I knew a retired Botany professor who was emphatically in favor of the one-room schoolhouse education he had received as a child, for essentially the same reasons you have outlined.
It worked in rural communities with intact families whose parents supported teachers in discipline problems with children.
Today, that parental support of teachers occurs much less often, for two reasons. First, there are proportionally many more one-parent households.Second, many parents today, even in intact affluent households, view their duty as defending the child against the bureaucracy, instead of getting the child to behave in school.
Peer pressure in helping younger students is perhaps a wash, as rural households were often fairly isolated.
That being said, I have observed older students assisting younger ones even in todays fragmented urban environment.
The one-room schoolteacher had to juggle many balls at one time. much more so than today’s single grade classroom.
Could this be tried in some pilot project?
