Having a supportive teacher who encourages other students to accept newcomers “can go a long way toward helping children make a smooth transition” and perform better when they change elementary schools, a new study shows.
It’s not news that high rates of student mobility lead to a decline in academic performance and classroom participation. Researchers from Western Washington University and the University of Washington followed 1,040 elementary school students for four years “to determine how moving disrupts children’s attitudes toward school and their behavior in the classroom, such as how much they participate and whether they are cooperative,” Science Daily reports.
In an effort to identify protective factors, they looked at the role of students’ ties with teachers and peers at school. They found that children who are accepted by their peers are more likely to do well academically and have better attitudes toward school. But perhaps the most important factor in the equation was that of the teacher: Teachers who were supportive of mobile students had an especially strong influence on their attitudes toward school, particularly for children who moved a lot. In addition, teacher support had a positive influence on children’s behavior in the classroom.
Did the researchers attempt to figure out if a coherent, sequenced curriculum – students’ ability to pick up where they left off in their old school — was a “protective factor?” I suspect not. You can’t study a condition that doesn’t exist.
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