

Age Segregation in School - tokenadult
http://learninfreedom.org/age_grading_bad.html

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zck
The comparison to homeschoolers seems a bit off. First, there are very few
other students in a homeschooled kid's class. It makes sense that a kid will
do better in a class of two or three, rather than eighteen or twenty.
Additionally, kids with involved parents do better in school, and parents who
homeschool their kids usually are quite involved.

It seems obvious that it's better to group kids by ability rather than age. Of
course, that can lead to forcing kids into unchangable "tracks", where little
Jimmy can never get back to where the "advanced" kids of his age are, but that
shouldn't be as much of a problem if the classes are mixed-age.

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roundsquare
> The comparison to homeschoolers seems a bit off.

Agreed, we have completely improper data to compare.

> It seems obvious that it's better to group kids by ability rather than age.

The counter argument I usually hear is that while a 10 year old may be
academically smarter than others of the same age, the kid may not be as
socially mature.

My understanding is that older schools actually did something different, all
students were in the same room with one teacher. So you didn't group kids at
all, and older kids helped younger kids.

I especially like the part about the older kids helping the younger kids since
it can help reinforce a topic. However, I don't think this is feasible with
modern society since communities are bigger and people move a lot more.

~~~
tokenadult
_My understanding is that older schools actually did something different, all
students were in the same room with one teacher. So you didn't group kids at
all, and older kids helped younger kids._

I know a lot of alumni of such schools, for example one-room schools in rural
areas of the United States. The pupils weren't slowed down by lock-step age-
grading and have often advanced to very challenging careers in adult life.

