environment.

And that's really depressing, because I don't know of any policy that can fix badly-screwed-up home environments. You could take the kids, and we do if it's bad enough, but the bar for that is very high, and rightly so.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#65

Post by fiat_fandango »

Article was interesting, my comment pertains to the "electric schoolbus" paragraph lower on the page :)

When I commuted between the South End and Cambridge MA for work right after college my roommates and I would make bets as to who would end up being late to work because the Cambridge Public High School electric schoolbus would break down, blocking a major road. For those who don't know, there's no great way with public transit to go from one end of Mass Ave to the other on any given day during rush hour. Train is about 1.1 hours, bus is 40 min best case scenario.

I kid you not - this was in 2019.

Ironically, also around the time Bird attempted to launch in Cambridge. This commute problem was later solved after we asked a Cambridge Police officer if we could buy impounded Bird Scooters in bulk. We each picked up 15 scooters at $8 per pop (basically brand new - sans new controller) and kept the rest in our basement. Ergo, "free" transportation for the next two years. Granted, NEVER buy a Ninebot product, the scooters on average would last around 105 miles prior to having a major mechanical or electrical failure. For those who are still reading, scooter cut the 40min bus commute to around 14 minutes.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#66

Post by iambateman »

dangerwill wrote: post #55
iambateman wrote: post #49

This shares the benefit of "looping" with homeschooling, which is sort of an extreme form of looping I guess. Homeschooled kids benefit tremendously from having a teacher who is _incredibly_ familiar with their previous experiences and learnings, which the teacher can draw upon to teach new ideas. If a teacher has an even slightly better understanding of what their children already know, they are set up to succeed at…

Gonna need some citations on homeschool effectiveness (not written by homeschool advocates) because in my experience, I knew 1 parent that actually was knowledgable and engaged enough to provide the kind of teaching you are talking about. I have known several that homeschooled for religious reasons or "scared of public school and couldn't get into private school" reasons and the kids were clearly educationally behind…

I don’t have an academic paper which, you’re right, this deserves.

As far as it goes, I was personally homeschooled 1-5th and had a really positive educational experience. I certainly know the kind of people you are talking about, though.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#67

Post by TimPC »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #56
TimPC wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If a teacher can't "learn" the next year's curriculum faster than the children they are teaching, there is something very wrong with the selection and hiring process for teachers...

A teacher can learn the curriculum far faster but any educator will tell you they do a better job of teaching a lesson when they’ve already taught it before. Looping literally means every lesson you teach will be your first time teaching it. It’s silly to give up on all the advantages that come from adapting a lesson after seeing what works well and what doesn’t. The challenges from having a different teacher in grade two and grade one aren’t larger than the benefits of having a grade one teacher who’s delivered the same lessons many times and constantly improved them.

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#68

Post by 8note »

nickff wrote: post #28
kayodelycaon wrote: post #10

Earlier 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).

My understanding is that schools are run for the convenience of administrators, who want metrics based performance to look at like butts in seats, test scores, cost per student, etc

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#69

Post by akshayshah »

TimPC wrote: post #40
beefman wrote: post #34

Imagine 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.

Typically, schools that loop do so in fixed-size windows (often 2 years, so K/1, 2/3, etc). Often, teachers for the looped grades plan curriculum together. This tends to minimize the effects of unfamiliar subject matter and the kids' changing social/emotional maturity.

(Source: I helped to start and taught at a charter school in the early 00's. For better and for worse, that school grew into a fairly large charter management organization. Classroom management - which boiled down to convincing a lot of very jaded kids that we actually cared about them - took months at the beginning of each year, and no substantive academic work was possible during that time. Looping in two-year windows struck a good balance between amortizing that cost and preserving teacher expertise.)

Re: Benefits of ‘looping’ kids with teachers for multiple years

#70

Post by Ekaros »

rmetzler wrote: post #30
CliffStoll wrote: post #14

Standard in Waldorf schools. The first-grade teacher follows her/his class all the way up to 8th grade. As the students grow, so does the teacher. All the advantages -- and disadvantages -- that you might imagine.

But even in non Waldorf schools, it’s common to have the same teacher for the first 4 years, sometimes longer. At least it’s common here, in East Germany. I also think it is kind of important that it is this way, because kids learn FOR their teacher. A positive relationship must come first. Of course conflicts can happen. If this is the case and parents feel their children don’t grow to their full potential there are…

I think in Finland I had one teacher for first 2 or 3 years and then other one for next 3/4. It kinda does make sense as those ages are very different.

For next 3 years we had 1 retiring and then one taking over "home room" teacher. But at that point every class was with specialised teacher.

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