What are the pros and cons of a multiage classroom?

Answer 1

A pro is that they can learn from each other. The older kids will serve as an example for the younger kids. A con would be that the older kids may pick on the young kids or the younger kids may drive the older ones a little crazy. But overall, I think it's a good experience for them.

Answer 2

When multi-age education is done correctly it is a joy. To begin with, older children help younger ones. The competent older children can reinforce their understanding of the content material while the younger ones have it taught to them in different ways. Sometimes another child can word a concept in a way that an adult can’t, facilitating better understanding for both children involved.

Multi-age classrooms also allow children to excel. With higher level materials on hand, and an infrastructure already in place to differentiate the instruction, higher functioning students can do more than the prescribed curriculum. For example, I have 5 second graders who have just started working on 3rd grade level math. Since I have the materials already set up in my classroom, this is not a problem. Additionally, children below grade level are able to focus on concepts that they need remediation in. This ability to “fill in” a child’s gaps in knowledge leads to better and often, but not always, an acceleration in that child’s learning curve. Rewording this, a well functioning multi-age classroom will be able to adapt to the needs of each child, promoting enrichment and remediation the specific concepts that each child needs to work on.

Some people worry that the different ages in one classroom will cause problems. Either older children will bully younger ones, older children will become immature from socializing with younger ones, or that having students working on different levels will promote taunting of lower functioning students. Although all of these are valid points, they all occur in single aged classrooms also. The teacher can alleviate these problems by doing a lot of community building exercises at the beginning of the year and then periodically throughout the year that focus on the individual worth of each child’s natural strengths and help the children learn that the classroom environment is a place that we focus on each person’s growth, not their weaknesses. Children, especially at the younger grades are very accepting and forgiving when it is modeled for them.