This site has been designed for people (teachers, parents, administrators, pre-service teachers, and others) who are curious about the what, how and why of multigrade teaching and learning. In these pages and posts you will find links to Canadian and world-wide research, provincial documents and multigrade resources plus personal experience and reflection.
This is a place to acknowledge, share and explore the oft perceived (and experienced) challenges of multi-grade teaching. But in doing so, my intent and hope is that by better understanding the inherent qualities of multigrade configurations, we can also begin to perceive and experience the opportunities for real-world, real-school, real-learning and teaching they represent.
A few facts that have continued to inform and guide my own teaching and inquiry:
- multiage learning existed long before Western society began segregating children into distinct age (or grade) groups.
- much of our society’s concern with multi-grade teaching and learning is due to the constraints and expectations imposed by an educational system that highly favours monograde configurations. This bias and practice was formalized for administrative purposes, not because single grade classrooms are necessarily better environments for teaching or learning.
Are you interested in sharing your own thoughts and experiences? I hope to include a forum page for input and discussion in the future. In the meantime, please leave comments or contact me personally at heatherjjohnson@hotmail.com
Multigrade Teacher 