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> Year groups are still important socially After you left High School, was there ever a time in your life when you hung out with people of exactly the same age

by gwd 5y ago

> Year groups are still important socially After you left High School, was there ever a time in your life when you hung out with people of exactly the same age? The fact that everyone spends 13 years of their youth doing it now is an artifact only about 100 years old. > I've long thought that schools should just let people go at whatever pace they want. I'm pretty sure Montessori schools do something like this.

lordnacho 5y ago
I found that it expanded a lot as I got older. In the early years people in the year above and below were like strangers. By the end of high school, I knew all the people in adjacent years, plus siblings. At uni there's only a few years there, so I guess it doesn't really count. Once I started worked it all stopped mattering, I have retired friends as well as ones that have just started work. But for little kids, it seems to matter a bit. You can tell kids change fast, so plus minus a year at a young age matters.
- em-bee 5y ago
  montessori groups children into age ranges spanning 3 years. 3-6 year olds are in one class and the older kids teach the younger ones. there is absolutely no indication that the age difference is a problem. so no, plus or minus a year does not matter even for a 3 year old kid.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    I'm not saying it's a problem, just that you're gonna tend to have similar kids in a clump. That clump is gonna have some people ahead and some behind it. But the clump is gonna move at some sort of pace. > so no, plus or minus a year does not matter even for a 3 year old kid. Anyone who has kids is going to disagree with this.
    - em-bee 5y ago
      i have kids. the age difference matters for the development of each individual kid, but it us rather useless as a measure to compare the development of different kids. in the first few years, the development of each kid is so different that no two kids of the same age are alike. you can have a four year old with the maturity of a two year old, or a three year old going on five. a wider age range allows children with the same level of maturity to play together regardless of the individual age. also younger kids learn from older kids with allows them to mature faster. this difference in maturity continues, but as the kids are older it just matters less, because the material being taught in school does not depend on the level of maturity but only on what they already learned regardless of how mature they are.
      - lordnacho 5y ago
        This I can agree with. I benefited a lot from having older cousins around. At the moment I have a kid who is asking me about chemistry, and I can't just wait 5 years for him to get to that age where they teach people specifically chemistry (as opposed to general science). There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it?
        em-bee 5y ago
        i think once you go beyond the basics of math, reading and writing, the problem is to order all the remaining material into some sort of sequence, but it matters less what the actual sequence is. you could start with chemistry earlier, and anyone homeschooling may do just that, but this is going back to the exact problem that started this sub-thread: schools being designed to teach everyone at the same pace.
        brimble 5y ago
        > There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it? Not enough staff (teachers) to differentiate instruction that finely. A lot of stuff sounds like a great idea until you're looking at a classroom of 18-28 students and everyone else around you is trying to deal with a similar-sized class of their own. Special-ed kids might get help down to having one entire adult just to help and follow around that single kid all day (!) but there's no stomach for spending that kind of money to help kids who are ahead, or to reduce class sizes so regular classroom teachers can realistically do a better job of differentiation. Best most places get are very-part-time gifted programs.
    - gwd 5y ago
      If GP meant "there's no difference", they're certainly wrong; a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old. But the question here was about socialization -- can a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old satisfy one another's needs for peer socialization? Is a 4-year-old who socializes with 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds but no other 4-year-olds being socially deprived somehow? I think the answer there is clearly "yes" and "no", respectively.
      - em-bee 5y ago
        a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old that would require that all children develop at exactly the same pace which is simply not happening like that. see my other comment. i do agree with the socialization.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The Montessory philosophy isn't that the age doesn't matter. It's that it matters and children of different ages benefit from mixing.
em-bee 5y ago
montessori does exactly that. the kids are grouped into batches of 3 years, and each child can study the material at their own pace. i don't know how they handle the transitions from one group to the next though. maybe an extra slow kid that hasn't mastered the whole material in 3 years will tack on an extra time. and i think that faster kids will spend the extra time teaching younger kids. i also expect that in a 3 year period is is more likely for kids to catch up because they are probably not continuously slow. (keep in mind that montessori originally developed the material for kids with (learning-)disabilities) so learning at a slow pace is actually less of a problem, if it is a problem at all.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  I have never seen anybody implement the exact Montessori idea for anybody that isn't very young children. For the very young, the answer is that the material isn't exclusive to the classroom so they will learn it sooner or later. There are plenty of people that adapt it to older children, but the 3 years batches are the first thing to go away. At the other extreme, I've seen attempts to get ride of the synchronicity at university undergraduate courses. It's almost trivial there and seems to have no downsides.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    the 3 years batches are the first thing to go away. the term "montessori" is not protected, so many schools claim to use montessori, but aren't really. from https://montessori-ami.org/about-montessori/montessori-12-18 https://montessori-ami.org/about-montessori/montessori-12-18 The school for adolescents is for young people ages 12 through 18. Sometimes the young people are divided into two groups of 12 to 15 and 15 to 18 and sometimes all six years interact in one environment, depending upon the size of the school. so in fact instead of the batches going away, they may grow to an even wider age range. the same for elementary. At the other extreme, I've seen attempts to get rid of the synchronicity at university undergraduate courses. It's almost trivial there and seems to have no downsides. that's how universities work in austria and germany. and it makes a lot of sense. the older you get the less the actual age matters for what you learn.

by gwd 5y ago

lordnacho 5y ago

I found that it expanded a lot as I got older. In the early years people in the year above and below were like strangers. By the end of high school, I knew all the people in adjacent years, plus siblings. At uni there's only a few years there, so I guess it doesn't really count. Once I started worked it all stopped mattering, I have retired friends as well as ones that have just started work. But for little kids, it seems to matter a bit. You can tell kids change fast, so plus minus a year at a young age matters.

em-bee 5y ago
montessori groups children into age ranges spanning 3 years. 3-6 year olds are in one class and the older kids teach the younger ones. there is absolutely no indication that the age difference is a problem. so no, plus or minus a year does not matter even for a 3 year old kid.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's a problem, just that you're gonna tend to have similar kids in a clump. That clump is gonna have some people ahead and some behind it. But the clump is gonna move at some sort of pace. > so no, plus or minus a year does not matter even for a 3 year old kid. Anyone who has kids is going to disagree with this.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    i have kids. the age difference matters for the development of each individual kid, but it us rather useless as a measure to compare the development of different kids. in the first few years, the development of each kid is so different that no two kids of the same age are alike. you can have a four year old with the maturity of a two year old, or a three year old going on five. a wider age range allows children with the same level of maturity to play together regardless of the individual age. also younger kids learn from older kids with allows them to mature faster. this difference in maturity continues, but as the kids are older it just matters less, because the material being taught in school does not depend on the level of maturity but only on what they already learned regardless of how mature they are.
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      This I can agree with. I benefited a lot from having older cousins around. At the moment I have a kid who is asking me about chemistry, and I can't just wait 5 years for him to get to that age where they teach people specifically chemistry (as opposed to general science). There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it?
      - em-bee 5y ago
        i think once you go beyond the basics of math, reading and writing, the problem is to order all the remaining material into some sort of sequence, but it matters less what the actual sequence is. you could start with chemistry earlier, and anyone homeschooling may do just that, but this is going back to the exact problem that started this sub-thread: schools being designed to teach everyone at the same pace.
      - brimble 5y ago
        > There's no reason I can't tell a 9 year old about valencies and that kind of thing, so why does school wait with it? Not enough staff (teachers) to differentiate instruction that finely. A lot of stuff sounds like a great idea until you're looking at a classroom of 18-28 students and everyone else around you is trying to deal with a similar-sized class of their own. Special-ed kids might get help down to having one entire adult just to help and follow around that single kid all day (!) but there's no stomach for spending that kind of money to help kids who are ahead, or to reduce class sizes so regular classroom teachers can realistically do a better job of differentiation. Best most places get are very-part-time gifted programs.
  - gwd 5y ago
    If GP meant "there's no difference", they're certainly wrong; a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old. But the question here was about socialization -- can a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old satisfy one another's needs for peer socialization? Is a 4-year-old who socializes with 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds but no other 4-year-olds being socially deprived somehow? I think the answer there is clearly "yes" and "no", respectively.
    - em-bee 5y ago
      a four-year-old is obviously 33% more advanced than a 3-year-old that would require that all children develop at exactly the same pace which is simply not happening like that. see my other comment. i do agree with the socialization.
marcosdumay 5y ago
The Montessory philosophy isn't that the age doesn't matter. It's that it matters and children of different ages benefit from mixing.

em-bee 5y ago

montessori does exactly that. the kids are grouped into batches of 3 years, and each child can study the material at their own pace. i don't know how they handle the transitions from one group to the next though. maybe an extra slow kid that hasn't mastered the whole material in 3 years will tack on an extra time. and i think that faster kids will spend the extra time teaching younger kids. i also expect that in a 3 year period is is more likely for kids to catch up because they are probably not continuously slow. (keep in mind that montessori originally developed the material for kids with (learning-)disabilities) so learning at a slow pace is actually less of a problem, if it is a problem at all.

marcosdumay 5y ago
I have never seen anybody implement the exact Montessori idea for anybody that isn't very young children. For the very young, the answer is that the material isn't exclusive to the classroom so they will learn it sooner or later. There are plenty of people that adapt it to older children, but the 3 years batches are the first thing to go away. At the other extreme, I've seen attempts to get ride of the synchronicity at university undergraduate courses. It's almost trivial there and seems to have no downsides.
- em-bee 5y ago
  the 3 years batches are the first thing to go away. the term "montessori" is not protected, so many schools claim to use montessori, but aren't really. from https://montessori-ami.org/about-montessori/montessori-12-18 https://montessori-ami.org/about-montessori/montessori-12-18 The school for adolescents is for young people ages 12 through 18. Sometimes the young people are divided into two groups of 12 to 15 and 15 to 18 and sometimes all six years interact in one environment, depending upon the size of the school. so in fact instead of the batches going away, they may grow to an even wider age range. the same for elementary. At the other extreme, I've seen attempts to get rid of the synchronicity at university undergraduate courses. It's almost trivial there and seems to have no downsides. that's how universities work in austria and germany. and it makes a lot of sense. the older you get the less the actual age matters for what you learn.