Life Is Not Organized In Single Age Groups, Nor Should It Be
The Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Advantages of Mixed Aged Environments
The split grade class. Commonly used in schools, rarely accepted by parents. The vast majority of parents respond to the news that their child is in a combined class with fear and worry. It is one of the most common topics that prospective families seek to discuss with us, and the inquiries consistently stem from a place riddled with concern, anxiety, and general pessimism. There has undoubtedly been a societal shift in which glasses are always half empty, and yet this glass, the combined class, is most certainly half full.
The benefits of diversity within communities need not be argued, and this is true whether we are talking about adults or children, or whether the diversity stems from race, gender, religion, or any of the vast array of characteristics and qualities that make up humanity. So why is that we are so worried about diverse age groups? About mixed grades, about combined classes?
Life is not organized in single age groups, into homogenous groups, nor should it be. Sometimes in life, we are the mentor, at other times the apprentice. Sometimes we’re the boss, other times we’re not. Sometimes we lead from the front, while other times we take cues from the back. In all of these situations we have to work together, and age is rarely, if ever, the deciding factor in our allotted roles. By giving young children the same opportunity to experience varying roles that stem from diverse groupings they will be better off. They will reap cognitive, social, and emotional benefits that are paramount to their learning and development.
In order to serve the masses, the educational system was designed and structured in a industrial revolution, factory style manner by which students would be separated by ability so that they could all be instructed at the same time - and the easiest way to do this - assume that children of the same age have the same abilities and interests. But as every parent already knows, especially those with more than one child, children learn and develop at vastly different rates. Not every seven-year-old has mastered the same skills in the same time frame. But any adult, regardless of whether you have children or not, should recognize this model and recognize its inherent problems. We were all students in this model; the one organized chronologically by birth year, clustering children on the false premise of homogenous skill and ability. So you know exactly what the problematic result is that I am about to describe. The problem we all experienced in our own classrooms as students, and decades later, still remains: some students become bored when the pace of instruction is too slow, and some students become stressed and eventually disenfranchised when the pace of instruction is too fast. Enter the mixed-age, combined class, reminiscent of the one-room school house of the past. Inherent to this structure is the natural, seamless integration of developmental groupings. Younger children who excel in a particular discipline already have vertical enrichment (acceleration) naturally built into their learning environment. They are challenged by the skills that “older students” already possess or are working on, as they seek to emulate and keep pace with their peers. Similarly, there are accessible entry points for “older” students who may struggle in a subject. Without a focus on distinct grades and ages, the fluid holistic nature of the combined class allows that child to continue working on, and acquiring needed skills that may be in a “lower grade” or “younger age”. No IEPs, no designations, just a natural integration as children grow, change, and develop on their own unique timeline.
Regardless of whether deficits or strengths exist, the significance of having diverse aged peer groupings (as opposed to adults - teachers, parents) has been made clear by famous Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky coined the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - the area defined by what a learner can do with guidance/assistance through scaffolding, that sits between the actual development level and the potential level - and demonstrated that it is fundamentally social in nature, with peer interactions being imperative to learning and development. For children, their teachers and parents represent an unrealistic target. We simply aren’t peers, and when we, the “old timers” demonstrate a skill or concept that is challenging to a child, they often believe it is simply out of reach for them and don’t bother to try. They become “adult skills” in their mind, unachievable, unrealistic to them. This however is not true when that same demonstration comes from another child, even when that child may be several years older. But as Vygotsky illustrated, a limited circle of easy-to-compare others is comforting to a child; it is a protection strategy that in fact hinders learning. In other words… the single grade room is the safe, protected and easy-to-compare environment. Older students, who are still seen as peers offer the challenge needed to accelerate learning acquisition and movement through the ZPD.
Let me share a quick story here … I recently introduced “Sit Spotting” to my mixed age students who range from age 3 to 8. If you aren’t familiar with “Sit Spotting”, it is a mindfulness meditative practice for children. As we adventure on our 100 acre property, they select a unique location in which to sit silently, using their senses to observe - what they see, smell, hear and touch. We started with two, one-minute sessions, sharing our observations at the end of each. Over the course of two and half weeks, we are now at 8 minutes - that’s right, you don’t need to re-read. 8 minutes of silent observation. Make no mistake about it, the zone of proximal development matters, it matters a WHOLE LOT in accomplishing this. If the group was entirely “JK”, 3 and 4 year-olds, we certainly would not be at 8 minutes, we likely would still be working on the 1 minute sessions. Instead, our littlest learners are acquiring a skill set from their older peers who model both the quiet meditative practice, as well as how to make detailed observations when they share in our follow-up sessions. Our older learners act as leaders, developing that skill simultaneously. We all know children listen and watch everything - and when it’s another child they look up to, they emulate. We need to nurture and embrace this dynamic; believe in the positive role modelling that older children are more than capable of - we need to remember the glass is half full.
When we speak of leadership in school settings, we naturally, instinctually believe that the leaders will always be older. However, just like adults, children excel in some disciplines, have deficits in others, and as a result, just like us, sometimes they too will be the mentor, and other times the apprentice, the teacher or the student, regardless of chronological age. In our mixed-age classroom sometimes the teaching student is older than the learning student, sometimes the teacher is younger than the learner, and sometimes they are the same age. The only constants are that both the teacher and the learner improve their knowledge and skill, and that every child benefits from the exposure to these natural fluctuations in ability and aptitude, and ever-changing leadership roles. As subjects, disciplines, and skill-sets change, the opportunity to develop as a leader, the opportunity to develop confidence, the opportunity to cement their own learning by teaching other students what they’ve already mastered changes hands; hands that are not organized by birthdate.
When it comes to the social-emotional realm of development, in a mixed-age class older students play the role of big brother or sister to younger students. Younger students gain security and comfort in this relationship, while the older students demonstrate increased confidence and self-esteem, as well as increased pro-social and fewer aggressive behaviours. Age mixing also provides a safe environment for all students to work on their communicative social skills. Students who are less confident in their social skills can practice them and work to improve them by interacting with other students, perhaps younger ones, that the child may internalize as less threatening and more approachable. Similarly, students who may have more developed language acquisition and social comfort can seek out relationships where they are socially on par, and that too may have little do with their birthdate.
I have the privilege of seeing the array of benefits of a mixed age class unfolded daily; the use of multiple accessible entry points and developmental groupings without IEP designations, the impact of ZPD and peers on skill acquisition, the natural fluctuations in ability and aptitude that result in ever-changing leadership roles, and the beauty of “sibling relationships” among students. I have the privilege of seeing that the glass is indeed half full. You went to school in which classes were organized chronologically by age, and your child, grandchild, niece/nephew likely does as well. The system hasn’t changed, and so most of you don’t have the privilege that I do. BUT we all have the ability to think critically, to grapple with new ideas that deviate from the norm, that deviate from what we “know”. We do know that life is not organized into single age groups, and perhaps we will eventually know that our classrooms need not be either.