Teacher Tom: What I Tell Parents About Play-Based Education

Teacher Tom: What I Tell Parents About Play-Based Education

What I Tell Parents About Play-Based Education

Based on my informal and unscientific surveys of early childhood educators, one of the biggest hurdles to fully realizing play-based education is "the parents." Not all the parents, of course, but there are apparently a lot who might like the idea of their children playing, but who have bought into the "fall behind" snake oil. This leads them to apply pressure to us to become "more academic" in defiance of the science behind how young children learn.

I've found that one of the best things one can do for your play-based program is to consciously manage those expectations, right from the start. For us, the process of getting parents on our bandwagon starts with our spring orientation.

I use this opportunity to tell the assembled parents that I will not be teaching their children literacy, although they will be laying the foundations for literacy through their play, their dramatic play in particular; every time we read to them or tell them stories, or when they tell stories to us; each time they get excited and say, "Hey that's my letter!" or "That's your CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: What I Tell Parents About Play-Based Education

Branding Students as Victims of Learning Loss Won’t Help Kids Feel Connected and Engaged | janresseger

Branding Students as Victims of Learning Loss Won’t Help Kids Feel Connected and Engaged | janresseger

Branding Students as Victims of Learning Loss Won’t Help Kids Feel Connected and Engaged

The Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss has been posting reflections on the definition and meaning of learning loss for children during this academic year dominated by disruption, online learning and disruptive hybrid schedules.  A primary theme in these columns is the danger of branding this cohort of students as victims of a lost year, as far behind, and as unlikely to progress well in school from here on out.  None of the authors Strauss has published believes our fear of learning loss is justified, and not one thinks remedial drilling on “lost” content is what should happen now.

In her column on Tuesday, Strauss published an article by Michael Matsuda, a teacher at a California high school, and Debra Russell, researcher at TeachFX. They demonstrate the connection of misplaced but widespread fear about learning loss with what they believe is the Biden administration’s misguided decision to continue requiring standardized testing this year. Ironically, while the existence of the testing puts the spotlight on learning loss, the tests themselves will generate no valid or reliable data to help educators as schools open up: “‘Learning loss’ is emerging as the dominant theme in K-12 education for 2021… But one might argue that the most concerning thing that has been ‘lost’ is our focus on doing what is right for students. The Biden administration’s decision recently to proceed with standardized testing—albeit with expanded flexibility and lighter repercussions—is perplexing where it’s not problematic.”

Matsuda and Russell worry that the test results will be worthless because the data will be, “marred by uneven rates of participation and the varied pace of learning in schools. If (the tests are) administered remotely, these concerns are compounded by the stability of home Internet access, potential help from family members, and proper accommodations for the CONTINUE READING: Branding Students as Victims of Learning Loss Won’t Help Kids Feel Connected and Engaged | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: Falling Behind In An Actual Classroom

CURMUDGUCATION: Falling Behind In An Actual Classroom

Falling Behind In An Actual Classroom

The chicken littling about Learning Loss is just never going to stop. Today I came across yet another article (that I won't link to) warning that the Learning Losses from the pandemic pause will haunt students for the rest of their lives.

The worst of the Learning Loss panickers are revealing too much about what they don't understand, but what they especially don't understand is what goes on in an actual classroom, because the whole concept of "falling behind" is a layperson's oversimplification of what actual education looks like.

I think I was a pretty run-of-the-mill example of the teaching profession in my thirty-nine years, so let me explain what my year generally looked like. 

At the beginning of the year, I'd launch the dual processes of Trying To Teach Stuff and Figuring Out What This Batch of Students Knows and Can Do. At no point in my career were the Big Standardized Test results a useful part of this process because A) the results were nothing but a score and we weren't even allowed to see the questions, so had no way of knowing what exactly students got right or got wrong and B) the results don't come until the school year was already well under way. 

In my career, I mostly taught grades 9 through 12, all tracks, so September always brought students with a very wide range of tools. One of things you get better at with experience is assessing what the students bring to the table, both academically and otherwise. And then you go from there.

This initial assessment does not tell you anything CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Falling Behind In An Actual Classroom

'Parents are powerless': Students face being held back after a year of remote learning - POLITICO

'Parents are powerless': Students face being held back after a year of remote learning - POLITICO

'Parents are powerless': Students face being held back after a year of remote learning

Pandemic-related learning loss means some parents are weighing whether their children should repeat a grade. In 18 states, they won’t have a choice.

David Scruggs Jr. has spent most of the pandemic at his second-grade son’s side, helping him with virtual learning as their Nashville, Tenn., home became a schoolhouse as well as his office. In the next room, Scruggs’ wife, Dorothy, sat beside their first-grade daughter, a mirror image on the other side of the wall, doing the same while holding down her own job.

For a year, the Scruggs worked to keep their kids from falling behind as the pandemic forced children to stay home and America’s education system struggled to adjust. The family installed a whiteboard and baby pink desk next to their TV. The coffee table became a receptacle for homework, folders and laminated multiplication tables.

Now, the Scruggs and thousands of families like them in Tennessee and more than a dozen other states face a reckoning with how well they succeeded in their new role as substitute teachers. In the coming months, under a new, stricter state policy, if their son doesn’t do well enough on a standardized reading test next year, he could be forced to repeat a grade.

“I don’t know how much was lost or gained in this process. That’s the scary part,” Scruggs said of learning during Covid-19. “I would hope he’s not held back. CONTINUE READING: 'Parents are powerless': Students face being held back after a year of remote learning - POLITICO

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss”

Things are different in school these days.

The classes are smaller.

The kids are more subdued.

The teachers are exhausted.

But that’s life as we try to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and somehow get back to normal.

I come into the room every day and sit behind a glass barrier.

My kids either stumble in from the hall wearing masks (often below their noses) or they log in to Zoom and participate on-line.

It’s far from ideal, but we get things done.

Right now we’re reading the play version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

The kids were reticent at first.

With the unreliable schedules of in-person vs remote learning, it took us months to CONTINUE READING: Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

NANCY BAILEY: Acceleration: The Meaning Behind the Buzzword

Acceleration: The Meaning Behind the Buzzword

Acceleration: The Meaning Behind the Buzzword

Acceleration is the new pandemic buzzword brought to you by pro-privatization school reformers. Students may have missed some in-person schooling, even though most learned remotely or in person. Still, the frenzy surrounding learning loss is mounting.

The pandemic has given rise to a new way to reframe the old learning gap talk, with new terminology, acceleration. If students have missed out on schoolwork, they’re told they need to accelerate and catch up if they’ve fallen behind.

The fear is that the pandemic will be used as an excuse to push students harder. Poor students will bear the brunt of this, a doubling down on strictness.

But all students are affected when advanced learning disregards a child’s development.

This message has festered for years, starting with No Child Left Behind. Failure was not an option, we were told, as they continually raised the ante. If students did well, the test CONTINUE READING: Acceleration: The Meaning Behind the Buzzword

Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

As I addressed in a post a month ago, the Henny Penny's of the world are running around clucking about how the pandemic will lead to inevitable LEARNING LOSS!!!!!  Learning Loss, as Peter Greene at Forbes, has pointed out, is the latest scare tactic being used by educational reformers to push their own agenda (standardized tests, vouchers, tutoring programs). In assessing any learning loss prescription, the first question we need to ask is, "Who stands to benefit/profit?" If the answer to that question is anyone other than school children, we should look for a different solution. 

Many educational researchers are looking at pandemic learning loss as a corollary to summer learning loss. Interestingly, summer learning loss is really only an issue for the most vulnerable in our school communities, those with limited access to literacy materials and other learning opportunities during their time away from school. Richard Allington found that simply giving vulnerable readers books to take home over the summer CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

Students didn't just learn nothing during school closures — they actually regressed, study says | Salon.com

Students didn't just learn nothing during school closures — they actually regressed, study says | Salon.com

Students didn't just learn nothing during school closures — they actually regressed, study says

Researchers say students "made little or no progress while learning from home" — and many suffered "learning loss"

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the pandemic caused "the largest disruption to education in history" — and children are suffering from learning loss as a result.

The study, which was co-authored by researchers affiliated with the University of Oxford, analyzed national examinations that occurred in the Netherlands both during and after their school lockdowns. They selected that country because the lockdown there was brief, schools there receiving equitable funding and the nation has "world-leading rates of broadband access." In other words, it provided a "best-case" scenario for people who hope that children aren't learning less as a result of the pandemic lockdowns.

Yet despite the country's "favorable conditions" for education, researchers found that students "made little or no progress while learning from home."

"Learning loss was most pronounced among students from disadvantaged homes," the authors write.

The study has far-reaching implications for the global state of education during the pandemic, particularly at the primary and secondary level. In the United States, most states closed schools at first before enacting remote learning plans involving so-called "Zoom classrooms," named for the eponymous video conference app. Some schools have reopened since, though school reopening plans vary tremendously among districts and public or private schools. CONTINUE READING: Students didn't just learn nothing during school closures — they actually regressed, study says | Salon.com

Acceleration Nation | Teacher in a strange land

Acceleration Nation | Teacher in a strange land

Acceleration Nation

There it was—an ad for dealing with imaginary learning loss. Nope—your kid doesn’t need remediation to bring him up to speed after this year of screen-based semi-school. He needs acceleration! Sure he’s, umm, fallen behind somebody, somewhere. But the solution is not reviewing what he may have missed—it’s accelerating. Going faster. Catching up, then presumably surging ahead. Winning.

I was so struck by the totally American nature of this language—We Must Compete! No remediation for us!—that I googled the company’s motto and found that there are several pre-packaged learning systems and books using the same theme and jargon.

Acceleration, it appears, is having (another) sexy moment. It may even be sexy enough to tap into some of that federal funding this summer, if education vendors hustle and enough media figures wring their hands while bemoaning ‘learning loss.’  

If your kids have been moping around, griping about not seeing their friends and the head-banging monotony of Zoom lessons, it’s logical to be a little anxious about what they have not learned in the past year. Things that might have been not only interesting or challenging, but important for future coursework and plans. It’s OK to worry about their emotional health, their need for exercise and socializing.

But while I have absolute faith in well-prepared, caring teachers to do their best to CONTINUE READING: Acceleration Nation | Teacher in a strange land

The “Learning Loss” Pandemic | The Merrow Report

The “Learning Loss” Pandemic | The Merrow Report

The “Learning Loss” Pandemic

“Learning Loss” has grown to pandemic proportions, devastating the lives of millions of young people, particularly here in the United States.  

Worse yet, “Learning Loss” is mutating, and today an astounding 16 different and uniquely challenging manifestations have been identified.  To save their students, our teachers will need to acquire a specific skill set that will enable them to identify, diagnose, and treat this dizzying array of “Learning Loss.”  

Not only are there 16 varieties; there are also degrees of “Learning Loss.”  Unfortunately, some so-called experts rate “Learning Loss” as First Degree, Second Degree, and Third Degree without specifying whether they are using the BURN scale or the MURDER scale. That’s confusing because, while a First Degree Burn is mild, First Degree Murder is the most extreme charge.  Similarly, a Third Degree Burn is life-threatening, while Third Degree Murder is the least serious murder charge (though the victim probably doesn’t care about the distinction).  

Amidst all this confusion, there is good news: Teachers can be trained to recognize and treat “Learning Loss.”  This must be our nation’s first priority in the battle CONTINUE READING: The “Learning Loss” Pandemic | The Merrow Report

Jersey Jazzman: COVID and "Learning Loss": Test Scores Should Not Be Our Immediate Concern

Jersey Jazzman: COVID and "Learning Loss": Test Scores Should Not Be Our Immediate Concern

COVID and "Learning Loss": Test Scores Should Not Be Our Immediate Concern

I'll get back to Lakewood in a bit, but I want to take a minute and talk about a new report out yesterday from JerseyCAN and others about learning loss and COVID-19.

Regular readers know I've had my issues with JerseyCAN over the years: too many times, their analyses have missed the mark, often because of a lack of understanding about things like what test scores actually represent and how they should be used to direct K-12 education policy. 

I might make similar complaints about this latest report. Using a convenience sample's outcomes on one test to extrapolate outcomes on another for an entire population is inherently problematic. Further, changes in proficiency rates on the same test are often artifacts of the process of setting those rates, and not indications of any changes in actual student learning. There's also a whole problem of equating "proficiency" across grade levels that tends to get pushed aside in these discussions. Plus the easy way we accept "grade level" as some sort of absolute when it's really a social construct...

But in the end, none of that really matters, because what the report is showing is almost certainly correct: student learning has suffered during the pandemic, and the losses are almost certainly greater for students of color and those in economic disadvantage. 

How could this be otherwise? There is a clear digital divide along racial and ethnic lines in CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: COVID and "Learning Loss": Test Scores Should Not Be Our Immediate Concern

What They’ve Lost – Have You Heard

What They’ve Lost – Have You Heard

What They’ve Lost

Students from Boston tell Have You Heard what they’ve lost during this year of pandemic learning. Spoiler: what you’ll hear bears little resemblance to the discussion of “learning loss” that’s atop the agenda of policy makers right now. Special guest Boston teacher Neema Avashia helps us make sense of the gap between how students are feeling and how adults with power are talking. Episode transcript is here.

The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon or donate on PayPal.

Have You Heard · #109 What They’ve Lost

What They’ve Lost – Have You Heard

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

Well, here we go.

Here's Morgan Polikoff in the Los Angles Times, explaining that we are in a terrible mess, that educational attainment, or at least test scores (as measured by another testing manufacturer) are dropping, that the mental health of children in the nation is a mess. And hurray for the Biden relief plan, which throws a pile of money at all these education. But. But but but. Our educational structures can't handle this, Polikoff argues. Too many districts with boards and parent groups and teacher unions and families and students and they just aren't up to "identifying what works and then providing it equitably to students and families." 

What does he think has to happen?

This is where state and national leaders simply must step in. They need to provide clear and specific guidance on the best ways to spend American Rescue Plan dollars to address the negative impacts of the pandemic on children and families. They must not leave decisions to local actors — burdening them with the task of figuring out what works and implementing it.

Local control is a bad thing, and it needs to be swept aside, as witnessed by the data we have so far.

Polikoff asserts that three things are needed going forward in this state-controlled education universe. And number one is measurement--academic tests, social and emotional well-being tests. And they should go on for years "so we can follow our progress well beyond the end of the pandemic." Oh, and the "measurement plans should be carefully constructed to ensure the results are directly CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

NANCY BAILEY: Kindergarten Learning Loss Message Is HORRIFYING for Children!

Kindergarten Learning Loss Message Is HORRIFYING for Children!

Kindergarten Learning Loss Message Is HORRIFYING for Children!

No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, high-stakes testing, Common Core, and other bad school reform measures are coming together with Covid-19 to destroy the futures of America’s youngest learners!

They include the same equity and disparity talk used to ramp up the above harmful policies. Those changes to schools, all that rigor talk, did not work before, and they’ll not work to fix pandemic losses.

What child is going to welcome learning, look forward to going to school, some for the first time, when they hear about how far behind they’ve already fallen?

When parents read dire reports they will feel compelled to push their kindergartners and early learners harder. They’ll worry about the next test. Children will see learning as something to fear not a joyful experience.

Last November we saw Dallas Students Suffer ‘Horrifying’ Learning Loss During Pandemic, New Data Suggests. Such hyperbole is harmful.

Dallas doesn’t stop with the November report. Now we learn Dallas Trustees  CONTINUE READING: Kindergarten Learning Loss Message Is HORRIFYING for Children!

Don’t Believe the “Learning Loss” Hoax | Diane Ravitch's blog

Don’t Believe the “Learning Loss” Hoax | Diane Ravitch's blog

Don’t Believe the “Learning Loss” Hoax

The mainstream media are filled with warnings about “learning loss” and how we must measure it and why students should go to summer school to make up for what they have “lost.” If we can’t quantify it, they say, how can we know which students are behind? This is silly. There was no “pre-test,” so there can’t be a “post-test.” A test that students take this spring can’t possibly demonstrate “learning loss,” since they can’t be compared to anything else. If you want to know where students are in their learning, ask their teacher.

Here are some good readings on “learning loss.”

Peter Greene gathered some and calls his post a “learning loss debunkery reader.” And don’t miss Peter’s personal tale of his own “learning loss.” It began right after high school graduation, when he realized he had forgotten algebra!

Russ on Reading turned “learning loss” into a Henny Penny fable, in which the wolves are trying to get into the henhouse.

“Wait a minute. Are we sure our children have lost their CONTINUE READING: Don’t Believe the “Learning Loss” Hoax | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

The Myth of Learning Loss

Life is simple for people like Bill Gates. Everything has a formula. You and I are no different from computer programs. But Bill's brain is also similar to a computer program. You know, garbage in, garbage out.

That's why we keep reading about this "learning loss." The assumption is, when school is stopped, or changed, students lose something. Whatever this is, it's so precious that it must be restored by any means necessary. So maybe we need to send kids to summer school and prepare them for the only important thing in this lifetime--the Big Standardized Test. After all, Bill Gates thinks it's important, and he has All That Money, so he must know.

The thing is, though, that learning is something a lot broader than cramming with that Barron's review book to pass the Living Environment Regents exam. I think Jack Nicholson said, "If you aren't learning, you're dead." I'd broaden that to say if you aren't learning, you're either dead, wearing a MAGA hat, or governor of Texas.

We're all learning from the pandemic. I don't know anyone alive who's been through anything like this, While it's true this won't help me pass the Geometry Regents exam, it's entirely possible I've learned something more valuable. Maybe I've learned that we need to protect ourselves and stay safe, and maybe that's more important than the Big Test.

Nicholas Tampio has a great piece in the Washington Post, suggesting students need a chance to catch up on socialization this summer, as opposed to test prep or homework. I couldn't agree more. I'm a teacher of teenagers, and they're potentially the most social beings on earth.  What exactly are our kids missing while in-person school is on hiatus, or while they're sitting masked, CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learning Loss

Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learnng Loss

Henny Penny Discovers Learning Loss

It was a difficult year in the barnyard with all the animals confined to their own homes because of a mysterious and devastating avian flu. Henny Penny, cooped up in her humble abode with a half dozen chicks scurrying about unable to go school, was at her wits end. She barricaded herself in the TV room and turned on Foxy News. There she heard a report from an education expert, one Chester Tester, that the entire barnyard was going down the tubes due to an outbreak of  "learning loss."

Henny Penny flew into a panic. She flung open the door calling to the chicks, "You are losing learning. You are losing learning. Hurry we must find it." Henny Penny and her chicks scurried around the chicken house looking for their learning. The looked under the beds of straw. They looked in the kitchen. They searched the family room. They even rifled through the medicine cabinet, but they could not find their learning. 

Finally, Henny Penny FaceTimed her friend, Ducky Lucky. "Ducky Lucky" said Henny Penny, "I just heard on Foxy News that my chicks are losing their learning."

"Oh, no! said Ducky Lucky. "If your chicks are losing their learning, mine CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learnng Loss

CURMUDGUCATION: A Learning Loss Debunkery Reader

CURMUDGUCATION: A Learning Loss Debunkery Reader

A Learning Loss Debunkery Reader

Apparently we are going to be hearing about learning loss all the flipping time now, so I've tried to collect in one place some of the better responses to the crisis du jour. Feel free to bookmark this and to share the articles listed ever time someone pops up to holler that because of Learning Loss we must have testing or school choice or no summer vacation or increased school staff or bonuses for teachers--ha, just kidding. Nobody is proposing those last two.

The Ridiculousness of Learning Loss (John Ewing)

At Forbes, we get this little gem, whch spends some time talking about opening schools, but also addresses LL clearly:

Of course, the term "learning loss" comes from the language of test enthusiasts. For them, learning is a substance that's poured into students over time. One measures the accumulated substance by the number of correct answers on a test (standardized, usually multiple-choice). By administering two comparable tests at different moments in time, one measures success or failure for learning. An increase in correct responses is gain; a decrease is loss.

Is Learning Lost When Kids Are Out of School? (Alfie Kohn)

Kohn offers a good broad look at the issues involved, back in September of 2020 when the angst was jkust building. But Kohn knows the field and the studies.

In fact, some studies have shown that the capacity for thinking not only isn’t lost over the summer but may show greater gains then than during the school year. As Peter Gray at Boston College, who CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: A Learning Loss Debunkery Reader

What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post

What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post

What ‘learning loss’ really means

It’s not a loss of learning.

Last May, I published a post with this title: “Can we stop telling the ‘corona kids’ how little they are learning?”

Written by Rachael Gabriel, associate professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut, it made the case that students were actually learning when schools closed last spring as the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States — just not all of the things they would have learned in class:

Students are learning how to reset the rhythms and structures of their days. They are learning different patterns and modes of communication. They may be taking on different roles in their homes and learning how to complete new tasks, engage in new games and develop or sustain new and different activities.

Some are learning from the outdoor world on walks that go slower and last longer than before. Others are watching nature change day-by-day out their window, in their gardens, and along trails and bodies of water. Some are spending more time in their imaginations because it’s the only place to go, but this is not unimportant work.

Students cannot help but learn about themselves, others and the world around them in this time when solitude has steadily increased alongside disconnection and uncertainty. Even those who are too young to verbalize their understandings understand their world has changed, and are changing right along with it.

Gabriel is back with a new look at “learning loss” and what it really means.

Gabriel has written or edited five books for literacy teachers, leaders and education researchers, as well as numerous articles, and teaches courses for educators and doctoral students pursuing specialization in literacy.

By Rachael Gabriel

There is no such thing as learning loss.

When it comes to K-12 schooling, the truth is that some of us are more used to interruptions than others. Those of us who have to move around a lot, are living between two countries, or who have experienced a major injury, illness or are chronically ill, and even those who just changed schools once know what loss feels like. CONTINUE READING: What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post