Russ Walsh: Henny Penny Discovers Learning Loss
Russ Walsh is a retired reading educator and blogger who has written a little tale about that time learning loss hit the barnyard.
It was a difficult year in the barnyard with all the animals confined to their own homes because of a mysterious and devastating avian flu. Henny Penny, cooped up in her humble abode with a half dozen chicks scurrying about unable to go to school, was at her wits’ end. She barricaded herself in the TV room and turned on Foxy News. There she heard a report from an education expert, one Chester Tester, that the entire barnyard was going down the tubes due to an outbreak of “learning loss.”
Henny Penny flew into a panic. She flung open the door calling to the chicks, “You are losing learning. You are losing learning. Hurry we must find it.” Henny Penny and her chicks scurried around the chicken house looking for their learning. The looked under the beds of straw. They looked in the kitchen. They searched the family room. They even rifled through the medicine cabinet, but they could not find their learning.
Finally, Henny Penny FaceTimed her friend, Ducky Lucky. “Ducky Lucky,” said Henny Penny, “I just heard on Foxy News that my chicks are losing their learning.”
“Oh, no!” said Ducky Lucky. “If your chicks are losing their learning, mine must be, too. Our friend Goosey Loosey is here, let’s see what she thinks.”
Goosey Loosey came onto the FaceTime call. Henny Penny said, “The chicks are losing their learning! The chicks are losing their learning!”
But a solution soon appears
Everybody started clucking and cackling again until Foxy Loxy intoned in a deep clear voice, “I can help you.”
“What can you do?” the concerned parents all asked at once.
“Well, first we need to measure the learning that has been lost,” said Foxy Loxy.