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Wouldn't be surprised if this is true also for education. It's bizarre to me that we send children off to these huge warehouse size schools with over 1000 other

Wouldn't be surprised if this is true also for education. It's bizarre to me that we send children off to these huge warehouse size schools with over 1000 other kids, looked over by a small number of unrelated adults, and expect odd social problems to not arise.

irrational 4y ago
My high school (this was the 1980s) had 4,000 students. In retrospect I'm surprised there weren't more social problems. A lot of the students did come from a similar socio-economic background (upper-middle class to very very wealthy families), perhaps that explains it.
appleiigs 4y ago
Are all 1000 all together or is it broken down by age/grade, then classroom and such? How about role of parenting?
- bluGill 4y ago
  I've seen all kinds of different things. I know of one school near me where it is 1000 per grade. I know of a different district where it is 1000 for the whole high school (4 grades), and another where is is 1000 for the entire district (12 grades). I think on balance 150-300 per grade is ideal. Schools that have less than 150 students in a grade just cannot offer students anything other than the same basic actives everyone has. You won't take calculus because there are not enough students to start a calculus class, and this holds back the smart kids futures. You will play football as we cannot field a team without every student there, it doesn't matter how much you would prefer to play any other sport instead we can (not they won't, they cannot) never start a team. Schools with more than 300 start to get to the point where they can't let students into popular courses/sports and this breeds have/have-not culture wars. My numbers above are close, but subject to some debate.
  - olau 4y ago
    Wow. I went to a school with perhaps 500 pupils total covering all 10 grades, and in retrospect I think it was too big. My own children attend a much smaller school. I should add that there were some specialized classes available, like programming, in the evening where people from multiple schools were gathered.

irrational 4y ago

My high school (this was the 1980s) had 4,000 students. In retrospect I'm surprised there weren't more social problems. A lot of the students did come from a similar socio-economic background (upper-middle class to very very wealthy families), perhaps that explains it.

appleiigs 4y ago

Are all 1000 all together or is it broken down by age/grade, then classroom and such? How about role of parenting?

bluGill 4y ago
I've seen all kinds of different things. I know of one school near me where it is 1000 per grade. I know of a different district where it is 1000 for the whole high school (4 grades), and another where is is 1000 for the entire district (12 grades). I think on balance 150-300 per grade is ideal. Schools that have less than 150 students in a grade just cannot offer students anything other than the same basic actives everyone has. You won't take calculus because there are not enough students to start a calculus class, and this holds back the smart kids futures. You will play football as we cannot field a team without every student there, it doesn't matter how much you would prefer to play any other sport instead we can (not they won't, they cannot) never start a team. Schools with more than 300 start to get to the point where they can't let students into popular courses/sports and this breeds have/have-not culture wars. My numbers above are close, but subject to some debate.
- olau 4y ago
  Wow. I went to a school with perhaps 500 pupils total covering all 10 grades, and in retrospect I think it was too big. My own children attend a much smaller school. I should add that there were some specialized classes available, like programming, in the evening where people from multiple schools were gathered.