What are some of the difficulties of implementing multiage education?
The biggest challenge to multiage implementation is the misunderstanding about ‘what it is and is not’. Not all teachers and administrators have had an opportunity or reason to learn about multiage education and neither have most people in the parent community. For many, when you talk about multiage, they are picturing split class in their minds. For more than a century, most schools in North America have used a structure of same-age grades. This has led to an assumption that children of particular ages should be learning specific things at the same rate and in the same way. If not, they are labeled different than the norm. Some schools rush implementation because of administrative expediency. Situations such as a shortage in teachers or a shift in demographics, may force a school to combine grades. Learning about this change a few weeks or months prior to implementation hardly gives enough time for teachers and parents to prepare for acceptance and understanding of a multiage approach
