12. Chronologically Diverse Schools and Classrooms
Primary schools and individual classrooms should be more chronologically diverse. Each school should try to have students ranging from pre-school and kindergarten through high school, or at least as wide a range as practical. Individual classrooms should include students across a wider age range (two grade levels) so that the older or more advanced students could help the younger or less advanced ones, while the older less advanced students would not feel overwhelmed by their inabilities to do things expected of their age group. This would help reduce bullying and would result in greater communication between these age groups and reduce the stigma attached to various age groups by members of a different age/grade group. Schools could also utilize the more advanced/high grade students to help teach the less advanced/lower grade students. Valuable social interaction skills may be learned and increases in motivation and self-confidence are likely when children of diverse ages are in the same learning environment.