Question:I have a great deal of respect for teachers. My grandmother taught country school for 37 years starting with a horse and buggy, however, I don't understand the need for a class as small as 20 kids. I graduated from high school in 1957. All of my classes were from 30 to 35 students. There were no drop outs in my class of 350 students. All of us received a good education. If I could point out one problem today it would be the lack of discipline. This is from school and also from parents. I sent my two girls to Catholic school where they received a good education and lots of discipline.
My Answer:
Can teachers teach kids in a classroom with 30 to 35 students? Yes. It has been done before and it can be done again. Will it be better for our kids? No, of course not. The No Child Left Behind Legislation tried to address reasons to stop our schools from falling further and further behind.
The system that you and I were both in growing up was not continuing to work. The smaller class sizes were suggested for our earliest learners, Kindergarten, First, Second and Third Graders. Learning the basics, reading and math, became the focus. These children are 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 years old. It is extremely important to have children reading and fluent by nine years old if that fluency is going to be applied to later learning and development.
I am telling you as a teacher who has had small and large classes, you really can catch a lot more and spend a great deal of focused effort with smaller class sizes. I can work with larger groups. I can even reach the kids in the larger class sizes because I will commit to doing that, but if I have a smaller group, I will be able to do more individualized instruction. When you teach a child to read, it really helps to be able to sit down with the small groups and hear them read and progress as they should. In the past, kids worked in large groups in desks arranged to listen to the teacher lecture and then perform tasks.
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