This commentary is by Peter Langella of Moretown, a public high school and college educator.
It was April 2020, the time of health care heroes, essential workers, social distancing and, for Vermont’s educators and students, the time of remote learning.
One of my then-ninth grade students, still 14, was running their household. Their parents worked in hospitals, and they were in charge of their younger siblings, cooking meals, doing laundry, cleaning the home, and making sure all of the learning technology worked. They were so skilled and efficient at all of their tasks and responsibilities that two other families in their neighborhood entered into a bubble together so that my student could take care of even more little kids.
They learned a lot about life that spring. They also did very little schoolwork. They couldn’t access it. They were called to be a caregiver in a global pandemic when they were still a child themself.
The situation was much the same the next year during hybrid learning, and it got to its worst during stretches of the absolute mess that was the 2021-22 school year. when political leaders refused to bring back — or even hold a vote on — universal mitigation strategies despite mass infection, the growing science around long Covid, and hundreds of deaths. People are still missing school and losing access because of this horrible virus.
The learning “loss” narrative circulating in education and political sectors right now is preposterous. No one can lose learning they never had a chance to access.
I use the pandemic example because this is something that almost everyone can relate to in some way, but all of this was true before the pandemic, too.
There are so many reasons students can’t access learning. For some, it might be systems of oppression like racism, sexism, ableism, cissexism, etc.; for others, it might be challenges related to the housing or opioid crises, while others still may face barriers rooted in generational poverty or an inequitable distribution of resources.
That’s why the state has enacted universal school meals and a new education funding formula. Over the next five years, districts that are small and rural, districts that educate large numbers of students living in poverty, and districts that have the highest percentage of multilingual learners will begin to receive a larger proportion of statewide funds than they have in the past.
This is a start. It will take decades to attempt to correct the historical unfairness.
Several recent news reports have bemoaned the proficiency of Vermont students on standardized tests. I’ve read sweeping generalizations about all of the deficits, as well as fears for the future because of them.
I recently attended a training with a prominent local education consultant, and I was shocked that they had the educators assembled focus on all of the supposed “loss” in the pandemic — the missed opportunities, the missed developmental milestones, the executive functioning skills that weren’t.
I thought of my student having to choose between cooking dinner and completing their schoolwork. I also thought about how backward the narrative is. I don’t know how anyone can look at the curricula, content and assessments as they were in 2019 (that weren’t inclusive or equitable for all, by the way) and think they’re adequate for the students of 2023.
Not only is there the pandemic, but our students, especially the high schoolers I work with, live inside digital social networks; they have existential fears about school shootings and climate catastrophe; they are trying to understand how to create racial and social justice; they’re helping us reframe conventional understandings of gender and sexuality; they’re trying to find their place in a world of wars and anti-democratic politicians who continue to take away long-established rights; and they are trying to figure out a way to center their physical, mental and emotional well-being.
By focusing on learning “loss,” by focusing on all of our students’ supposed deficits, we do a disservice to them and their complex world. In the book “Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning,” Dr. Gholdy Muhammad urges us to think of a plant that isn’t growing. We don’t blame the plant. “Instead, we change the amount of sunlight and water, we change the type of soil, we nourish it.”
It’s time for education to change. The whole system. Not a few amazing educators at each school. Not an innovative program at one school but not the rest. Not one district acting in a vacuum. The whole system.
These standardized tests are giving us the wrong answers. Most of our other assessments are as well. The water and sunlight and soil of 2019 don’t work anymore, if they ever even worked at all.
There are dozens and dozens of visions for what new and better nourishment could look like, a completely reconstructed version of education. Just pick up a book by Bettina Love, bell hooks, Lisa Delpit, Liz Sohyeon Kleinrock, Jamila Lyiscott, Matthew R. Kay, adrienne maree brown, Layla Saad, Laura Kate Dale, and so many others.
Schools can become holistic. Schools can become antiracist and anti-oppressive. Schools can become socially just. The seeds are already here. We need the right gardening techniques.
Learning “loss” doesn’t exist.
