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Itzel Jimenez

Dr. Christopher Wielgos

College Writing II

12 February 2019

Mass Destruction on Learning: Large Class Sizes Harming Learning

What is Education? The word itself, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is derived from

Old French which is an idea where the child, who lacks in knowledge, should be taught by

someone who can further accumulate the child’s knowledge by increasing its “physical, mental,

and spiritual development.” In this case right now, the United States is falling behind in the idea

of education in the international rankings based on their overall score from U.S. News & World

Report in 2019. Many educators might as well just blame on the children who will lead the future

from today. Unfortunately, as educators point fingers on the students, they should blame on

funding and government that are not regulating the physical school buildings. The most noticed

factor on poor standardized test scores is the fact that large school sizes (more than thirty

students per classroom) can be harmful to every student’s learning than having small class sizes.

Is Smaller Better?: When It Comes to Schools, Size Does Matter by Sandy Cutshall is more

informative than Janet French’s ‘A Wall of Noise’; Teaching classes of 30, 40 kids demands

creativity, sacrifices because Cutshall’s article provides clear background knowledge and

information about class size effects as she compares data collected from different schools.

Janet French is an education reporter of Edmonton Journal in Alberta, Canada as she has

a lot of experience from her fifteen previous years of reporting. For example, French worked for

The Star Phoenix and Nelson Daily News to ensure that every journal she publishes reaches out

to the Canadian public. She graduated from The University of British Columbia with a degree in
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journaling. From the article, ‘A Wall of Noise’; Teaching classes of 30, 40 kids demands

creativity, sacrifices, French interviews parents, students, and educators in the Alberta

community located in Canada about their opinions on their poor quality education schools when

it comes to teaching enormous class sizes (more than thirty children per instructor’s session). She

also then further emphasizes the background information from each parent, student, and teacher

to present how their socioeconomic status affects the children’s education.

In Cutshall’s educational background, she received her Publication Specialist Certificate

from The George Washington University as well as her Teaching Credential from University of

California (Berkeley). During her research, Sandy Cutshall has published many peer-review

articles on education, especially on foreign language development and learning since she has

teaching experiences with adults. In her article, Is Smaller Better?: When It Comes to Schools,

Size Does Matter, Cutshall researches the benefits of shrinking down class size in every school

district in the United States. She also provides examples of schools progressing on decreasing

class size by portraying schools that have been creating a sense of community and

acknowledgement for every student. Besides that, Cutshall also expresses her reason why

schools throughout the country still have large class sizes that surpass the fire hazard by the room

occupancy limit.

First of all, both pieces of writing are aware that smaller-sized classes in smaller school

buildings form strong teacher-student relationships. Teacher-student relationships are defined as

a tight bond between a student and a teacher. From that point, teachers would know and support

their enlightened student based on their desires. Cutshall indicates, according to the U.S.

Department of Education, that there are less crimes and drug usage in small-sized schools (2).

The point that Cutshall is making, is that when the amount of students surpass the expected
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capacity of a classroom there is less personal attention from other teachers that will then lead to

them doing unlawful actions such as smoking marijuana in the Illinois state. One thing that is

really neat about Cutshall’s claim is that students can no longer belong to a group with a low

socioeconomic status, like working in industrialized jobs, as the future will now explore and

follow their teacher’s footsteps into higher education if they are acknowledged in small-sized

class very often. Whereas in large class sizes, teachers can easily ignore the students’ internal

conflicts if they cannot remember every students’ identification or background knowledge. From

French’s article, ‘A Wall of Noise’, French identifies Louise Sevigny’s second grade daughter’s

struggle of not finding quality peace time when she has to concentrate on her classwork caused

by the noise of constant chit-chatting in a crowded classroom (2). French emphasizes Louise’s

darling, can only accomplish her assignments whenever there is no one inside her classroom, yet

since there are more than 30 classmates in her class, it makes it hard for teachers to reach out

every single individual who needs assistance without the usage of their voice. Similar to the idea

from Cutshall’s citation, every student needs to be acknowledged of their personal desires in

order to succeed and grab on to the college railroad tracks. However, Cutshall provides statistical

evidence to influence superintendents and school principals with clear numerical data to why

they should ponder frequently about shrinking down class sizes. Also, Cutshall delivers her proof

from a governmental resource that usually records the percentage of students doing a certain

activity. Whereas a complaint from a parent who does not have much education other than a high

school degree, the interview between the two can be quite biased since the parent lacks further

educational knowledge beyond high school. Based on this fact, French also does not provide any

numerical statistics from an official source and just interviews with people overall. These two

articles can in fact, prove that it is vital to create tight strings between the master and the pupil,
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however, Janet does not present any numerical evidence to indicate that strong relationships will

allow the master to create personalized information for that student.

Along with the mentioning of relationships, students obtain better access to information

by obtaining personalized information. Personalized information can be from learning how to

dance well with an amputated leg or how to present concepts in front of a large crowd when

being timid or anxious in that moment. In fact, French depicts another impediment from a child

in the kindergarten level––except with special needs (like Down Syndrome), William Fry, as he

does not receive sufficient guidance on how to properly hold a writing utensil from two aides

because they are both occupied with other pupils with special needs as well (2). Based on the fact

that two adults have more children to watch over with special needs (like autism or being

mentally retarded), is equivalent to nurturing of a room full of babies who need to be fed often in

different and unexpected times since they have certain digestive system that is unique to other

infants. Same thing with Fry’s developing technique of holding a pencil is worrisome since he is

not meeting the educational standards of other children who at least know how to write each

letter of the alphabet in kindergarten level. Similar to Fry’s innocent knowledge being ruined,

Cutshall cites from the 2002 report, Dollars & Sense: The Cost Effectiveness of Small Schools,

that the class of 2000, from the Providence school system in Rhode Island, had individual

struggle based on their low parental education when it came to interfering with college readiness

by the time they graduated (2). Cutshall not only focuses on the class size aspect, she analyzes

outside sources that can affect the learning environment of children such as class conflict from

their parent’s socioeconomic status in this capitalist society. It is the same information from ‘A

Wall of Noise’ which is when students have internal conflicts that cannot be manipulated easily

with a snap of a finger, it can be difficult for them to be integrated or accustomed into any
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education system. On the other hand, with ‘Wall of Noise’ French cites her observations from

teachers in Canada, where their social construction of groups can be different from the groups

encountered in the American education system. Other point to indicate is that French also

narrows down the idea that only children with special disabilities need the most attention

whereas Cutshall claims that every child with any internal or mental conflict need as much

attention like any other student in order to be competent in their future profession or job. As

these two pieces of writing emphasize that the understanding of each student’s background

information is essential to form strong relationships between teachers and students. From there,

teachers will then soon encounter resources to help their students achieve their desires.

There is more availability to resources when it comes to specialized learning of a

particular subject to be discussed. For example, in an architecture class, a student would need to

have advanced computers to draft and design blueprints for ideal buildings. Or even having the

opportunity of becoming a marine biologist by being able to visit and observe aquatic species of

laughing dolphins. From the perspective of Cutshall, she reports that the high school, New

National Academy Foundation, started to operate a children’s museum, which then initiated the

process of teachers guiding their students closer to actual professional workload with technology

(3). Sandy supports the concept that smaller class sizes tend to specialize on a certain subject (i.e.

architecture, engineering, symphony or theatre) that will recognize the students’ actual interest of

actually leaning closer to what their desired career will resemble in the near future. Thanks to the

technological resources, it will be more facilitating for students to receive feedback and

corrections from teachers and actual professionals who have experience in that field. The

advantage of having a professional from a specific field can allow students to expand their

curiosity and engage into something they would want to research in their luminating future.
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From this growth in curiosity, it would make it easier for students to also form connections with

professionals so that way the professionals can understand what topic each child should be

taught. Referring back to the technological resources of Rimbey, Canada, Janet French reaches

out to a tenth grade English teacher, Cade Bengert claims that there are only a limited number of

Chromebooks for his students to give, and the booking of the laptop cart is a hassle (3). In other

words, Mr. Bengert demonstrates to French that the lack of having efficient resources can be

harmful to students who are stationed in crowded classrooms. Unfortunately, in the rural

Canadian education system, students are more likely to be in the low-end scale when it comes to

the preferred quality education here in America. Similar to Cutshall’s depiction of students

having at least professionals to guide their college education, French focuses on the scarcity of

technological resources when it comes to completing certain tasks. From here, Cutshall focuses

on a variety of different sources that can benefit the student, whereas from ‘A Wall of Noise’ just

focuses on the physical and tangible resources like laptops as if they were their sole guides to

college success. Going back to the conflict of a parent’s socioeconomic status, when the status is

low, it can harm the student’s learning since the parent is not a reliable source when it comes to

homework help. From there, it is reasonable to why French only focuses on laptops being the

only sun of knowledge. With Cutshall, she is more surrounded by progressed schools in college

success whereas French is more pessimistic about education not progressing quickly and

efficiently. Similarly, Cutshall and French would agree that having outside resources can

improve learning by having small class sizes, except, Cutshall indicates that having a garden of

different resources can enhance learning.

Sandy Cutshall’s educational article, Is Smaller Better?: When It Comes to Schools, Size

Does Matter, is more reliant than ‘A Wall of Noise’; Teaching classes of 30, 40 kids demands
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creativity, sacrifices by Canadian journalist, Janet French since Cutshall’s article contains a

variety of logistic evidence and research of different schools with different class sizes across the

United States. From Sandy Cutshall’s marvelous writing piece, she takes evidence from different

and reliable sources such as the United States Department of Education and schools that are

well-recognized (like Providence in Maryland) to the American teacher and educational

development individual. On ‘A Wall of Noise’, Janet French only focuses on the Canadian local

schools in a specific area of Canada and interviews teachers in the official education system yet

has vague knowledge to further emphasize the causes that cannot be controlled easily by

students, teachers, and parents. In the education that is present to this day, it is still very reliant

on its crutches, however, the more problems that are noticed and announced clearly, there will be

competent progress on the long-run in order to improve every student’s ability to grasp the

essential knowledge in order to succeed in life after high school graduation.

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Works Cited

Cutshall, Sandy. “Is Smaller Better? When It Comes to Schools, Size Does Matter.” Techniques:

Connecting Education & Careers, vol. 78, no. 3, Mar. 2003, pp. 22–25. EBSCOhost,

ezproxy.lewisu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=of

m&AN=507815831&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 1 Feb. 2019.

French, Janet. “‘A Wall Of Noise’; Teaching classes of 30, 40 kids demands creativity,

sacrifices” The Calgary Sun. Aug. 29 2018. Postmedia Network Inc.

http://ezproxy.lewisu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.lewisu.edu/docview/2075613612?accountid=12073. Accessed 1 Feb. 2019.