In our present system; age defines a child's learning and results in age-segregation.
Since "neurological structure is sculpted by experience"
(Education As the Cultivation of Intelligence, Michael Martinez, 2000) adaptability would suggest we adopt aptitude and capacity subject level classes, learning and teaching.
�Each person has the right to learn and to be provided challenges for learning at the most appropriate level where growth proceeds most effectively. Our political and social system is based on democratic principles. The school as an extension of those principles must provide an equal educational opportunity for all children to develop to their fullest potential. This [also] means allowing gifted students the opportunity to learn at their level of development. For truly equal opportunity, a variety of learning experiences must be available at many levels.� (http://www.nagc.org/ParentInfo/index.html)
We must consider flexible pacing: �one must look at Japan�s for-profit market of after-school schools, called juku. [�] which compensates for the inflexibility of the formal system. [�] Students are grouped based on their performance in each subject and promoted to the next level as soon as they have mastered the material�� (Education in the Twenty-first Century, Edward P. Lazear, 2002, p.115-116) We must end age-segregation in our schools.
With the present lack of funds in the educational system, perhaps scheduling classes across grade levels would be a viable solution to children receiving an education based on their level of comprehension or aptitude, and not based on their age=grade curriculum. Adopting cross-grading would require that teachers schedule classes so that students could attend classes at their comprehension/aptitude level in the different subjects. This would require that e.g. grade 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 English be taught at 9:00 am; this would allow a student that is in grade 2 to attend a grade 3 English. This method could be adopted for all subjects; languages, math, science, music... at the elementary and secondary levels of education. Any scheduling difficulties the teachers may have should be broached. The curiosity, encouragement, motivation and perseverance; thereby a work ethic in a child's education and in their lives, are taught at an early age - therefore students should be encouraged to function at their level in each subject beginning in grade one. Re-negotiating subject level mid-year should also be considered - optimally, grade numbers on classroom doors should be removed.
Creating motivation and a work ethic in students, by students working at their own pace, and also attending after school programs, thereby creating social bonds through sports & enriching activities, may also prevent some students from "tuning out" or dropping-out either at the secondary or college level. We must consider the long term financial and emotional costs to families and societies, associated in keeping the status quo.
�According to research on the nature of intelligence and the brain, we either progress or we regress depending on our participation in stimulation appropriate to our level of development.� (http://www.nagc.org/ParentInfo/index.html) It has also �often been noticed that when a child is ready, many concepts that can take years to learn in the school system are mastered within a matter of weeks. Readiness is everything.� (http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/)
"Bright, average, and slow youngsters profit from grouping programs that adjust curriculum to the aptitude levels of the groups - Cross-grade and within class programs are examples of programs that provide both grouping and curricular adjustment. Children from such grouping programs outperform control children from mixed classes by two to three months on grade-equivalent scales (Kulik, 1992)."
"When high, medium, and low achieving students are grouped together, high achieving students explain material to low achieving students, and medium achieving students have fewer opportunities for participation." (Kulik, 1992)
�As intelligence testing is not conducted on a regular basis in the schools, it is likely that many undetected highly gifted children are languishing in the regular classroom, unable to focus their attention on material that was mastered long ago, is unbearably simplistic, and has been reiterated beyond their tolerance level.� (Serving Gifted & Talented Students: A Resource for School Personnel, Genshaft, Birely, Hollinger, 1995)
And when testing is available, errors can be made, as Robert Sternberg mentions in his interview with Skeptic Magazine:
�When I was very young, I did poorly on IQ tests because I was test anxious. The result was that teachers had low expectations for me and I wanted to please my teachers. So I met their low expectations. They were happy and I was happy that they were happy. I've been there and I've seen it happen to lots of people I know. I got over my test anxiety and then did extremely well on tests. All of a sudden the expectations were high. To a large extent it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, either way. So when you tell me that IQ predicts later success, sure it does. You get low scores on your tests, everything starts to change in your life and you're on a downhill slide. It's not a controlled experiment, because the very score itself is having an effect on where you're going to be allowed to go. [�] In the program that we have run for the past two summers here, based on my own model, students were given my abilities test (which had analytical, creative, and practical sections), and we admitted kids in the experimental groups in one of four ways-either very high analytic, very high creative, very high practical, or balanced. In other words, the model is that very few people are going to be good in everything. I wasn't interested in taking an average. Rather, what I was interested in is the fact that people have different patterns of strength. What you want to do is to help them capitalize on whatever their pattern of strength is.� (Skeptic Magazine Interview With Robert Sternberg on The Bell Curve, Skeptic vol. 3, no. 3, 1995, pp. 72-80, Skeptics Society, P.O. Box 338, Altadena, CA 91001, (626) 794-3119.)
In the Montessori program �The three-year age span in each class allows older children to provide leadership, guidance and modeling for the younger children. It also creates a sense of family and community in the group. All of these characteristics support Montessori's "whole child" approach to help each child reach his full potential in all areas of life - social, emotional, physical and intellectual.� (http://www.bumblebeemedia.com/html/0211v_choicesined.html) Those who believe in the Waldorf Method: �David Elkind, a noted child psychologist at Tufts University, cites prodigious evidence, particularly from other countries, that late readers ultimately fare better at reading and other subjects than early readers. A number of prominent figures, including Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein, were very late readers. But in today's competitive frenzy the drive in this country is to get children to learn as much as they can, about reading or anything else, as early as possible. [�] Barbara Warren, a teacher at John Morse, a public school near Sacramento, says that two years after Waldorf methods were introduced in her fourth-grade class of mostly minority children, the number of students who read at grade level doubled, rising from 45 to 85 percent. "I didn't start by making them read more," Warren says. "I started telling stories, and getting them to recite poetry that they learned by listening, not by reading. They became incredible listeners.� (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909waldorf2.htm)
