It is often assumed among administrators, teachers, and parents alike that the smaller the class size, the better the instruction, and consequently, the greater the academic achievement. After all, each teacher possesses a finite amount of time, focus, and energy, so it would seem that smaller class sizes would be ideal for preventing teachers from being spread too thin.
But what if this assumption is wrong? Or, at least, what if the relationship between class size and academic achievement isn’t so simple? This is precisely what Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, explores in a chapter of David and Goliath (Little, Brown and Company, 2013), which highlights a multitude of stories and insights about humans finding success amidst adversity, and in some cases, because of adversity.
As an administrator at a small private school, I’ve often touted our small class sizes as an obvious advantage for our students, and therefore one good reason for parents to send their children to our school. You can imagine my surprise, then, as I was reading an author I respect and found him arguing against my beloved premise! Of course, Gladwell doesn’t end up taking the contrapositive position to mine that larger class sizes are actually most conducive for academic achievement. State policymakers and public educators are well aware that overcrowding is a real problem in public, particularly urban schools, and that finding ways to decrease class sizes, and thereby alleviate teachers, is central to raising the overall quality of education offered to these students.
But what Gladwell highlights and what I’d like to explore a little deeper in this article is the idea that class size is only one factor in the equation for academic achievement. Other variables include the curriculum, pedagogy, and of course, the teacher. The key to an optimized classroom will be putting these variables in sync in such a way that both teacher and learner are primed to engage in deep and inspiring learning. To reach this conclusion, let’s first look closer at what Malcom Gladwell has to say.
Factors in Academic Achievement
Gladwell introduces this topic in typical Gladwellian fashion: story-telling. He shares the story of a small middle school in rural Connecticut, built decades ago for an anticipated influx of students as the children of baby-boomers grew up. However, contra what was expected, the area’s population did not grow and instead the school suffered a decrease in enrollment. This trend has continued such that, at present, this particular middle school has class sizes that are well below the national average, with some as low as fifteen.
So what happened? Did the academic achievement of the school increase as the average class size decreased? Surprisingly, no, it did not. Actually, through cross-referencing the school’s performance with others in Connecticut, there was shown to be no significant difference. Despite the fact that teachers at the middle school had less students to oversee, papers to grade, and reports to write, the academic achievement at the school did not improve. Why not?
Here’s Gladwell’s take:
“A smaller classroom translates to a better outcome only if teachers change their teaching style when given a lower workload. And what the evidence suggests is that in this midrange, teachers don’t necessarily do that. They just work less” (56).
What Gladwell has rightly highlighted here is that there is more to the equation of academic achievement than the size of class. For example, there is the curriculum itself, which must hit the difficult balance of being both rigorous and challenging for students but not overwhelming to the point of resignation. There is also the pedagogy, or method of instruction, to consider. A strong pedagogy trains students to become independent learners as they engage in deliberate practice rather than simply fact-crammers for an upcoming test.
Finally, as Gladwell points out, there are the teachers themselves. They need to be trained and coached on how to think through curriculum and pedagogy with regard to class size specifically. Without proper coaching and support, teachers aren’t necessarily going to take advantage of the smaller class and leverage their work time and energy in ways that benefit their students. This isn’t anything against teachers specifically. It’s a lamentable fact of human existence that we’re prone to take the easy way out rather than drive ourselves to pursue excellence in all that we do.
The Ideal Class Size–A Myth?
What occurred in the Connecticut middle school regarding class size and academic achievement turns out to be the norm rather than the exception. Gladwell found in his research that there was no statistically significant correlation between the number of students in a classroom and learning outcomes. At the pinnacle of his research, Gladwell references Eric Hanushek’s definitive analysis of the many hundreds of class-size studies, demonstrating precisely this to be the case. Hanushek, an educational economist, sums up the data, writing,
“Probably no aspect of schools has been studied as much as class size. This work has been going on for years, and there is no reason to believe that there is any consistent relationship with achievement” (44).
So does this mean there is no ideal class size? Not necessarily. This is where Gladwell introduces the inverted-U curve. It is fair to trust our intuition that an exceedingly large class, say, 40-50 students, would lead to a decrease in academic achievement. So on the far left side of the curve we can see a correlation between large class size and low academic achievement.
However, as the curve increases–meaning the class size decreases and the academic achievement increases–it reaches a point where the growth levels out and even begins to decrease. Or, as Gladwell puts it: “There’s the left side, where doing more or having more makes things better. There’s the flat middle, where doing more doesn’t make much of a difference. And there’s the right side, where doing more or having more makes things worse” (54).
But can a small class really makes things worse? Again, it depends. Gladwell interviews different teachers on the topic who had poor experiences teaching classes ranging from 6-12 students. Some of the most common negative effects they cited include a lack of diversity of thought or experience, a struggle to get momentum going, or an overly intimate atmosphere in which students become too comfortable with one another to the point where formal classroom pressure begins to wane.
So we can see from these stories that no class size is perfect. There may be an ideal range, say 15-20 students, but I’d argue that even this range isn’t universal. Depending on the curriculum, method of instruction, ability of the teacher, and even background and caliber of students, a classroom of 15-20 students might be too large. Likewise, in light of the same variables, I can envision some instances where such a classroom might be too small. Teaching is a delicate art, a craft to be carefully honed and mastered, and therefore the outcome of academic achievement requires thoughtfulness, tact, ingenuity, and the ability to adapt to a variety of situations, and yes, class sizes.
Some Diagnostic Questions for Teachers
If it’s true that class size isn’t the exclusive factor in academic achievement, the silver-lining here is that there are real and meaningful strategies teachers can employ in their classrooms to optimize the learning that goes on, both in knowledge acquisition and skill mastery. I won’t detail these strategies now, but I will direct you to Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion 2.0 for an excellent list of teaching techniques used in both urban and suburban schools across the country.
Instead I’m going to leave readers with a few diagnostic questions that teachers can ask themselves as they seek to optimize the learning in their classrooms:
1. What is your classroom culture? Have you effectively cast vision for your students for the year? Do you regularly call students up to do their best work in pursuit of excellence? Have you discussed why pursuing excellence is worth it? What is your response when you sense some students taking the path of least resistance? How do you proactively protect your classroom’s culture from laziness, apathy, and the desire to be entertained?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your curriculum? Do you understand the intended aims and method of the curriculum chosen by you or by your school? How can you leverage the strengths of the curriculum both during class time and in the sort of work you assign your students? For the apparent weaknesses in the curriculum, what are you doing to mitigate them? What supplements can you use to counteract these weaknesses?
3. How can you utilize your classroom’s physical space? Are there ways you can arrange student desks to encourage collaborative learning? Are you using technology as an avenue for learning rather than as a means for entertainment? What does the classroom decor reveal or imply about the purpose of learning and why students are there? What does it imply about student capabilities and relationship with knowledge?
4. Who is doing the work of learning in your classroom? Are you primarily explaining concepts to your students or do you regularly give students the opportunity to instruct one another? How can you provide more opportunities for students to engage in the hard work of interacting with the concepts themselves and thereby engaging in active learning? (Note: one of the best ways to do this is through Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration) Are you supporting students relationally even as you call them up to do their best?
5. What role do tests and assessments play in your classroom? Do you regularly integrate retrieval practice into your classroom instruction or do you view testing only in the formal sense? How can you adapt your instruction so that on a daily basis students are doing the work of learning and explaining rather than the teacher? Do you overly rely on the looming threat of a quiz or test to motivate student learning? How can you mitigate the virulent effects of the cram-pass-forget cycle?
Teaching is an art and optimizing classroom performance isn’t easy. But if we adopt a growth mindset and hold a proper view of our students, then we can and will see improvement both in our instruction and in the academic achievement of our students. In this way, it should be reassuring to learn that class size is only one factor in the equation for an optimized classroom.
One of the key mindset changes that can mitigate the fear of a large class is to view each student as an asset rather than a liability. One educator that Gladwell interviewed queries,
“It is a strange thing, isn’t it, to have an educational philosophy that thinks of the other students in the classroom with your children as competitors for the attention of the teacher and not allies in the adventure of learning?” (60).
Indeed, it is a strange philosophy and has no place in a healthy, effective classroom. May we as educators resolve to take each of our students on this adventure of learning, leading them to journey together toward discovery of the abundance of truth, goodness, and beauty in the world.