UNICEF published a six-point plan to act quickly on the risk of a lost COVID generation. Its warning is dire:
“Unless the global community urgently changes priorities, the potential of this generation of young people may well be lost.”
Priority #1 for UNICEF?
- “Ensure all children learn, including by closing the digital divide.”
This threat is real, and is not confined to the parts of the world where UNICEF does its most important work. Every public school student in my community is issued a Chromebook and, if necessary, a hotspot or other access point to be able to participate in remote education. Yet some students are simply not showing up to learn. The reasons are many: lack of motivation, embarrassment of home sounds/sights being visible to others, care for younger siblings, antagonistic relationships with teachers, prior disappointing experiences in school, etc.
Even in a community where we have the resources to bridge the digital divide for remote education, there is a very real risk of a lost generation, accelerated by COVID. The situation is even more dire for communities that lack the will or resources to connect with learners.
Who is not at-risk?
There is a group of students who are not at risk of being part of a lost COVID generation. They are defined not by zip code or socioeconomic status, but by having mastered the craft of learning.
Consider our local high school (which my daughter attends). This year they have shifted to remote, synchronous learning from 12:30 to 4:00pm Monday through Thursday. (Each of 8 class meets twice for 45 minutes during the week.) In the mornings, teachers are available for “office hours” where any student can “visit” the teacher on Zoom to get help with anything they need. Fridays are a blend of office hours, quizzes, tests, projects, and other asynchronous work.
Who is thriving under the changed conditions of learning? Those who are able to identify learning goals, schedule their time, eliminate distractions, and ask for help when they need it. Remote learning has given this group increased agency in their learning. Now the things that typically slow institutional schools (passing periods, disruptive behavior, device management, etc.) don’t slow them down. For these students, learning has accelerated under COVID; they’re not itching to get back to the classroom.
That’s true for “disadvantaged” students too. For a middling student (one who is accustomed to getting C’s, but can earn A’s, and occasionally earns an F), who is susceptible to peer pressure, the new model is liberating. His buddies, who might draw him into distraction or mischief in-person, are removed from sight as he focuses on the direct instruction. Likewise, going to “office hours” doesn’t mean his friends see him leaving his lunch to get help from a teacher. He can learn without the social stigma of learning-averse youth cultures. If he manages his work well, he even has time for a part-time job.
How can we ensure that ALL children learn?
Autodidacts don’t typically suffer when schools are disrupted, because they are not fundamentally dependent on others for learning. An autodidact is a self-teacher, one who knows how to set a learning goal and achieve it. In order to know how to teach oneself, a person must learn to learn. Although we rarely teach our children the habits of autodidacts, this is not an unreasonable expectation for children in the age range of 10-12, as they enter the middle school years. If our children learn how to learn and cultivate agency in learning, then there are few disruptions that can significantly slow learning.
Learning is learned. It is learned explicitly – meaning that learners can recite the core principles of learning. Yet more powerfully, it is learned implicitly – by experience.
Implicit, experiential learning almost always trumps explicit, verbal learning. Why? Because implicit learning is always happening, and explicit learning almost always requires significant focused attention. Most of us have a tiny (and often distorted) explicit understanding of learning, but all of us have a lifetime of experience that shapes our implicit assumptions about learning and how we actually do it.
The answer to the question of how we “ensure that ALL children learn” is that we must teach them how to learn – both explicitly and implicitly – and equip them with the dignity and agency of taking responsibility for their own learning.
Nobel laureate cognitive psychologist Herb Simon captured it well:
“Learning results from what the student does and thinks, and only from what the student does and thinks. The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.”
I am leading Learning is Learned experiences for middle schoolers in my community in an attempt to build three things:
- Explicit knowledge of the principles and dynamics of learning.
- Meaningful understanding of those principles and dynamics.
- Skill in using those principles for learning in school and all of life.
Like UNICEF, I fear the risk of a lost COVID generation. But I believe that bridging the digital divide is not enough. We must help our children master the craft of learning, exercise agency in learning, and enjoy the delights of durable learning.