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I agree Debra. I read this with a sinking feeling. I think it’s wrong, dangerous and it exposes rotten thinking at the heart of the education system. What schools, staff and pupils are doing is brilliant, against the odds, in difficult circumstances and with minimal preparation https://twitter.com/debrakidd/status/1356179671797424132
and experience. Some thoughts. First, what lost learning? It’s far from clear, subject to ideological definitions and overlooks the fact that schools have mitigated significant impact by continuing their services to young people.
What about what’s been gained, both by school staff and pupils? A better understanding of effective edtech (rather than glossy, whizzbang fads); a much greater appreciation of what schools do holistically and the symbiosis of pastoral and academic; celebrations of what young
people have achieved. All that might be worth a pretty penny to society. Why the focus on deficit anyway? It is a category error. It confuses price with value and is so utterly the wrong message for young people, especially those in Y11 and Y13.
For all that it is putative it’s hopelessness is the precise opposite of what pupils need to hear and does a severe disservice (on the basis of no evidence) to what they are experiencing and achieving. Failure is baked into the system - we know it lets down fails too many:
where was the outrage about their catch-up and lost earnings before? This piece plays to the fears and prejudices of the more advantaged. Too much of the education system relies on deficit-based thinking, presuming the worst of people and shaming or scaring them.
Such pieces are fuelling negativity about schools by confecting outrage and not for the first time, rather than celebrating the extraordinary logistical achievements of schools in pivoting virtually overnight (again) to remote learning.
If we put a proportional fraction of the energy into the daily celebration of schools that (rightly) goes into lauding the vaccine rollout then we’d view schools and staff very differently. Instead many feel lambasted and devalued.
This opinion piece (it’s not a report or research paper) has been ludicrously high on the news agenda all day. It shouldn’t be. Schools, staff, young people, families and communities deserve better.
