Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University, wrote recently in the Washington Post that children need a break, not academic pressure, this summer. But the federal government seems to have swallowed whole the claims that children are suffering from “learning loss.” He disagrees. Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle have repeatedly urged policymakers to acknowledge the importance of play in child development; they wrote a wonderful, research-based book about it called Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. What Tampio and others argue is that the children have had a horrible year and need time to be children. We don’t need to press their little noses to the academic grindstone.
The global pandemic has taken its toll on families and children. Children have not been able to engage in their normal routines, sit in a classroom with friends and teachers, visit extended family or participate in social activities without a mask. Most parents are more concerned about their children’s emotional well-being than they were before the pandemic, a Pew Research Center survey in the fall found. And that situation may have grown more dire, as children have spent much of the school year online and maintaining social distance from other people.
Facing this year of loss, Democrats in Congress have framed the problem as primarily one of lower projected test scores; their solution is to make kids in high-poverty schools spend the summer inside preparing for standardized tests. This is exactly the wrong approach to the sadness and loss of the covid era: This summer, children need to do self-initiated activities that are rewarding for their own sake. This will create happier children now and, as research has shown, lead to improved physical, cognitive, social, emotional and creative outcomes later in life.
At the end of 2020, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, explained how he wanted to address the learning loss caused by the pandemic: “You can’t just tell cash-strapped states and localities that they’ve got to cancel summer vacation. For the federal government, if we’re going to suggest that, we’ve got to help pay for it.”
So early this year, Scott introduced the Learning Recovery Act of 2021 to establish a grant program; the bill could become law by mid-March. It would authorize $75 billion over the next two years to address learning loss in Title I schools with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students by funding school extension programs — including longer school days, an extended school year and summer school. It’s a lot of money: Congress allocated about $16 billion for Title I schools in 2019.
The money has strings attached. The bill stipulates that state educational agencies shall support school districts “to effectively use data and evidence-based strategies to address learning recovery needs for students.” To collect this data, a school district may administer “high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable to accurately assess students’ academic progress.” The bill also authorizes funding for the Institute of Education Sciences to study what interventions and strategies best address learning recovery, that is, raise test scores. The supporters of the bill are not interested in paying for kids to play this summer.
That’s a shame — because pediatricians have been making a powerful case for the immediate and long-term benefits of play.
A 2018 article in the journal Pediatrics called “The Power of Play” defines play as “an activity that is intrinsically motivated, entails active engagement, and results in joyful discovery.”
Childhood play develops foundational motor skills, leads to an active lifestyle and prevents obesity. Climbing rocks gives children a chance to build confidence that will serve them well later in life. Rough-and-tumble play teaches children verbal skills, as they have to negotiate when things threaten to get out of hand. Taking risks on the playground hones executive functioning skills such as concentrating, problem solving and regulating one’s emotions. Recess gives children of different backgrounds an opportunity to become friends.
“Play is part of our evolutionary heritage,” the authors explain, “and gives us opportunities to practice and hone the skills needed to live in a complex world.”
And what happens when children do not have a chance to play? They don’t have a safe way to release toxic stress and may lash out with antisocial behavior. By focusing on academic achievement rather than play, young people often develop anxiety, depression and a lack of creativity. “Play may be an effective antidote to the changes in amygdala size, impulsivity, aggression, and uncontrolled emotion that result from significant childhood adversity and toxic stress,” the article argues.
Even more than usual, it would seem, children in the pandemic era need a chance to play before they resume their formal education in the fall. In England, experts in childhood development have called for a “summer filled with play” to recover from the pandemic. According to Helen Dodd, a professor of child psychology at the University of Reading, “children need time to reconnect and play with their friends, they need to be reminded how good it feels to be outdoors after so long inside and they need to get physically active again…”
Think of all the rewarding things that children could do this summer. Day camps with arts and crafts, sports, theater, and activities like podcasting and three-dimensional printing. Visiting family in other parts of the country. Swimming at the pool. Riding bikes with friends. Performing in a band. As scholars such as Yong Zhao and Christopher Tienken have been arguing for years, these kinds of unstructured activities give young people a chance to invent new things, create works of art, start businesses and develop their own talents.…
Kids would be better off if Congress votes down legislation that would keep children in high-poverty schools inside this summer. Those kids — including ones living in shelters, with food insecurity or in dangerous neighborhoods — deserve to play just as surely as do those children whose parents send them to sleep-away camp. And governments, civil society and families should look for ways to give children a chance to do activities that are voluntary, joyful and imaginative: that is, to play.
The biggest issue I have with the “we must catch up to the loss” rhetoric is that: inherent in it’s reasonings are the justifications that children from lower economic environments will be the recipients of this effort (white saviourismein full display BTW), but it’s not aimed at what these children really deserve – which, is a break and a time to process – but, instead the implied guilt that now they’re behind and it’s on them to be catching up. To me that’s almost like saying:” this pandemic and how it affected your family is your fault, so put your nose to the grindstone ’cause you’re behind now”. That is wrong. The pandemic was not their fault, their economic situation was not their fault, their family losses was not their fault, and most importantly their loss of instruction was not their fault either. We must put a stop to this covert blaming under the guise of “we’re helping those in need the most”. We’re not! Because in the absence of a person -“the pandemic” being an amorphous entity to blame – this blame of loss is falling disproportionately on kids’ shoulders. And that will yield all sorts of bad consequences we can’t even imagine….
Thank you, Violamomof1! Well said!
I wouldn’t worry about any of it, kids are resilient.
FLERP, is there a good reason to waste $1 billion, more or less, on meaningless tests, and to focus all in-person instruction on testing.
Not if they’re meaningless. But I’m not sure they’re meaningless. (I know you and others think they are.)
I don’t oppose my son’s district doing this. But at this point, I’ve lost so much faith in the school system that it’s becoming an academic issue (no pun intended). Right now, much more important than state tests is actually opening schools full-time for all students. But I’m not holding my breath.
What will you learn when they tell you in six months that your son is a 3 or a 4?
I plan to never open another email or mailing from the NYC DOE after June.
And go think that just yesterday you were complaining about people making snide remarks.
Ha ha ha.
I didn’t know you read my comments.
But hey, I got to thinking, if it’s not that big a deal that kids are out of school for a year, staring at screens nonstop, not interacting with people outside their homes, not learning much, and sometimes trapped in abusive households—“kids are resilient,” right?—then maybe a couple days of testing isn’t not a tragedy requiring mass mobilization.
Yes, this was all snide.
King of Snide
The King of Snide
Could not abide
When others tried
To meet his stride
Actually, resilience is an inherent human trait. We’re stronger than you think. Too bad you use the term for self-pitying sarcasm.
Even better. Like I said, no big deal. Humans are resilient. No need for concern. Except if there’s standardized testing.
Almost touché. Here’s the thing, standardized testing has longer term consequences. It destroys teaching as a profession, it creates false standards build around profiteering, not education, it drains needed funds from actual education.
As for pandemic consequences, I’m betting your children don’t have to worry about food, don’t have to worry about shelter, don’t have to worry about heat in winter. Nor do mine. And I’m not worried about that their futures are irreparably damaged. We have it good compared to many, many people out there.
Bad tests produced by bad (CC) standards combined with bad policy (misuse of test scores) have had negative impacts on the teaching profession. We are making a mistake by trying to disown any and all possible forms of standardized testing. Basic skills and knowledge using purely objective standards to create grade span testing for diagnostic purposes should not be a problem. Punishing schools and teachers via CC testing is inflicting the damage.
We have a raft of standardized tests that we use for diagnostic purposes when working up a case study for children who might need special services. We don’t need to use those instruments for most children. Classroom performance on teacher made instruments tells the teacher what s/he needs to know. NAEP tells us all we need to know on a state or national level. Each type of assessment serves a particular purpose and tells us all we need to know when we need to know it. The more recent test frenzy associated with CC has never provided us with useful information but rather has been used to serve illegitimate political purposes.
Children must be given back what they’ve missed most by being separated from their peers: the ability to socially interact with them in a relaxed and not-otherwise-demanding environment.
Play, hang out, exchange pandemic experiences, all the while learning what this gesture means, what this frown means, what this blink of the eye means, frown, grimace, scowl, finger pointing, tip of the head.
Flat screen, flat person.
That’s an excellent point. You could call this the “hidden curriculum,” or you could acknowledge that students at selective colleges know how to act in diverse circumstances, which is one of the many things you learn at camp.
“Climbing rocks gives children a chance to build confidence that will serve them well later in life”
It sure served Alex Honnold well.
He has lots of confidence.
This guy is a good example of why we do not know how a person will turn out. I know someone who grew up in the rock climbing community (a small group) of Yosemite. Ad a youth he was not even remotely distinguished from the others who were interested in climbing. Now look at him. Glad there was no testing.
I’m confused. It sounds like you are talking about Honnold except for that second sentence.
Roy
I used to live out in Utah and for many years was heavily into climbing and mountaineering.
It’s hard to explain to people who have never done it what it’s about.
Lots of people saw the movie Free Solo and now undoubtedly believe that climbing is primarily a solo pursuit (to say nothing of a death defying pursuit).
But the reality is that the vast majority of climbing is done with other people (and the main focus is actually to avoid situations where you will face unnecessary risk and possibly death).
And the main benefits of climbing in addition to confidence building are precisely those that have to do with collaborating with other people to reach a shared goal.
I agree wholeheartedly with children’s need to play. I worry however that most poor kids will not be spending their time out of school outside, at camps, climbing rocks etc. Maybe better to make school a place where play (creativity) is emphasized?
If they don’t have rocks to climb, they can climb trees or even buildings like this guy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Robert
Of course, you have to avoid being arrested when climbing buikdings, but that’s part of the challenge.
When I was a kid, I climbed trees, rocks, buildings and even my grandfather’s silo (about 60 feet) — on a dare by my cousin.
Kids are very good at finding creative ways of doing things.
https://rockandice.com/inside-beta/the-surprising-popularity-of-buildering/
And, Unlike when I was a kid, a lot of buildering is actually now legal in many places.
Yes, we did all that …. But kids these days are easily mesmerized by screens and the pandemic has made that easier and more acceptable.