The Lie of Learning Loss

I know that the news and policy-makers continually talk about "learning loss" as being the concept that seems to be dominating the 20-21 school year (and the second half of the 19-20 year).

And I really wish they would stop.  

Not just because it is condescending and hypercritical, but because it is wrong. Entirely wrong. Yet nobody who has air time seems to care about that. 

Education in America has a tremendous problem with deficit framing. The focus falls on what students lack or how they are behind or what they are missing rather than what they have or skills they use.  

A great example is ELLs (English language learners).  

Rather than focusing on their ability to move within multiple languages (something the average English-as-a-first-language American does not have), talk centers on how their English skills are behind or what they can't do or understand.  

This deficit-centered thought works against helping students build that sense of confidence and self-efficacy that encourages growth and success. It also minimizes, especially for marginalized students, those aspects of their lives that are skills, knowledge, and habits but are outside what the academic world has traditionally valued.  

We see this a lot in the world of Young Adult literature. The people who are writing the best, most well-received, most desired books for young people right now are those who, when they were in school, were told that their lived experiences and background knowledge were not important or relevant. So those books about very real issues (struggles at home or living in a multicultural family or being someone who must babysit siblings) come from writers who know those experiences as their own, value them, and write about them. And students, in turn, relate to them. Because those out-of-school literacies are valuable and relevant, even if they are not strictly academic.   

Then we get to this bananas idea of "learning loss".  

And I specifically want to push back against that concept and suggest we frame it instead as "learning impact."  

Our students haven't experienced learning loss.  

That would mean they know less now than they did when the pandemic began, and even for the most disengaged student, that is just not true. 

What has occurred is a change in learning.  

A change in what is learned and a change in the timeline.  

Yes, we are not as far along as we typically would be. But that isn't a loss. That is not being as far along. 

And what have the kids learned? Holy cow! The amazing things they have learned about technology and communication. 

In my district, virtually every student in grades 1-12 can edit a PDF.  Most adults can barely open a PDF much less annotate one. 

But my kids can. 

And will the IAR or SAT or ACT or MAP assess that? 

No, it won't. 

Those kids have learned about sending, checking, and receiving emails (something many adults still haven't mastered), how to adjust to fluctuating schedules.  

They have learned to track important events on the news (positivity rates, timelines for reopening, why there can't be spectators at sports.) 

They have learned how to find information on important issues and how to talk about big ideas.  

At times they have learned how not to fall prey to disinformation and how to respond when someone else has.  

And all of this is on top of content area material. 

And during a pandemic when the students are also dealing with and coping with their own trauma. 

Far from a loss!  

I am not saying this year has been ideal, not by any measure.  But I do push back against framing that learning, all of that diverse new knowledge as a loss.  

A specific step that anyone who cares about this can take, one I am challenging myself to take, is to reject the deficit mindset and terminology ("learning loss") and pivot to a competency-based mindset--including using the term "learning impact"-- and focusing on the truth that learning has happened.  

At a different pace, and in a different way, certainly. But it has happened. 

So the real questions are how can we continue the learning and continue the timeline, preparing for the next steps of learning that students will take, building on the competencies they have and the new ones they have gained.