Cover story in Time magazine, should school summer vacation be abolished?

[Archae]

Summer vacation was "set in stone" back when kids were needed for summer harvests.

VERY few kids are needed for that anymore.

I remember getting bored to tears every July and August when I was in school.

Space the vacations out more.

[MichiganVote]

1. Cost more in terms of energy, transportation and salaries.

[Sherman A1]

2. But what of all the back to school sales?????

I agree that the year could go to 4 quarters with space between them for vacations and such. It may very well be time to rethink how we do things.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Do people, particularly children, enjoy it?

If so, no doubt, the gloom-sayers and joykill brigade here will line up to agree that, yes, it's gotta go. I'm sure there's a reason why summer vacation is responsible for the loss of biodiversity and the increasing acidification of the oceans, as well.

Oh, wait, what am I saying? The question is moot, because AMERICANS SHOULDN'T BE HAVING CHILDREN IN THE FIRST PLACE! Duh!!!

[REP]

39. Maybe if they spent more time in class, they'd learn to use "moot" correctly

moot1
-adjective
1. open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful: a moot point.
2. of little or no practical value or meaning; purely academic.

Since children do exist and people have them, the use of "moot" is not correct in your conditional clause. Either part - whether summer vacation is archaic or the feasibility of large Western families - is actually moot.

[pipi_k]

44. Actually....

I believe the use of "moot" in the person's post was correct.

He's not calling children, or their existence, moot.

What he wrote was: "Oh, wait, what am I saying? The question is moot..."


The. question. is. moot.


Which qualifies for either of the two definitions you listed...either the question is: 1. debatable or doubtful or 2. of little or no practical value.


Basic eighth grade reading skills...they do matter.

:+

[Warren DeMontague]

60. I don't like to moot -er, sorry, toot- my own horn, but I pulled a 790 on the English half of my SAT

back, lo, many years ago.

I think my usage is correct.

[UndertheOcean]

4. We should raise kids to be better workers , better cogs in the gears of Capitalism .

[mitchum]

5. Yes, it should be abolished...

and that's coming from a teacher

[AnnInLa]

14. No, summer vacation should not be abolished, and

that's coming from a teacher. Our poor school district in rural South Louisiana would be forced to double our electricity bills during June, July and August (altho we start back to school mid to late August.)

Speaking as a teacher, I really need a long break to transition from one year to the next. We are required to take trainings, earn credits, and do "supplemental learning" to keep our jobs....must have the summer to meet those requirements, or else we would have to do these at night after work....too hard. The long summer break allows us to update lessons, do research, make plans, do projects to present during the school year...lord, the list of things we have to do during the summer to prepare for the next year is just endless. Keep our summer, and quit shrinking it!

[mitchum]

17. I would like the year-round school model of 6 weeks on,1 week off

Actually, what I would really like is to conduct class while lying in bed at home as the students listen to me over a classroom speakerphone :)

[MajorChode]

49. If there were breaks throughout the year, I think it would work

Northern school districts are faced with higher heating bills in the winter, so I'm not sure if you can make a case from an economic standpoint, especially since kids are running up their parents' electricity bills staying home throughout the summer.

From a parent standpoint, I'd like to see one to two week breaks throughout the year rather than one long one in the summer. That would allow time for teacher recurrent training.

[blue sky at night]

24. just got back from church camp...

please think about the value it has before jumping on that bandwagon...besides kids should have downtime from everything, thats what wrong, they never get a break. Especially from sports.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. In better times at least...

...the small businessmen of America wouldn't stand for it, not in resort/tourist areas.

Students are their labor pool. Just starting before Labor Day (we have to -- snow days) is a sore point.

[LWolf]

7. Yes and no.

Should vacations be abolished? No. Should "summer vacation" evolve? Yes.

There are a couple of downsides to "summer vacation" that can be addressed without costing any more money:

1. Burnout. We start fresh in September, we push hard all year, and by spring break, we're tired, and we're not operating at our best. By "we" I mean both teachers and students.

2. Backsliding and re-teaching: We spend too much time re-teaching everything we already did because so many students don't pick up a book, or write anything, or do anything related to math over the summer. It's too long to do nothing. Things are forgotten, skills get rusty, and time that could be spent moving forward is spent catching up.

A single-track year-round calendar addresses those issues without adding instructional days, costing no extra money.

Simply provide for more, shorter breaks during the year. One at the end of every quarter or trimester, which still leaves a shorter summer break in place between school years during the summer.


Regular fall, winter, and spring breaks can be incorporated, all though the Thanksgiving break falling too close to the winter break is problematic.

Teachers and students stay refreshed, and move further ahead. Having taught numerous year-round calendars as well as traditional, I can attest to that.

If the nation believes students should have more instructional days than they currently do, that can be factored in as well, as long as the money is there to pay for it.

[uppityperson]

9. Space out longer breaks, with a month off in summer

Give August off, and a couple weeks at spring, fall and winter times. For instance 2 weeks mid-Dec-Jan firstish. 2 weeks off spring break (shortly after solstice). 2 weeks off end of Oct and a 3 day weekend separate for Thanksgiving.

[LWolf]

13. I'd love that.

The Thanksgiving thing bugs me. Districts I've worked for like to give a full week; it helps attendance numbers, since so many people take off early anyway. Then we get 3 weeks, and another break all over again. It's not an efficient use of time.

I like the month of October. I worked one year-round calendar for a few years that gave me the whole month off every fall. It being my favorite month of the year, I was thrilled.

I say we just move Thanksgiving into the last week of October. It's more appropriate as a harvest celebration/thanks, and it means we get to skip the costume/candy induced frenzy and sugar surges and crashes brought on by Halloween.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

22. THAT IS WHAT OUR DAUGHTER'S SCHOOL DOES

[LWolf]

31. I've taught in some schools with a similar calendar.

The problem is that most weren't "single-track." There were multiple "tracks" scheduled to mitigate not having enough classrooms or schools to house the student population.

When year-round calendars are used to squish more classes into the same building, it loses its effectiveness. It essentially requires teachers to pack their entire room before every break, and unpack it in a different room when they come back. That leads to a slowdown in academic work before breaks, (and a slow start when the break is over) because no extra (paid) time is allowed for all that packing and moving, and a narrowing of materials and resources to make the process more bearable.

[Jade Fox]

8. The "Summer Vacation" system is designed for....

families where only one parent works. Not many of those around.

Actually, it was originally set up that way so kids could help on the farm during the growing season. In farm communities that might still be relevant.

[jwirr]

10. They seem to be going in the opposite of what is really happening.

Many schools are firing teachers and thinking about cutting down to 4 days of school a week. Adding more has not been mentioned for a long time.

[proteus_lives]

11. I think it should be.

[msongs]

12. used to have yr round - 3 school, 1 off - was great, now back to regular :-( nt

[Subdivisions]

15. Of course it should be abolished. How are corporations supposed to

make a profit if the kids are at home for 1/4 of the year?

[donco6]

16. We'd have to stagger schedules, but it could be done.

I'm not sure our community would go for it, though. They want all sorts of changes in how education is handled . . . except when they don't.

[femrap]

18. Give all the kids a

laptop and have classes over the internet in the summer.

[Mariana]

19. Pretty lousy for the non-custodial parents and their kids

who have long visitation during the summer, and don't get to spend more than a couple of days at a time together through the rest of the year. We don't have many farm kids anymore, but we do have lots of kids with parents living apart, often very far apart.

[LWolf]

32. Does it really make a difference

whether or not they get somewhat shorter, (but longer than the couple of days at a time during the school year,) more frequent visitations more than once a year?

Doing away with summer vacation doesn't mean no vacation. It just means that it's not all during the summer.

[JonLP24]

53. It can

For the sake of argument the kids live with the mom and visit the dad.

Say the dad lives in another state, it will cost a lot of money to bring them there and back especially if you are going to fly them. That would become expensive or impractical if you spread school out for a year with 2 week breaks every now and then. Meanwhile summer gives them 2 months.

From personal experience I preferred the 8 weeks school/2 weeks off over the traditional school year with a long summer vacation and a short Christmas break because it felt like I had more time to relax and wasn't constantly drained of energy. However I imagine trying to visit my dad wouldn't of been possible because of it costs to get there and come back and if I could only do it once, it would only be for less than 2 weeks.

[LWolf]

55. multiple trips WOULD cost more.

I worked a calendar that included traditional winter and spring breaks, but broke summer down into (3) 4-week breaks, one after every term. I liked that one a lot.

[tinymontgomery]

20. Parents won't like it

most treat teachers like baby sitters (this coming from a HS teacher). When we have a snow day they get pissed because they have to figure out what to do with the kid. Make them have to do more work on how to have someone take care of the kids will piss off a lot of parents. They may be forced into it but won't like it. I was speaking to a teacher at a conference who had just come from some town up north like MI or something and the town said they would have to raise taxes or go to 4 day school schedule. Residents voted down tax raise, school system went to 4 days, parents through a fit.

[Pithlet]

42. Yeah, what a lousy attitude they have. Work is just a hobby, after all.

I can't imagine why it would cause parents stress to figure out how to manage a change in their schedule. Bosses are so easy going about those things. Jeeze, those parents!

[tinymontgomery]

43. Obviously you didn't understand

my statement. Parents won't like it for the exact reason you said. That was my point. And also leaving it the way it is gives all the teacher haters a chance to bitch about how teachers have off during the summer and they have to work. I hear it the time and I'm a 12 month employee. I have students come in all summer so I can go either way.

[DailyGrind51]

21. Students pretty much tune out after Memorial Day anyway.

They are already in "summer mode". You can lead a child to knowledge, but you can't make him/her learn!

[femmocrat]

26. Actually, they are "done" when standardized testing is completed in April.

Another consequence of the emphasis on high-stakes testing.

[underpants]

23. Never happen in Virginia- they don't start school until after Labor Day- for tourism

a few counties in the west of the state that get a pass on this.

Williamsburg
Kings Dominion
Va. Beach

[Davis_X_Machina]

29. Same here in Maine. n/t

[phylny]

69. School here in Bedford County and surrounding areas

start school in August.

Our last graduated from high school this year. I loved summer vacation as a kid, and they did, too.

[femmocrat]

25. NO. From a teacher.

I am in PA. It gets hot and humid here in the summers. In fact, we just had the hottest July on record. Our school buildings are not air-conditioned. Actually it is hot and humid here in May, June, August and half of September. It gets really uncomfortable -- the kids whine, they are cranky, I'm completely miserable, and no one is focused on school work.

BTW: Whatever happened to all that stimulus money that was supposed to go to repairing and updating school buildings? If we got AC, then I could see going longer. As it is, we only really have off mid-June to mid-August.

And as someone stated above, we are mandated to take CEU credits, much of which is accomplished over summer break.

[LWolf]

33. I taught through summers in the Mojave Desert.

I loved it.

At school I had air conditioning. At home I had a swamp cooler, but it was too hot to have much in the way of fun, or get projects done, etc..

Working through the summer with air conditioning, and then getting a nice break in October, and again in the spring, when the weather was at it's most beautiful, was wonderful.

[Naturyl]

27. Abolish summer vacation?

Let's abolish childhood, too.

[countingbluecars]

28. My best childhood memories

are summer memories!

[Arugula Latte]

30. NO. Summer vacation serves an important purpose.

I feel like there is not enough time in the summer as it is. I wish my kids were home another month! They need time to veg, to go to camps to explore other interests, to entertain themselves, to sleep in, to make memories of long sunny days, to travel. Summer is not a lost time. Learning and memory-making are occurring. My young teen son had a baseball season that ended a week ago, and then he was at camp for a week. I am so happy he has a few days without anything scheduled (other than his yardwork business). Then we're going on a trip. He's not bored, and neither is my daughter.

[LWolf]

35. Does it really matter whether or not

unscheduled time happens during the summer, or at other points in the year?

[seabeyond]

54. a big chunk of time vs lot of little pieces of time does make a difference. nt

[LWolf]

56. I think it makes a good difference.

Keep in mind that it's not necessarily a lot of little pieces. Simply taking the 12 weeks of summer and dividing them up to provide a break at the end of each term still gives a significant break each time. A system run on trimesters would give (3) 4 week breaks, in addition to traditional winter and spring.

The benefits of reducing or eliminating burnout can't be emphasized enough.

[Arugula Latte]

57. Unscheduled time is tricky to find during the school year.

My son gets out of school at 3:45, which means if he takes the bus he gets home at 4:15 (in winter it's practically dark by then). He has homework and also usually plays one sport, so that often means practice or a game. It leaves little time for unscheduled time.

[LWolf]

59. Which misses my point.

Does it matter when breaks from school happen...all at once during the summer, or divided into a few shorter, yet still significant breaks throughout the year?

[SoCalDem]

34. No need really.. Just go to a year 'round curriculum

with three 1-month breaks.. Raise the teacher's salaries & use the schools year-round instead of closing them down every summer. They could run 2 tracks, with a 1-month overlap.....and the 1 month overlap could be used for maintenance.

Kids with "religious families" could choose to be off during their own religion's festivities...whatever track that has to most "offs", could be the 2-month for reno & rehab of the building.

Not everyone WANTS to be off during the heat of summer.. there are families that like to winter vacation:)

[LWolf]

36. Having worked those kinds of calendars in So Cal,

I have to say that I prefer SINGLE-TRACK year-round. No overlapping.

When you have overlapping, teachers have to pack up and store their rooms every time they go on break, and unpack and set up in new rooms every time they get back.

It's a MAJOR pain in the ass, districts offer a couple of hours during a contractual work day to accomplish a couple of days worth of work, leaving teachers to do the rest after hours and weekends, off-contract and unpaid, and it leads to a distinct narrowing of materials, resources, etc.; less to pack, less to take down.

The shorter, more frequent breaks are great, though. No burn-out. Less need for re-teaching. My favorite calendar was the one that gave me Octobers off.

[Hekate]

37. American public school students have fewer days in school than anyone else. We are behind...

... way behind, the rest of the world. That's #1.

#2 Year by year disadvantaged students slide ever farther behind their more affluent peers, who usually have enrichment activities planned by their parents during the long summer break.

#3 Unlike Asian and European teachers, American teachers routinely have to take several weeks at the start of each school year to bring their students back up to speed, because over the break they forget a lot of what they learned. Again, more affluent students are at a distinct advantage, simply because their parents have the means to be more focused on their kids' schooling and to provide for it during down times. They get ahead and they stay ahead, and it's not about discrimination by teachers.

#4 Our system is completely out of step with the modern world, having been based on an agricultural model that has not existed since WW II. Again, American students spend far, far less time in the classroom than their peers in other industrialized nations -- and it shows.

Source: "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Hekate

[pitohui]

38. as long as women's jobs are not taken seriously, there will be summer vacations

if we thought women did work of any value, we wouldn't have a system that relied on them 1) being home to greet the kids from school long before a serious work day is over and 2) relied on them being home for a solid 3 months out of the year

the lengthy summer vacation teaches kids that your mother is working just as a hobby, that her income is of no importance or value, because her work/career can be dropped for 3 months at a time to baby sit you

of course a 3 month summer vacation is ridiculous, it's a shameful scam that it has gone on for this long

but it's a great way to trap women in a hell of guilt and legal difficulties, let's see, go to work and leave the kids at home, potential of getting charged with child neglect because brat is unsupervised, or you can quit work and spend all your time supervising a child because after all your career and dreams have no value...

unless you're one of the rare few in the class who can afford to hire nannies/expensive child care our current system is just fucked, fucked, fucked

adult americans don't have 4 week vacations, hard to see why kids, who don't work to begin with, should have months of vacation, makes NO sense

in a world where there are not enough jobs for educated people, a very simple way to create more jobs would be to force schools to go year-round and to go full business hours, i'm not saying teachers should like work normal hours everybody else does, i can hear the howls from here, i'm saying if teachers can only work 6 hrs a day 9 months a year without being stressed out HIRE MORE FUCKING TEACHERS because the current system is unfair to parents and child alike

[femmocrat]

40. We actually get about 8 weeks off in the summer here.

And we work contractually a 7 3/4 hr. day. Most of us put in many, many unpaid extra hours with planning, preparation, conferences, paperwork, school activities, etc.

We do get off 3 days at Thanksgiving (Monday is for deer hunting!) and the week between Christmas and New Year's. Easter break was only Good Friday this year because we had to make up snow days. We also get Labor Day and Memorial Day off. During the summers we have to take our (state-mandated) continuing education or college credits to maintain certification. We also work on curriculum, long-range planning, and various other school and state-required projects over the summers. Many teachers teach remedial and/or enrichment courses in the summer. Many others work during the summers to make ends meet or to pay off college loans.

Your model seems to substitute parental child-care for full-time babysitting by the schools. I really don't think it has anything to do with out-dated notions of "women's work". There are plenty of women who support families and fathers who share child-care responsibilities.

[WinkyDink]

41. I swam. I read. I played cards. I went to Fairs. Did I mention I read? Bored if ya wanna be.

[Odin2005]

45. NO! Kids need free time so their imaginations are free to run wild.

Year-round school would suck the creative thinking from kids even more than now, which is what the PTB want, of course.

[carlyhippy]

46. My kids are all out of public school now, so it doesn't matter to me, but I will chime in

Yes, they should. Alot of families both parents work, and its hard to find childcare. Give them a vacation, but not nearly 3 months' worth. Space out the vacations throughout the year. The kids forget while they are on vacation for that long. That way they will have a decent break, won't be burned out, and will be gone just long enough to not forget all they learned the past year.

Now for the teachers. Yes, they need longer vacations in the summer. They need time off to wind down and relax. I propose 2 sets of teachers, 6 months on and 6 months off. The students have a team of 2 teachers, one leaves and the other takes up where teacher 1 left off.

[lostnfound]

47. Personally I remember reading Dickens, volunteering at the library, playing tennis, tending a garden

Especially the garden, with my mom. I also remember hanging the laundry on the line in the yard. And a summer rec program at a different school than I normally went to.
A couple of month-long spaced vacations would be okay too.

[old mark]

48. Back in the 1950's, after the Soviets launched the first satelite, Nixon

advocated year-round school so our kids would grow up to be scientists and beat the Commies.
I have hated him ever since.
Vacations to me were the best part of school, as my retirement has become the best part of my working life.

Schools are even worse now - why do kids need to learn more useless shit? Are we worried about beating the Chinese?

mark

[GreenArrow]

67. Right on!

Summer vacation is simply a different sort of education, namely, life.

[aikoaiko]

50. Yep, it is time to change to a year long program with spaced out vacations

[HughBeaumont]

51. Yes, by all means, let's make kids MORE miserable.

You supporters of this must have loved school and found it to be a rewarding and nice experience. School was a fucking miserable "stay-in-line" march of hopelessness for me and I'm sure countless thousands of other students.

The constant busywork, homework that consumed just about every ounce of free time, studying for hours and getting average to below average grades as a result, bad teachers who should have retired years previous berating you in class and making you feel like even less of a piece of shit than you already feel, useless classes that seemed to get longer with each passing day .. .. oh, did I mention the coital mistake bullies, douchebaggity cliques, drug use, and students of both genders being assholes for the sake of being assholes?

Yes, I mean, who WOULDN'T want to forego the one escape you have from this idiocy, the one glimmer of hope in a sewer of a life . . . to trudge through this lake of liquid manure ALL year ROUND? After all, those douchebags are going to be a hell of a lot less surly if you take THEIR summer away and they'll perhaps leave you alone, right? Hey, who needs FUN? Was it Hegel or Red Forman who said "To be a well adjusted adult later in life, you have to be miserable NOW! That's just good parenting."

Life isn't about FUN, and the sooner us untermensch drones get that through our thick skulls, the better off we'll BE. :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

You're concerned about students being "left behind"? Here's a clue, first one's free: DON'T ELECT REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS, BECAUSE THEY DEFUND ALL THINGS PERTINENT TO EDUCATION AND USE THE BORROWED LOOT TO BLOW UP SOVEREIGN NATIONS AND FUND MANSIONS FOR THE WEALTHY!

[RagAss]

52. Fuck that...let's just put these kids back to work in the coal mines !

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[onethatcares]

58. now you're talkin

these sniveling rugrats should be out there earning their way in the world, not being kids and having a good time or anything remotely similar.

I am so glad someone shares my meanderings. :toast:

[csziggy]

61. My sister was a counseler in a school that had four quarters a year

To be full time, the students had to attend three quarters a year. It was in an area that had a wide variety of people, including a large migrant worker population - in other words, fruit and vegetable pickers. Between each quarter there was a week or two of break, usually scheduled around major holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Memorial and Veteran's Days.

Everyone loved it - the teachers, the students, the parents. The teachers could earn slightly higher salaries by choosing to teacher all four quarters or take quarters off for supplemental training. The students could get vacations at some time other than the hottest part of the year - in Florida that is important. And the parents had more flexibility for scheduling their work times or for taking vacations. For the migrant workers, they could be sure their children got at least some full school terms before their had to move to new locations.

And for the really driven or smart kids, it was a way to accelerate their education.

I am not sure if that program is still going - it was a federally funded experimental program years ago.

[Ramulux]

62. Fuck that shit

Just because some people are so boring that they cant find things to do in their free time, doesn't mean the rest of us feel like going to school year round. This literally might be the single worst idea ever.

[ThatsMyBarack]

63. No more summer camp, then?

What a travesty that would be!

[Orsino]

64. Race to the bottom.

If Time is for it, it's just advocacy for daycare on the cheap. They hate seeing all those teachers sitting idle.

[slampoet]

65. I've been hearing this threat all my life for 40 years.

Nothing ever comes of it because too many teachers have summer only businesses and part time careers.

[Nikia]

66. It would kill Northern tourism

A long summer vacation gives families more oppurtunities to vacation during that time of year. Many popular tourist destinations are open primarily during that time period. These destinations often rely on student workers to work during these times.

[glen123098]

68. Hell No!

America's culture is too workaholic. We work more hours than the Europeans and get less out of it. We only get 2 weeks of vaction, when they get 6. Let kids be kids. They need the chance top have some fun in life, before they become corporate slaves.