Everyone who has ever been a teacher knows that we learn more when we teach than when we are taught. The requirement to put ideas into words that others can understand, and the need to think through objections that others might make, leads us to think deeply about what we thought we knew. Often this leads us to a better understanding than we had before. In an age-mixed environment, children, not just adults, can learn through teaching.
In the above example, 14-year-old Arthur, the "teacher," probably learned at least as much as 8-year-old Ed, the protégé, in their conversation. Ed's challenge to Arthur's suggestion led Arthur to think further and expand on his explanation in a way that he may not have thought about before. Both parties probably left the conversation with a deeper understanding of democracy at the school than they had before.
As another example, consider the case of an older child playing chess or some other strategy game with a younger one and teaching strategy as they play. When the older child says to the younger one that move A would be better than move B, the younger one says, "Why?" To answer this, the experienced player cannot just rely on gut instinct developed from long experience with chess, but must articulate a reason. She must turn her implicit chess knowledge into conscious, explicit knowledge, and in doing so she becomes a better chess player. Similar examples occur in every realm of exchange of knowledge and ideas among people who feel free to ask questions.
Older children develop compassion and nurturing skills through helping younger ones.
Even more valuable than the cognitive gains derived from interacting with younger children are the moral gains. To develop effectively as responsible, ethical beings, children need to have the experience of caring for others, not just the experience of being cared for by others. Observations in many cultures have shown that both boys and girls behave in more caring ways toward children who are several years younger than themselves than toward children near their own age. Little children seem to draw out the nurturing instincts that lie latent in all of us. One study, in Kenya, revealed that boys who cared for younger siblings at home behaved less aggressively, more kindly, toward same-age peers than did boys who lacked that opportunity.[4] Apparently, the nurturing instinct is strengthened through interactions with younger children, and, once strengthened, it generalizes to age-mates.
In observations at Sudbury Valley, many examples of children nurturing younger ones can be seen every day. These include scenes of older children reading to younger ones, who sit on their laps; older children helping younger ones find lost objects or fixing things they have broken; and older children giving needed boosts to younger ones as they go about their daily activities. Some of the most interesting scenes are those in which an older child criticizes a younger one for his or her poor treatment of a still younger child. In one case, for example, we observed a 10-year-old girl explain to three 6-to-8-year-old girls why they should let a certain 4-year-old join them in their game. "How would you feel if you weren't included," she said. In another case we observed a 17-year-old boy reprimand a 13-year-old for his unfriendly way of rejecting an 8-year-old boy who asked to play a game with him. The reprimands we heard in these examples were much more effective coming from an older child than they would have been if they had come from an adult.
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Taking this essay along with the previous two, I conclude with the following summary. An age-mixed environment (1) allows younger children to engage collaboratively in activities that they could not do just with age-mates; (2) promotes non-competitive, creative forms of play that are ideal for acquiring new skills; (3) allows those who are ahead of or behind their age-mates in certain realms to find others who are at their level; (4) permits younger children to be inspired by the activities of older ones, and vice versa; (5) allows younger children to receive help and advice without giving up their own autonomy; (6) allows older children to learn through teaching; and (7) allows older children to practice caring for younger ones and to develop a sense of responsibility and maturity. When we segregate children by age, in schools and in other settings, we deprive them of all of this. We rob them of the opportunity to use fully their natural and joyful ways of learning from one another.
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References
[1] Feldman, J. (1997). The educational opportunities that lie in self-directed age mixing among children and adolescents. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Psychology, Boston College, 1997.
[2] Greenberg, D. (1987). Free at last: the Sudbury Valley School. Framingham, MA: SudburyValley School Press.
[3] Gray. P. & Feldman, J. (2004). Playing in the zone of proximal development: Qualities of self-directed age mixing between adolescents and young children at a democratic school. American Journal of Education, 110, 108-145.
[4] Ember, C. R. (1973).Feminine task assignment and the social behavior of boys. Ethos, 1, 424-439.
