While the youngest students often have a licensed teacher, a teacher’s aide or volunteer, those who are in the last few years of schooling find they receive very little personal attention from educators. School systems have given much of the responsibility for learning to the students, so fewer educators are deemed necessary to pass on the information to be learned in these classrooms. While smaller students get the most attention, those seeking higher education require the least.
Class sizes for those who are past the first two levels of education swell, and those who seek high learning in colleges and universities will often be in classrooms where up to several hundred students attend each class. It might seem to be an ineffective way to educate them, but it has proven to be a model that works. The responsibility for learning is placed squarely on the shoulders of the students, and the educator is simply there to help them understand the more difficult concepts in their textbooks.
It might appear that the students in these larger classes receive less education, but the opposite is often true. They must make a commitment to their own education, and the responsibility they are given for it enhances their ability to learn. When they fail to understand a particular concept, they must seek out a lab or tutor for help. This responsibility alone gives them the opportunity to measure their own academic progress, and it gives them the opportunity to work as hard as possible to succeed.
One of the goals of these types of classes is to help students understand they can learn even when they are out of school, and it has become an educational model that is widespread. Giving them enough guidance to get through a course of study is the goal here, and it allows students to be responsible for their own learning far into the future.
