Dealing With a Double Classroom Environment

At some point in your child’s school career, he may end up being assigned to a double classroom (also called a team teacher classroom). This type of class is pretty much exactly like the name suggests—the class has double the number of students, or nearly so. And, the class is taught by a team of two teachers.

These classrooms still meet state student-teacher ratio guidelines because there are two teachers for the amount of children in the class. Therefore, technically, the classroom is still in the acceptable range. But the reality is different.

In actuality, there are many times in a double classroom when all of the students are being taught by one of the team teachers. At those times, the other team teacher may not even be in the classroom. As you can see, the teacher is not in the acceptable ratio at these times. Granted, the other teacher isn’t always out of the classroom at those times; in fact, many times she is probably in the classroom instructing a small group of students. But the fact remains that there are times when one teacher is out of the acceptable ratio.

Of course, this will not be admitted by school officials most of the time. Nonetheless, it is true.
Everything else about a double classroom is basically like any other classroom. The subjects that are taught are the same as is the curriculum. Generally, one of the team teachers is responsible for teaching some subjects while the other teacher handles the instruction in the other subjects.
But, studies have been done that show how important class size is to education. The smaller a classroom size is, the better a teacher can teach. Also, in smaller classrooms, students have opportunities for individual time with the teacher. This is not possible in a team teacher classroom. Double classrooms simply should not be used in any schools.