Kerry McDonald refutes the “learning loss” narrative we’ve been inundated with:
“Abandoned Schoolhouse and Wheat Field 3443 B” by jim.choate59 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
There are mounting concerns over profound learning loss due to prolonged school closures and remote learning. New data released last week by the US Department of Education reveal that fourth-grade reading and math scores dropped sharply over the past two years.
Fingers are waving regarding who is to blame, but the alleged “learning loss” now being exposed is more reflective of the nature of forced schooling rather than how children actually learn.
The current hullabaloo over pandemic learning loss mirrors the well-worn narrative regarding “summer slide”, in which children allegedly lose knowledge over summer vacation. In 2017, I wrote an article for Boston NPR stating that there’s no such thing as the summer slide.
Students may memorize and regurgitate information for a test or a teacher, but if it has no meaning for them, they quickly forget it. Come high school graduation, most of us forget most of what we supposedly learned in school.
In his New York Times opinion article this week, economist Bryan Caplan makes a related point: “I figure that most of the learning students lost in Zoom school is learning they would have lost by early adulthood even if schools had remained open. My claim is not that in the long run remote learning is almost as good as in-person learning. My claim is that in the long run in-person learning is almost as bad as remote learning.”
Learning and schooling are completely different. Learning is something we humans do, while schooling is something done to us. We need more learning and less schooling.
Yet, the solutions being proposed to deal with the identified learning loss over the past two years promise the opposite. Billions of dollars in federal COVID relief funds are being funneled into more schooling and school-like activities, including intensive tutoring, extended-day learning programs, longer school years, and more summer school. These efforts could raise test scores, as has been seen in Texas where students receive 30 hours of tutoring in each subject area in which they have failed a test, but do they really reflect true learning?
As we know from research on unschoolers and others who learn in self-directed education settings, non-coercive, interest-driven learning tends to be deep and authentic. When learning is individually-initiated and unforced, it is not a chore. It is absorbed and retained with enthusiasm because it is tied to personal passions and goals.
One thing that must be remembered is that previous societies only educated their elites. We’re the first civilization to attempt universal education. The ideal is good–it started with the notion that all citizens were noble. But the fact is, not everyone is suited to education.
We’ve largely forgotten what education is for. Education is to do three things: First, to train someone for gainful employment. Second, to teach someone how to live in a particular society. Third–and this is the reason we attempt universal education–to improve the citizens to the point where they are capable of full participation in the Republic. The first happens on the job–there’s no one I’ve ever met who was able to walk onto a job with no training and do the job. The second happens at home–schools can help, but primarily socialization occurs at home. Only the third occurs within the confines of a school. (It should be noted that by forcing children to sit in a classroom, cutting recess, and removing opportunities for socialization we are removing the second form of education.)
Comment by Dinwar — September 12, 2022 @ 08:00
Mostly agree with you here, but
Mass public education — with the stated or implied goals of raising literate, obedient young citizens — happened as western governments centralized in the late 19th century. Some countries like Scotland already had near full literacy without state-run schools, but most went with the Prussian style to a greater or lesser degree. The elite belief — then and now — is that non-elite parents won’t bother to educate their own children so it’s incumbent on the elites to provide and mandate the form of that process.
Comment by Nicholas — September 12, 2022 @ 10:14
I tend to define “our civilization” as the mid-1700s to today. Basically, from just before the Industrial Revolution on. That’s when a lot of our institutions were getting established, and when we don’t have to work too hard to understand the mentality of the people. You can read Jane Austin or Patrick O’Brian and generally grasp the concepts, whereas reading the Song of Roland requires a study of the culture to really understand.
Your criticism is not invalid. It’s just a matter of us using the term slightly differently, I think.
Comment by Dinwar — September 12, 2022 @ 12:40
Given how our young adults are acting toward one another these days, I suspect they’ll much more readily understand the world that Pride and Prejudice illustrates, even if none of the characters sport tattoos and multiple facial piercings. Our culture was further from the Regency period from the 60s through the early oughts, but in some odd ways we’ve begun converging back in that direction.
Comment by Nicholas — September 12, 2022 @ 13:52