Smaller Class Sizes Give Students Better Support

If you read the article “What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?“, you’re probably trying to justify how you’re parenting your children, and worse — how your parents disciplined you.

In my case, I thought about how discipline was handled at Merit Academy back in the ’90s when class sizes were a maximum of 6 students (my girls attended then).

At first blush, even with 6 students per class, our teachers didn’t have the time needed to have deep conversations with students about why they said or did something inappropriate and how they might handle the situation differently in the future. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that our teachers were cold hearted — they absolutely weren’t — they just had a lot to handle because they provided a comprehensive academic program – TEACHING was the primary objective, and having to stop the class every time something went awry to have individual discussions with students just wasn’t possible. Sure, with big problems, the teacher met with the student during recess or lunch, but that wasn’t common.

But after reading the entire article, I agree that placing young kids on time outs or suspending teens doesn’t give them the opportunity to learn how to control themselves in the future. It’s simply punishment for their behavior. It’s worth the investment in our youth to teach them how to handle disappointment and how to conduct themselves in appropriate manners even when they are stressed out.

Luckily, this isn’t a problem at Merit Academy because class size is now just one student with one teacher, and our teachers really do spend class time working with students to help them understand responsibility, consequences, and control. I really believe the students benefit from having this structure. 

I just don’t know how we can expect classroom teachers who have to manage between 20-40 students per class, to implement time-consuming disciplinary action. I think the majority of this philosophy must be implemented by parents, family and friends at home.

What do you think?

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