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Making friends in different age groups is common (or should be) in adults. So why enforce same-age friend-making at school. We all have younger, older and same age group friends – and it doesn’t even matter
One of the best perks of homeschooling…making friends because of shared interests! Those are meaningful friendships that stick.
I think you are unfairly confounding the two different issues of (1) age and (2) readiness to read in the face of an inflexible curriculum. Grouping by age is a very useful tool regards matching the group’s physical, emotional, and spiritual maturation. This is how a Waldorf school approaches age grouping. Waldorf also gives the child far more time to be ready for reading. In most cases, the child is already reading at home before they are asked to read at school. With that said, age grouping within a standard, public school has all the faults you mention.
Most of the research in this post is about physical and emotional development – when kids are grouped by age the youngest kids suffer. This part of the post has nothing to do with reading.
I know a lot of Waldorf people – my older son has dyslexia and he learned to read from a Wladorf teacher and she was great. But I think Waldorf parents underestimate how mainstream Waldorf is compared to homeschooling. Waldorf is still school. For example, you go outside to play when it’s time to go outside rather than when you feel like going outside.
Penelope
I would not call Waldorf mainstream — at least not compared to the public schools here in Rhode Island. I do accept that Waldorf is a programmed education. It is a program that my family likes. With that said, we have one twin at the public middle school and the other twin at the Waldorf middle school. We did this because we have seen that Waldorf is not for all children and not for all ages. (I assume this is true for home schooling also.) So much of parenting is seeing when what was once working for you child is no longer working and making the needed changes. Parenting and schooling should be responsive and not formulaic.
“So much of parenting is seeing when what was once working for you child is no longer working and making the needed changes. Parenting and schooling should be responsive and not formulaic.”
One of the key questions to ask oneself about unschooling is whether it is the absence of a formula or whether it is a formula in itself.
The following video link is a very good argument for a one-room schoolhouse networked on a global scale with children of all ages learning together and from each other in the 21st century. This video was done by John Seely Brown at the 2012 Digital Media and Learning conference in San Francisco. It contains the highlights of his “Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner” keynote.
http://vimeo.com/49645115
Thanks for the link. I think a lot about one-room schoolhouses because we live in the middle of a large Amish community, and they have one-room schoolhouses. But they stop teaching kids around age 12. And I think that’s pretty consistent with how a one-room schoolhouse works. I think people homeschool after a one-room schoolhouse experience in younger years.
Penelope
I went to a one-room schoolhouse (not amish). It was so awesome – we took our shoes off before we went inside and had reading time in a big bathtub filled with pillows. But I had never considered how hanging out with kids of more varied age had an impact on my learning. thanks!
I’m surprised to hear you advocate grouping kids by ability. I LOVE watching children of varying ages and abilities work together on shared activities or projects. It just makes so much sense that working with those below you and above you in ability enriches everyone.
Perhaps one of the reasons why it’s so hard to make quality friendships after college is because of the whole age-grouping thing in schools…thoughts?