Re: Fw: nclb-learning loss

[<alanyoung@mchsi.com>]

So true, Nancy. So often we forget that education that lasts is that which
is MEANINGFUL(L) i.e. helps kids become who they are, instills them with the
love of learning and a questioning spirit, and empowers them to do things
that they will also use in and out of school (whereby they practice it,
apply it, and use it because it helps them make sense of or get by better in
their life) more than just know or remember pieces of information or sterile
isolated skills. Rote, isolated, sterile, senseless education is VERY easy
to lose if it is not continually practiced. Maybe that should be being
looked at when one considers this question.

Moreover, the dilemma of summer is not so much a polar "either/or" of loss
or gain, but a dialectical "both and more" of loss AND gain. Both losses and
gains happen, but how school relates to the phenomenon has mostly to do with
meaningful, lifegiving education and whether or not children have it in
school prior to summer, during summer ( in the home, camps, vacations,
experiences, etc.), and when they return to school.

My sense is that children of poverty, as a statistical group, have less of
these meaningful educational experiences in and out of school which help one
get noticed more or be more prepared for success in school in and out of
school. All experiences are learning experiences and all experiences teach.
This is not to downplay the varying experiences of children of poverty which
yield important learnings in their own right (just not ones as readily
transferrable to school success as those of the middle class, especially in
terms of language/critical thinking) or to suggest that there are not
exceptions to this in cases where there are intentional interventions to
remedy the educational a nd life challenges that accompany poverty.

Alan

----- Original Message -----
From: <Teachernut@aol.com>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: nclb-learning loss


> In a message dated 6/23/03 12:49:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Bussardre@aol.com writes:
>
> > It assumes that relatively little forgetting occurs between September
and
> > June but a huge amount of forgetting takes place between July and
September.
> >
> > This seems implausible on the face of it. Moreover, the  difficulties of
> > measuring such loss are often dismissed butthey are large.
>
> I just have to jump in here with something anecdotal. I teach grades 1-3
> which means I have most of the children in my classroom for three years
and I
> teach by strands. Two years ago my student teacher and I did an in-depth
unit on
> fractions and decimals. We did lots of hands on activities as well as
paper and
> pencil. I thought this year, we could just do a little review and go on.
Not
> only did my students not remember the information we taught the year
before
> about fractions and decimals, they didn't even remember DOING fractions
and
> decimals.
>
> I remember the years when I taught a straight grade I mentally harangued
the
> teachers who taught the students the years before for not teaching the
> children a concept, or strategy, or benchmark they were supposed to know.
Last year
> was an important lesson to me, that some things just aren't remembered no
> matter what, how, or who teaches them.
>
> Nancy Creech
> -----------------------------------------------
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