Forget ‘learning loss'; focus on what we’ve learned during the pandemic [Edsource.org]

^{Photo: Allison Shelley for American Education}

By Leigh Deal Victoria

Our students are suffering from learning loss. … Schools and teachers should do the following to mitigate learning loss: … We must be ready to diagnose our students’ learning loss. …

This type of rhetoric has appeared in our news feeds, educational blogs and journals, curricular textbook programs, and most unfortunately, school districts across the nation.

Since the pandemic shutdown, the term “learning loss” has dangerously flown off the tongues of too many educational decision-makers.

But in working with educators in a large California school district, I believe the use of this term can result in harmful assumptions and implications for students. First, it suggests that skills and concepts have forever disappeared. Second, “learning loss” implies that students have not learned anything throughout the shutdown, therefore insinuating that learning only happens within the four walls of the classroom.

To continue reading, go to: https://edsource.org/2021/forg...-the-pandemic/654023