The Potential Benefits and Negative Aspects of the Practice of Looping.
Looping, also known as multi-year grouping or teacher-student progression is a process whereby a single teacher stays with the same group of students for two or more consecutive years. Looping is not a new concept to the world of education, but has, just recently, picked up momentum as a practiced way to teach in the United States. Historically, in 1913, the US Department of the Interior labeled looping as one of the most important issues facing urban schools. The government was curious if it would be beneficial for teacher's to stay with the same set of children through three, four or possibly five years. They believed that the teacher's would come to know the student's better and that they could build the studies of latter years on that of earlier years (Grant, Forsten, Richardson, 2000).
The concept of looping has deep historical roots and is practiced today, widely in Europe and Germany and is exhibiting increasing popularity in countries such as Japan and Israel. Minimal quantitative research has been done in the United States in regards to the success of the program, but a vast amount of qualitative research has been compiled. Through this research it is apparent that children of all age groups and teachers alike can benefit from the looping process. The positive aspects of looping which include academic and social ramifications for students and teachers definitely outweigh the negative aspects.
Looping was introduced to world as early as the farmhouse school days, when teachers would, and could, conceivably stay with their students completely throughout school. Formally, looping was introduced in Germany, by Rudolph Steiner, an Austrian educator and philosopher in the early 1900's (LAB Brown University, 2003). He is responsible for founding the Waldorf schools where children of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory workers attended.