For better or worse, in the United States and most countries for that matter, when students turn a certain age, they begin their schooling career. Most of these students will be with others their age their entire primary and secondary journey, yet there is a good chance they will be at a different skill level than others.
Getting Students Ready for the First Day
An example would be two children who turn six years of age entering kindergarten simultaneously. One of these children can already read chapter books, while the other can barely get through 10 letters in the alphabet. And yet they are put in the same class with one another, and the teacher is expected to get them to a certain standard of learning. Student A, who already reads well above grade level, will be expected to slow down and not get too far ahead, while student B has a lot of catching up to do to get where he needs to be by the end of the year. James Delisle calls this the difference between age mates and peer mates.
Difference Between Age Mates And Peer Mates
These two students are certainly age mates, but they are not peers. Student A would be put into a class where other children are at or near his reading level if they were with peers. Student B would be placed in a classroom with others at the developmental stage and able to progress at a natural pace of learning. This would be an ideal situation. Both students could learn at their natural progression or understanding rather than these artificial finish lines; some students are already finished before they begin, while others need help seeing the finish line in the distance.
We put children in grades by age under the assumption that everyone starts at the same place and learns at the same rate. This is our most significant oversight in education. Everyone knows this is not the case, yet they must work within a system under these false pretenses and try to make it work.
Sports Has Found A Way To Benefit Students
Education has a lot to learn from sports. In sports, young kids are often put onto teams by their age. But then what happens is one child shows a natural talent for the game, and she is moved to a more highly skilled team with children her own age, like an elite soccer team, or she is allowed to move to the next age level so that she can compete with others who are at or near the same level of skill as her. By the time these kids get older, their placement on a team has nothing to do with age and everything to do with readiness and ability.
Now you wouldn’t take your best quarterback and put them on the first-year team just because he is a freshman. You would put him on your varsity squad and let him compete with others at his athletic level; why can’t schools do this, only putting children together with others at their academic level?
Placing Students In The Correct Place
Sure, it would not be evident at first. You might have 6-year-olds with nine-year-olds, 12-year-olds with ten-year-olds, or in a rare case, a child skipping several levels, such as an 11-year-old with 17-year-olds. But students would be in the correct place because they would be placed with their peers. Adding to the difficulty, some would be advanced in one subject area but not another.
This means a student might be with 15-year-olds for social studies but 13-year-olds for math. This would take some figuring out, but the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we a school system or a system of schools? A school system works to fit the kids’ needs, which is what their purpose should be. A method of schools, which most districts operate under, is that there is already a pre-existing system that children must fit into based on an arbitrary requirement: age.
Meeting the Diverse Needs of Students
We are taught as educators that we need to differentiate within our classrooms to meet the various needs of various skill levels. If you would like a good overview of differentiation, check out this article https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/examples-of-differentiated-instruction/. Although possible, it could be more straightforward and usually teaches to the middle and hopes either end gets enough to get by. And yet we are not willing to differentiate our children’s placement based on their skills and talent, which would make more logical and natural sense.
The Difference Between Equal and Equity
We put children into grades by age because we can do so without ruffling feathers. It is something objective we can point to that cannot be argued. Let’s be honest; it is the easy way to do things. It is certainly equal in that all kids within that age range end up in the same class together. But it would also be similar to put kids into classes based on gender, race, and other clearly defined characteristics. We would never do that because we know that violates equity issues, and yet here we are, putting kids together by a number based solely on when the universe decided to put them on this planet.
If we truly want equity in our schools, we would place students into their classes based on their displayed skills. Would it be easy to do? Not. But this is an adult problem, not a kid problem. Too often in school, because something is difficult for adults, we make decisions to simplify things. What if we did things instead because it is agreed upon to be best for kids?
Adjustments Should Be Made For Students
If we want to maintain equity, we need to be willing to make adjustments. Let’s take our two students who came into kindergarten together. Student B started way behind the line for various reasons, some of which may be based on circumstances, not ability or skills. If student B naturally progresses at a fast pace, he could be moved to a higher level of learning based on this evidence.
Similarly, if that student had all sorts of resources available to him as a young child and could not keep up with his peers, he would be moved down to be placed with peers who learn at a similar pace. This is not punishment or reward. This is proper placement.
The adjustment aspect of this is something that the age-based placement of children struggles with. Sure, we have things in place, such as subject acceleration or grade skipping, when a student shows exceptional talent or skills or has a parent who knows the system enough to manipulate it. We occasionally might hold a child back who is developmentally behind. But most children will graduate with the same age mates they began their schooling career with. We all assume this group of students goes to various places because they are in different positions regarding skills and abilities.
To expect every child to go on to college or enter a trade would be unrealistic. And yet here we are, starting them all at the same place at the beginning of their education.
Further Reading
To access the remaining two articles in the five-part series about eliminating graduation requirements and grades, please visit edCircuit.