Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Jun 2024 Open Access

Beyond Learning Loss: Testimonios of a Pandemic Education

Hugo Moreno ; Marina Layme Huarca ; Marí Linares ; Ronel Almeyda ; Izchel Jimenez de la Cruz ; Carolina Yauyo Zanabria ; Leandra Hernández ; Calley Marotta

Abstract

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Latinx/a/o communities as people face interlocking global pandemics: “COVID-19, economic recession, global warming, and structural racism” (Solorzano, 2021, xvi). While popular discussions have focused on how these systemic inequities have resulted in learning loss, we have found the focus on school-based learning loss also obscures experiential knowledge students have gained from home, work, and community activities (Delgado Bernal, 2001; González et al., 1995; Pacheco, 2012; Vossoughi & Gutiérrez, 2014; Yosso, 2006). In this article, we, a group of working student-researchers of Peruvian, Mexican, and Bolivian heritage and our research mentors, share six digital testimonios that examine how we learned during the ongoing pandemic. This multi-authored, multilingual, and multimodal article uses digital testimonio (Benmayor, 2012; Medina, 2016) as methodology (Pérez Huber, 2009, 2021) to demonstrate how, in addition to any learning losses and barriers we had experienced in our formal education, we also learned from our lived experience of the pandemic and wish to see that learning valued in formal education.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2024-06-10
DOI
10.59236/rjv23i2pp6-39
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Topics
multimodality race and writing
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