Cornish hens and classrooms

Poor Elijah’s college roommate Darnley fancied himself a gourmet. Once a week he’d invite his cronies Stephan and Sanford to join them for dinner. His specialty was Cornish hens, which are basically personal chickens. Darnley figured one to a customer.

One night Stephan showed up with his girlfriend. “No problem,” Darnley beamed as he graciously split Stephan’s hen in half.

The next knock brought Sanford —and his roommate.

“There’s always room for one more,” Darnley assured him, before he noticed the roommate’s girlfriend in the shadows. “Or two.”

Several hungry knocks later, Darnley was frantically rationing Cornish hen drumsticks. This is like

sharing a Brussels sprout.

That’s when Poor Elijah got home. “I think I live here,” he explained, as he bulled his way to the kitchen. “I also think I eat here.”

“You do,” Darnley replied as he doled out lima beans one at a time. “As long as you don’t mind just watching.”

In their efforts to cut education costs, taxpayers and officials propose increasing the number of students per class, thereby theoretically decreasing how many teachers a school needs. The trouble is classrooms work like Darnley’s banquets, except we’re rationing time and attention, both essential ingredients when you’re teaching anything.

Misleading numbers get thrown around freely, but real class size isn’t an average concocted by dividing the number of teachers in your state into the number of human beings between the ages of 5 and 18. It’s not the fictitious ratio you hear on the news that counts custodians and speech

therapists.

Class size means how many real students are in your child’s math or thirdgrade classroom. When I have 20 students, and one of them has a personal minder attached to him, it looks on paper like each adult has a class of 10 students. The fact is I have 20 including the one who periodically leaves the room after he’s serially disrupted it.

If a school with 200 students loses 20, it might look like it could manage with one fewer teacher, but that’s not true if two students leave each classroom. A class with 18 students still needs a teacher as much as one with 20.

You don’t have to travel far back in time to find class sizes that exceed current levels. Of course, back then desks, and students, were commonly bolted in place. Also few of yesteryear’s troublemakers kept an attorney on retainer to appeal their detention or the C they got in English.

Even if 21st century students suddenly woke up

better behaved and less inclined to consult the Bill of Rights at report card time, Poor Elijah would still recommend maintaining smaller classes. Here are a few reasons he compiled.

1. Poor Elijah wants to keep his job. This really isn’t one of his reasons, but he figured he should acknowledge the obvious benefit to teachers. The truth is my self-interest doesn’t justify keeping me on the payroll if my school doesn’t need me. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense to lay off a competent teacher if it means searching for a replacement next year when fluctuating student numbers increase again. Good teachers aren’t easy to find.

2. Lectures can be helpful, but discussions are better. Many teachers told Poor Elijah more in an hour than he could have figured out himself. Despite its bad press, lecturing can be effective. Unfortunately, in large classes fewer students get to ask and answer questions, and questions play a crucial role in learning. Socrates felt strongly about this.

The larger the class, the

more lecture-like it inevitably becomes. “Old fashioned” teachers weren’t against discussions. Frequently their classes were simply too big.

3. No one gets to bat much when you’ve got 30 players on a side. When you share right field with six other guys, you don’t get much practice, and it’s pretty easy for your mind to wander.

Students need multiple chances to practice what they’re learning while their teacher is watching. That way if a student gets stuck, I can help him through the rough spots before I send him home to work on his own. Give me too many students, and I can’t dependably give them this kind of supervision and attention.

4. Classrooms should be teacher-centered environments. Poor Elijah students often have valid and valuable contributions to offer. But when it comes to being the most valuable member of the class, Poor Elijah figures he’s supposed to have the most to contribute. No matter how you slice it, group it, differentiate it, or block schedule it, time is a

finite commodity, and there’s only so much of him to go around. Larger classes just make everybody’s slices smaller.

Fifteen to 18 students work best. At 20, quieter students increasingly edge toward the sidelines. Past 25, instructional and behavioral difficulties escalate exponentially, despite all the advertised “innovative” instructional methods. Yes, 13 students per class would be too expensive for many public systems. But much over 25, and you need to split the group.

Computers can be useful tools, and glossy learning centers look great in brochures. But when it comes to actual learning, nothing will ever count more than time spent working with a competent teacher.

Larger classes are like Darnley’s dinners. There’s always room to squeeze you in, as long as you don’t mind just watching.

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vermont. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.