“Schools-within-Schools: Big is good, small is great!”
Article by Neal Patel
Description:
Schools within schools! What do I mean by this? How can you possibly have a school in another school? A theory that states having a smaller community in a school increases the social capital of the school, but how does this idea add up?
Take a moment to consider that most students have about seven classes. This means that you will only see the students in your class once or twice a day. This can makes it harder for you to develop strong connections with fellow students. Teachers can also have a problem connecting with their students. They also have six or seven classes a day, requiring them to interact with over 150 kids a day.
For both these reasons students don’t fell connected to their classmates and teachers, which can create problems. For example, if a student is failing a class they may not know another student that is doing well in the subject or may not feel comfortable asking the teacher for help because he/she doesn’t have the time or resources to help. There is also the belief that teachers would rather not get too involved with students they will only have for a short year.
If this sounds familiar, you are involved in a school that could benefit from creating smaller communities or teams.
The benefits of a “school within a school” design has been proven in countless studies as creating positive social capital, not only for the students, but for the teachers, too. This design creates small groups or teams of students and assigns them to a teacher. The students will be with this teacher and peer group for the entire four years. This allows the teacher and students to get to know one another on more than just an academic level, and creates a community. This relationship is more prevalent in private schools than public schools. Since private school students know many of the fellow peers, and have strong positive bonds with their teachers they show a greater increase in participation, graduation, high academic achievement and greater attendance.
You may think that private schools are smaller, and that is why it is easier for the students to interact with each other, but despite the size there is no reason why our public school system can’t reshape to the same design as the private schools. This is not a proposal for building new schools, or cutting student bodies in half, just for creating a smaller community within the school. It doesn’t matter if there are hundred or a million students in the school, by adjusting the students into small teams or groups and assigning them to certain teachers, I am positive that you will see a significant change in the overall product of students and teachers in the school.
In my middle school we had smaller teams. I was assigned to four teachers. When ever I seemed to be doing bad on tests or projects, my four teachers were there to assist me one on one. My grades were up, and the friends I had were all from that team. We bonded very strongly with one another. Not only did my fellow students bond strongly, but the teachers bonded closely with us, they became very involved and planned little filed trips and parties that made us all connect even more. This smaller community is a great network that supports social capital.
Funding for Academic Year: 2005