Have Pandemic Interruptions Left Your Child Behind?

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In most jurisdictions in North America, kids are going back to school this fall. Although most parents, kids, and teachers want this, many are also worried.

Some kids haven’t experienced much of a pandemic disruption. Some parents quit their jobs or scaled them down to supervise and supplement their children’s learning. Some families hired tutors. Some teachers made the transition to virtual learning seamlessly and brilliantly. Some kids were able to work unsupervised online for hours at a time, day after day.

For most parents, children, and teachers, however, that’s not what happened, and if you’re one of the parents asking whether the pandemic interruptions have left your child behind, you are not alone. Many observers are fueling those fears, announcing that kids will be years behind where they should’ve been academically, and will never catch up. I’ve heard dire predictions that there will be a whole generation of kids who don’t have the intellectual skills they’ll need to thrive in the emerging economy.

Supporting Kids in Their Learning

I don’t see it that way. Yes, we have an enormous repair job ahead of us for those who have spent too much time in stressful or dysfunctional situations over the last two years, and I am worried about those kids. But I’m not too worried about the intellectual development of those who’ve had a safe, loving home in the midst of the chaos, but who haven’t been doing much by way of academics. That’s not because I don’t take academic learning seriously—I do—but because I understand the learning process, and know there are some excellent approaches available to support kids in their learning, wherever they are relative to other students or to normal standards.

This fall, teachers are expecting their students to be at a wide variety of levels. They realize that many students will have regressed socially, emotionally, and academically. Some kids are doing okay socially and emotionally but won’t have learned much of relevance to the academic curriculum. Others will have managed to keep learning and won’t be too far behind normal expectations. And still others motored along through the pandemic and will be well ahead of where they might otherwise have been.

And so, yes, in any given classroom, there may be even more differences among kids than usual. But, as I heard one teacher say in a radio interview, in response to a parent’s despairing concerns about how far behind their child is, teachers will do what teachers do: They will teach. Most teachers see it as their job to figure out where their students are functioning, subject by subject, and to give them what they need to keep learning.

Meeting Children Where They Are Now

That is the essence of the Optimal Match approach that Joanne Foster and I describe in Being Smart About Gifted Learning: Empowering Kids Through Challenge and Change: Pay attention to a child’s current interests and level of ability and give them what they need to keep learning. That works as well for a child who’s behind age-normal as for a child who’s ahead of what’s usually expected. As we discuss in Being Smart, and as others have observed, this approach is inclusive and encouraging; it works across racial, cultural, and economic contexts.

Thinking about matching kids’ learning needs means taking each child where they are now. They have unique interests, abilities, and needs, and that’s the right place to start with their learning. Maybe a given child would be further along in math if there hadn’t been a pandemic, but does that really matter in the context of their lives? Only if we decide they’re failing in some way, but that’s neither appropriate nor useful. Most homeschoolers understand that if you meet a kid where they’re at, they’ll be ripe for learning, and may surprise you with how deeply, broadly, or quickly they learn what they want to learn when they’re given a chance.

If you’ve been worrying that your child has fallen behind in their academic progress, you can be reassured that they’re not alone and that it’s not a lost cause. Support the school and teacher in seeing your child—like each other child—as a curious and competent learner, and over the course of this coming year, you may be surprised at how much learning happens.