Don’t Hold Students Hostage to the Calendar

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The rule should not be, “Hey, you’re in eighth grade, so you’re gonna do eighth grade math.” No. No, no, no.

The rule, it should be what have you mastered? What new things do you have your prerequisites in place to learn?

If you’ve mastered the prerequisites, then move the student forward. If they haven’t mastered the prerequisites, then fix it.

That’s it. It’s that simple. The calendar should not be the thing controlling the learning. The mastery profile across all the skills for each individual student, that is what should be controlling their learning.

Because when students are ready and you make them wait, then you just waste their time.

And when students are not ready and you push them forward anyway, then you create these knowledge gaps, these holes that follow them for years.

sabotaging their attempts at every new thing that they try to learn and build on top and making them think they’re just inherently not cut out for math.

Further reading: A Brief History of Mastery Learning .

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