Schools are failing to encourage life-long learning

This is one lesson from the 2022 NAEP scores

"Isn't it by learning and study, which are motions, that the soul gains knowledge and is preserved and becomes a better thing? Whereas in a state of rest, that is, when it will not study or learn, it not only fails to acquire knowledge but forgets what it has already learned?" - Socrates

Edutopia, a highly regarded source for educators, posted this quote on Instagram following the release of the 2022 NAEP scores.

Dismal NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reading and math scores for 2022 have been a central topic of conversation in K-12 education circles since their release last week. The assumed cause of dropping scores compared to previous years is the effects of school closures and schooling disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerns about learning loss due to shuttered schools and the shift of in-school learning to online were frequently expressed leading up to the release of the NAEP results—the scores just confirmed the aftermath everyone expected.

But is the problem of learning loss simply an outcome of students not being in school enjoying a normal 180-day school year? And is the remedy simply returning to this "normal" learning environment?

Seemingly, one of two problems contribute to learning loss: Schools either aren't doing a good job of creating life-long learners, or the content and skills taught don't stick or aren't worth remembering. My guess is both of these have intertwined to create the problem.

A stated aim of schooling is to create life-long learners, and there are endless proposals from educators to policymakers on how to achieve this goal: Make learning fun, make it experiential, connect content and skills to the real world, personalize learning, and so on and so forth. The premise of these proposals is that if you make learning fun and tied to students' lives and interests, they will grow to love learning and thus do well in school.

The first problem is that schools are not properly designed to cater to students interests in ways that would be effective at creating life-long learners—the teacher to student ratio, curriculum, standards, and assessments, among other aspects of schooling, would need to change. 

A bigger problem is that learning is wrapped up in schooling. When learning is strictly associated with sitting in a classroom of a school consuming content from a prescribed curriculum, kids, and their parents, often don't see the need to focus on such learning outside of school. So, when the doors of school shut, for the summer or due to a pandemic, learning in a way that would contribute to school-related outcomes stops. The mindset might go a little something like this: If I'm not being graded, why bother? Or: Yippee! A break from learning!

Life-long learning is the continued effort to acquire knowledge and practice skills to advance intellectually or master some sort of craft. To acquire knowledge, one must read, watch videos, and speak with others who have the knowledge desired. To master a craft, one must learn the appropriate techniques and practice, practice, practice the skills required. To become a good reader, one must read complex, enriching texts often. To become a good writer, one must write regularly, incorporating the techniques of other good writers. 

Being in a school building is not a requirement for learning or mastering a craft, but because learning has been wrapped up in school in the minds of many, when the doors close—at the end of the year or at graduation—intentional learning ceases for many. 

To truly learn something requires repeated exposure and practice, and to be a life-long learner, one has to understand this and approach learning in this way, no matter where or the topic. But schools are failing to set students up for a successful journey of life-long learning. Spending one week on a topic, then moving onto something else that has little or no connection to what was previously learned, or what one has experienced at any other point in the learning process, does not inculcate the habits of a life-long learners. Nevertheless, this is what schools do, making it challenging for students to build knowledge that can be applied to various scenarios, at various stages in their life. 

I recently learned how to crochet. I started with toys, called Amigurumi. To learn some basic skills, instead of watching tutorials that don't lead to a finished product, I bought an Amigurumi starter kit. I wanted the satisfaction of learning the skill of crocheting by producing a tangible, useful item. The kit included a written pattern, different crochet methods I would need to know, and step-by-step videos showing how to execute those methods. I created two toys within the span of a couple weeks, learning and crocheting a little bit at a time. I didn't master everything I needed to know, but I acquired enough knowledge and skills from making the first toy that I didn't need to watch every video nor read all instructions the second time around. Fast forward two months. I haven't crocheted since completing that second toy, and now I find myself once again reading instructions I thought I had grasped and re-watching tutorials to re-learn methods. I lost what I learned because I was not practicing, and being a novice crocheter made the learning loss more acute. 

Crochet is something that I wanted to learn, so the motivation to practice is more prevalent than if I needed to master knowledge or skills I wasn't particularly interested in. This is notable because interest-driven learning is distinct from what kids might experience in school. Schools face the challenge of teaching content that is often not particularly interesting to students nor connected to life outside of school walls in any readily useful way. A role of teachers is to make these connections, but telling teenagers that learning algebra, for example, will be useful later in life, full stop, does not motivate them to engage in sustained practice of the skill. 

Students will need to learn content or skills that they aren't naturally curious about or interested in. And teachers must demonstrate the benefits of sustained practice of these skills to achieve other goals of interest by showing students the benefits of stacking one block of knowledge on top of another, so to speak. In other words, students need to build knowledge and relevant skills over time, and teachers need to incorporate ongoing application of these skills in a way that shows continuous learning and practice pay off. Even if they never use algebra after high school, students will experience the satisfaction of grasping concepts and progressively moving toward learning goals.

The NAEP reading scores, for instance, have regressed to 1992 levels, but they have been persistently stagnant for years. The ongoing issue of low reading scores, and the subsequent ease with which learning is lost, is partly because, according to Natalie Wexler, kids lack opportunities to become immersed in a topic. Students need opportunities to take deep dives into topics, Wexler argues, to acquire and retain information and vocabulary that will help them comprehend other, gradually more complex, content. Comprehension skills suffer and learning is fleeting when students jump from one topic to the next without the deep exploration and vocabulary-building that will help them retain knowledge and comprehend future, equally complex texts.

Textbook series commonly used in elementary classrooms, the crucial years focused on learning to read, don't offer such deep dives. They often present a story that is to be taught that week, accompanied by vocabulary words related to the story and comprehension questions that ask about superficial elements of the story, such as the characters, plot, and main idea. The week ends with a test, and the next week begins with a new story, unrelated to the last, with new vocabulary words and similarly superficial comprehension questions. If you were to assess students on previous stories read and the vocabulary and skills learned from those texts, many of them would fail. They may be able to read the words on the page and tell you tidbits about previous stories, but they will not have acquired knowledge that they are building upon from story to story, which they can then apply to future texts, including texts that are embedded in tests like NAEP.

Schools are notorious for teaching content and skills for a short period of time, then moving on to something else seemingly unrelated—either because the teacher failed to make relatable connections for her students or because what was taught indeed does not relate to what is taught the next week or month. Such disjointed learning not only leads to low knowledge and skill retention, thus test scores, it also fails to create life-long learners. Building upon knowledge over a period of time and applying and practicing what has been learned, on the other hand, does lead to greater retention and provides a vehicle and framework for students to continue learning outside of the classroom and throughout life.