That's just empty rhetoric bullshit language meant to condemn anything with which one disapproves without having to prove the merits of the assertion.
What, if you would be so kind, is outdated about the practice of giving students time away from school for the full summer? What specific societal changes or technological advancements have taken place that would invalidate that practice?
I wonder, given the easy and ready access to information afford by telecommunications and advances in computers, why people are pushing to increase the time students are crammed together in one place for learning. Why not do away with the classrooms altogether? With the enormous drain on municipal and city budgets, the apparently escalating risk of gun violence, and in many cases, the near certainty of being socialized to the lowest common denominator, i.e. introducing them to substance abuse and criminal activity, the advances in communication technology increasingly support the possibility of telecommuting to school. Teacher whine about class size, asserting the greater supervision of children, the better their education, but couldn't a parent with intimate personal knowledge of their children do a far better job of supervising them and overseeing their education, than a stranger they met less than nine months ago, and who has 20-30 others to supervise at the same time.
Of course, there is Obama's nonsensical myth about the old school year being based on agricultural cycles, but one is then left to wonder why children were sent to school during the spring planting and fall harvesting, and kept home during the period of least intensive work.
The idea that more school time is beneficial is one floated entirely by the teachers and their organizations, without benefit of any sort empirical testing, merely the consensus of... more teachers and educational professionals, all of whom stand to benefit from it financially and in prestige and control.
Three people are involved in any child's education, the child, the parent and the teacher, and the least important (not to mention mercenary and financially-interested) one, with the least motivation and interest in the child's well-being, is the one on which all efforts to improve education are focused, and to whom most credibility is given.
Shitty schools are that way because they are attended by ill-raised children from badly parented families, not from any dearth of time, funds or outside support.
- It doesn't serve any purpose.
- It's your opinion that it's empty rhetoric and it's my opinion that it's not empty rhetoric.
- One could argue there is no empirical data because schools in the US's modern schooling system have always had summer breaks. There is no historical nationwide alternative test set to compare it against. This is even more reason to deviate from the current method, to provide alternative data about its usefulness.
- Data does show that student's fail to retain a large portion of their previous training because of the extensive break from schooling. The first month of classes is spent retraining students. The first month of the second semester doesn't require the same retraining period.
- I concur with your sentiment on distance education at home. However, this is not an option for dual income homes. Teachers are in a sense day time baby sitters for those homes.
- What is there to gain from sending kids off to do nothing for 3-4 months?
- It's not just based off former agrarian schedules. It is also based off summers being too hot to teach in classes pre-Air Conditioning times.
- I think some time for family vacations and a break away from school is still beneficial to students. Perhaps three-four weeks. Three-four months is however, excessive and outdated.
- Long summers are not the only problem with shitty schools. Shitty single mother (without unknown father) who works all the time raising unsupervised poorly reared children is a much bigger contributor.EDITAnd the fact that the best teachers stay at the highest funded schools with the students who come from the best family's because they find it the most rewarding to work with students who want to better themselves. It would make the most sense to "reward" the best teachers by sending them to the worst schools and providing the worst schools with the best funding from the property taxes paid by the richest home owners. However, since people like to keep their money in their neighborhood, and excellent teachers like to stay in excellent schools, you won't see this. Can't say I blame either much. The educated will keep getting more educated and the uneducated will just get dumber. Our schools failing is a combined product of failed parenting and mismanaged resources (teachers and money). The summers thing as a whole benefit the school system as whole (both succeeding and failing districts), IMO.
- 05/01/2014 09:13:44 AM
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