I hope my followers don’t mind my veering off into my educator’s head space. School is out for the summer. This is the joy of every student and teacher; however, learning cannot be off for the summer. Both the students and the teachers must continue learning in the summer to prevent summer learning loss and to hone and perfect skills that they have accumulated over the school year. In fact, everyone (not just students and teachers) should strive to be life-long learners because our world is ever changing, and we want to keep our brains active and cognitively healthy.

First of all, summer learning lost is a real thing. According to Learner Behind the Slide: Key Stats on Summer Learning Loss “between 70% and 79% of students experience a decline in math skills over the summer across elementary grades, with 5th and 6th grade showing the largest drop, where 84% of students demonstrated summer slide in math. Additionally, their statistics show “more than two-thirds of the reading achievement gap in 9th grade can be traced back to cumulative summer learning loss during the elementary years. Students may lose up to two months of reading proficiency over the summer.” (Click the link above to read the entire article.) NWEA, another source for student assessments and data, reports some test scores flatten during the summer, but they insist that the entire school system must be investigated. In other words, all schools are not created equally so students may have received a substandard education during the regular school year. (Click on the link to read the article and also visit the homepage: www.nwea.org) Honestly, there is much debate about learning loss in general especially since the pandemic, but the real deal is learning doesn’t have to be lost. There can be learning gains during the summer and during the school year through active learning engagement.

What is learning engagement. First of all, let me say it’s not just summer school or summer camp though it could be. And yes, reading is definitely needed, but active learning engagement can and should happen through everyday activities. For example, there are reading skills, math skills, and science in following a recipe. Change a recipe to reduce or increase its yield for more advance math skills. Measure a room for new carpet or other flooring material. There are math skills in counting money, making change, and setting and telling time. Set a timer on the oven or on your phone to determine how long a task may take. Choose a book or screenplay to read together as a family, each person taking a character or a chapter. Reading is all around us: signs, books, labels, game instructions, menus, and subtitles on movies. We can learn through all kinds of games because games have rules, strategies, and competitive challenges. Field trips and vacations are another source of learning. Investigate the place before you leave, search out little known facts, and be adventurous when you arrive. Leave the tourist path and experience the culture, the food and the community life. Take turns reading an actual map. (They still exist you know.) That’s social studies and scientific investigation. Find out what animals are indigenous to the area. Are there any interesting land masses or historic events in the area? Track your mileage, that’s math. Write a journal entry about your experiences and send some post cards to your family and friends; now we have language arts. You can add art and music too. As you can see there is no age limit on these activities of learning engagement. Whether you are in kindergarten or going to college or a senior citizen you can keep your brain sharp with these active learning experiences. Just make adjustments to challenge every learner in your household. (By the way, practical purposes help retention.)

Have you ever had this experience? You are in a department store and the sales rack says 30% off the sales price. On the top of the rack is another sign that says take another 35% off if you have a charge card. Without whipping out your cell phone to use the calculator, how much will you be able to take off $75? This recently happened to me at J. C. Penney’s. I stood in the isle thinking, I should know this. This is simple math. Although I haven’t taken a math class for more than four decades, I have helped more than two generations with math operations. Jogging the memory after teaching prekindergarten and kindergarten for a number of years was part of my problem, and lack of usage was the other part of my problem. Well, I’d love to say I finally figured it out because that would save face, but I cannot tell a lie. My ninety-year-old mother standing beside me while I was digging for my cell phone said, “Just estimate 60% would be $45.” I just stood there looking at her like she was some kind of wizard. When I asked her how that came to her so easily, she said she spent more than 30 years marking down returns at her job in the dress factory. That’s called retention and mastery.

I’ll be honest, math was never my strong suite. I learned math to pass the tests and as soon as math wasn’t required in my course of study, I purposely left it behind. Yet, basic math skills stuck with me. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were part of the skills I had to master, just as my mom mastered percentages and decimals in her job. Mastered skills are not lost. No one has to reteach you to write your name or recite the alphabet. (Of course, this is a reasonable assumption if your health and ability hasn’t been impaired in some way.) When you see an unfamiliar word your word attack skills come into play, and perhaps your ability to use a dictionary all be it on your phone. As an adult there are skills you have accumulated such as writing, counting, and verbal communication. You have and will use those skills for a lifetime, but if you are a lifelong learner, you are learning new skills as well. Things like how to drive a stick shift, to speak another language (perhaps computer language), to play pickleball, or Sudoku or bridge. Underneath all these skills are the basics: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. As parents and grandparents and community leaders we must offer our children the opportunity to master skills as well. Generally speaking, you don’t lose the skills you have mastered. Remember that old expression, “Practice Makes Perfect.” While perfection isn’t necessarily the goal, the ability to solve problems and to think critically is. In order to do these your basic foundational skills need to be retained and mastered.

Education is not the 180 to 192 days of the school year. Education is ongoing. Education is daily practice until mastery is achieved. Education is applying former knowledge to new information to develop a new skill. Education is taking advantage of all the resources around you to equip yourself for the new challenges of the next season. Education is one generation introducing the next generation to practical application of rules and procedures, terms and strategies enabling them to navigate professional and leisure life. Education is not only the foundation of the life we’re building it’s every landing and every floor of the life we are living.

My grandmother used to tell me if I had a good education no one could take it away from me and she was right, but she didn’t tell me I could lose it if I didn’t use it or continue to build upon it. If we inspire lifelong learners at every age and stage (including ourselves), learning loss will become obsolete. If we continue to foster active learning engagement at home, we can enhance what the school endeavors to do during the school year. We do our children a disservice if we allow them to think learning stops when summer begins. We do ourselves a disservice if we take vacations from learning new things. Let’s defeat all learning loss by striving to learn something new and master something old this summer and all year through.

Learn, Live, Love! Love Living a Life of Learning. Happy summer everyone!