The good and bad news is wrapped up into one link:
Obama wants to extend the school-year Hopefully more information will be released soon detailing how Obama plans to implement this.
The good news is in the extension of the school day itself. If this is accompanied by a decrease in homework (specifically in the amount of busy work assigned), then that seems like it would be a good thing. Students having trouble in math need extra instructor time, not an extra 30 problems for homework. And if schools added back in interesting electives, that would be fantabulous. This simple change could vastly improve our school systems. Start paying teachers more and get rid of those pesky standardized tests, and we would be well on our way to developing an ideal system.
The bad news is in that this may be part of also increasing the school year. The problem there comes in that children learn in a variety of manners, not all of which are represented through a traditional public school system. I will use myself as an example; sure the first month of my summer vacations tended to be a waste, back when I got such things and didn’t have to work, but the other two months tended to be very productive. After having recovered from the beat-down of school I began to be creative, which manifested itself in a wide variety of ways. Most notably, I developed writing as a hobby. Basically since 5th grade you could generally find me, during the summers, on a computer pumping out created worlds and characters (which never were completed, as I also developed editing as a hobby, which makes for a very nasty taskmaster). Cut out my summers and you’d have cut out my writing hobby, which would have cut out much of my skill with the English language and would have prevented me from excelling in school.
Children need significant free time to develop themselves, their own interests, and interpersonal relationships. They also need time specifically with their families (assuming, of course, they have decent families; I’m sure there are some children who would do well to spend less time with their families). The problem is that year-round school helps underprivileged children while holding back privileged children. Thus, it is both good and back. If it is implemented, we would be ensuring that our best and brightest are not as good or bright as they could be, but we would also be engaging in commendable behavior by helping forgotten children. Could we offer this as a possibility for children but not a requirement? Yet that merely allows for there to be a crossover of good-but-busy parents shoving their kids into such a program and bad parents shoving good kids into it. Not every kid would be held back, and not every kid would be helped forward, true, but a good number would seem like they’d be left out.
But in all likelihood, this will come to naught for a simple want of money. Teachers are already overworked and underpaid; extending the school year without appropriate compensation will just drive qualified individuals out of the field. Mind you, it wouldn’t be as simple as just paying them for the extra classroom time; one would really need to also pay them for the lost vacation as well. To be fair, this could be easily solved by chopping off the administration in most school districts above the level of principle, but I doubt that will happen.
On, Education!
Random bit of trivia: I’ve been studying Latin and an interesting thing came up. The word that we get “study” from, “studere,” does mean “to study,” but it also means “to be zealous for.” It is interesting that the Romans perceived studying as a passionate activity.
