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The Hechinger Report
What if students returned to the same teachers the next year?
How and why 'looping' works to overcome adverse childhood experiences
By Gail Conway
January 2, 2020
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to start the school year
with all students “looping” into the rhythm of their classroom
routines, with teachers already having a handle on every student’s
strengths, struggles and home issues? A scenario in which teachers have
the opportunity to go back and re-teach a hard-to-grasp skill that
students completely understood last year?
Schools and teachers who embrace looping have these opportunities as
well as the benefits of higher attendance, increased engagement, more
instructional time, improved teacher retention and gains in student
achievement.
Looping allows teachers to stay with their group of students year after
year as they progress from one grade-level to the next. And there’s an
even more important reason to institute looping in schools: mitigating
adverse childhood experiences known to negatively reshape children’s
brains.
Adverse childhood experiences — such as children’s exposure to violence
and substance abuse, parental separation, divorce or neglect —
interfere with children’s learning and development, giving rise to many
challenging classroom behaviors.
Adults — who historically have been the shock absorbers and translators
of life experiences as children grow and develop — are nowadays often
stretched to their limits, absent or emotionally unavailable. Children
are missing adults who give them language to express themselves or who
are just present to help them walk through and regulate themselves when
strong emotions start to surge. Research tells us that one caring adult
who can help a child understand who they are, why they matter and how
they fit into this world can make all the difference as to whether that
child succeeds or struggles in life.
Why aren’t we acting on what the research says is key to a child’s
well-being and academic success — providing that one consistent adult
who believes in each child and knows them best? If not at home, why not
at school?
The benefits of looping are significant and well-documented. The
handful of problems are solvable. If, for example, there’s a mismatch
between teacher and student, reassign the student to another classroom
teacher. Fear of not knowing the coming year’s curriculum and standards
intimately enough is a common complaint. Teachers typically grow their
knowledge and capacity alongside their students.
Furthermore, pedagogy can be explicitly taught. Some basic current
practices include grade-level team members orienting teachers who are
new to the grade-level; participation in workshops/webinars provided by
the curriculum company; regular teacher-teacher observations, feedback
sessions and mentoring.
Teacher licensure and standards vary from state to state. But, even so,
the current variance in standards and licensure shouldn’t be a
hindrance to getting started. In the 2011-12 school year, 19 percent of
public and private schools in the United States did some form of
looping. (This is the most recent year for which data on looping from
the National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] is available.
According to the NCES, the 2015-16 looping and data characteristics
will be released in early 2020).
We need to ask ourselves, how much time does a child need to be
supported throughout his or her life to offset the effects of adverse
childhood experiences? This isn’t a trick question. Without one-to-one
relational support, some children are likely to grow up with lasting
physical, cognitive and emotional problems.
Is it possible to loop from Kindergarten through 12th grade? Meet Mark
Rogers. He started looping by accident as a seventh-grade middle school
teacher.
Rogers’ school was hard pressed to find a high-level math instructor.
The solution was to recruit him for the eighth-grade position. Soon,
they discovered math was just one of the many benefits to looping and
kept Rogers with his seventh-graders all the way through high-school
graduation, with great results.
Rogers wondered if the outcomes would be even greater if he started
with students in Kindergarten and looped all the way through 12th grade.
We will see. Rogers, a parent of two young children, admits that teaching Kindergarten last year wasn’t easy.
He had a lot to learn to be an effective teacher. However, he believes
there’s one lesson that takes priority: “The impact I hope to have on
these kids long term is that there’s someone there who loves them at
school with all of their heart — and they can feel comfortable coming
to class because they know Mr. Rogers loves them, and he will do
anything to help them succeed in their lives. If they think that,
waking up every morning I’ll know this was all a success.”
We need to examine how we define “quality education.” It all comes down
to values. Beliefs shape our practice. For me, it comes down to a value
that has stood the test of time, dating as far back as the one-room
schoolhouse: the relationship, one very special teacher who knows each
child best. What is the most important lesson we should teach children?
They matter, and we believe in them. A good teacher has the innate
quality to really demonstrate their love for their children, help them
as learners and do everything possible to support them on their paths
of self-discovery. Isn’t this why you became a teacher, principal or
parent?
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