June 2022

Summer is a time for kids to kick back, take a break from routine, and enjoy lazy days. It also, in many cases, is when learning loss-aka “The Summer Slide” can take place. Summer setbacks are nothing new regarding academics and the phenomenon has been researched by educators since the beginning of time. On average, student achievement can decline over the summer by up to a third of a prior year’s learning gains. Loss is usually greater in mathematics than in reading, and higher grade leveled students are more noticeably affected than younger learners. The summer slide can be measured in both social skills and classroom discipline, in addition to academics.

Coffee by my side, I sit on the dock, overlooking North Arm Bay of Lake Minnetonka. It is 6:02 a.m. Everyone who writes about these sorts of times describes it as quiet and peaceful. They deliberately ignore the Hitchcockian quantities of birds hellbent on their morning song. It’s loud out here. A family of geese paddle somewhere slowly, honking. A loon calls someone, maybe his mother. I face east which means the sunrise is directly in front of me, just above the horizon. Sunrises are a bit like the Minnesota Vikings, best enjoyed with a gaze that I’ll call indirect. I do not wish to be the guy wearing sunglasses at six a.m., but I suppose we all have a cross to bear.

I don’t remember specifically that March went out like a ‘lamb’, but certainly, the approach to the official beginning of summer has barged in like a fire-breathing dragon. Our recent hot spells may be a grim reminder of what to expect in the next few months.