I've noticed that several of these readings criticize grouping students according to age. What do you guys think about this? Why do you think that this is such an issue? It seems that integrating ages (I'm definitely thinking especially elementary school) would be a mess because of the vast difference in intellectual and emotional development that even a year makes... how would you do that anyway? What alternative is there to this that wouldn't involve ability grouping? (I guess that's sort of what Montessori is....)
I can see how some combined experiences could be helpful to older and younger students, but it seems that only having combined experiences could make things difficult....