We are a group of teachers at Newton South High School whose experience in teaching multilevel classes in the humanities ranges from two to twenty years, and we’d like to take a moment to explain how multilevel courses – at their best – can provide an education for students’ brains and souls that many of them remember years later. They come back and tell us so every year.
A couple of caveats: we know that multilevel classes are a highly complex endeavor, and that to be done well, like all educational initiatives, they need adequate financial and administrative support, as well as student and family buy-in.
We all have stories like these: in our differentiated English class, students sometimes read two different books — one for the students enrolled for CP or ACP credit, and one for students enrolled for honors. Of the students enrolled for ACP credit this year, four chose the honors book because it looked more interesting to them, and one read the ACP book and then asked to read the honors book as well. At the end of the unit, students listened to the discussion of each book and participated as they chose. These options simply do not exist in single-level classes.
At their best, multilevel classes give each student what they need both academically and socially/emotionally. They provide a space where students can see what the next level of challenge looks like, and, if they want to, they can try it. We have watched ninth graders who were in our CP English class take the opportunity afforded by multilevel classes to steadily work their way to junior honors classes. We have watched scores of students realize that they can try the next level, and we have watched some make really thoughtful, careful decisions to reduce their challenge level. Multilevel classes acknowledge that kids grow at different rates, have different tastes and strengths, and these classes celebrate, rather than penalize, those differences.
One of the disadvantages of a rigid tracking system is that students, especially those enrolled in CP courses, often travel together through the school, sitting in the same classes together every day. In multilevel classes, students work alongside kids they might not come across otherwise; they work together on projects and learn to see that sometimes students enrolled in a different level are better public speakers or make better slideshows or are easier to get along with than other kids they know better. Year after year, the feedback we get from our kids is that the sense of community is one of the best aspects of our program. Many of them report making new friends because of it.
Do these classes also work for students taking classes at the honors level? Last year’s graduates from our program are currently enrolled at the University of Chicago, UPenn, MIT, Harvard… The answer is a resounding yes.
What Support Multilevel Classes Need in Order to be Successful
- Professional development: lots of it. The Global Justice program – mixed level classes that have been running for nearly twenty years – started with a cohort of teachers who had a week of paid summer training before the multilevel classes even started. They also had a week the following summer, and they were given a whole series of PD days to work on designing the class during the early years.
- Small classes. Not every day, but some days, preparing a class with students enrolled for three levels, is almost like preparing for three classes. In order to provide the time teachers need for that, the classes must be small enough to give each student the attention they need. When our program started, the class numbers were capped at 22.
- Common planning time for teachers. Teachers — at least in two of the multilevel programs — get weekly meeting time to talk about kids, create assessments, and plan ways to make the class both rigorous and enriching.
Lily Eng Shine, Joe Golding, Zak Gomes, Emma Leslie, and Andrew Thompson are all teachers in the Global Justice program at Newton South High School.
