DEBRA-LYNN B. HOOK
BRINGING UP MOMMY
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
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THE CASE AGAINST THE CASE AGAINST SUMMER VACATION
Record-breaking summer heat notwithstanding, I went chilly all over when I saw “Time” magazine’s “The Case Against Summer Vacation” cover in my mailbox recently.
Here we go again, I thought – the brain-drain days of summer being vilified for a substantial fall-back in September achievement, being blamed for a failed education system, being pounded on for our inability to compete with our European and Asian counterparts, being ultimately responsible for our entire economy becoming a laughingstock around the world.
The case is nothing new, nor is the split between parents. While one set of parents remains pro-summer, nostalgic for long, barefoot summer days for their kids, the other sees summer as little more than a mad, three-month scramble for child care. While one set wants the institution of summer not tampered with, this latter group believes replacing summer with shorter, more manageable breaks throughout the year would spell relief.
The issue, meanwhile, remains clear-cut for education gurus like U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, his approach apparent in a speech last year to a group of middle- and high-school students in Denver: "Go ahead and boo me. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, eleven, twelve months a year." And arguments continue to stack up, with “Time’s” Aug. 2 issue reporting a particular relevance for the gap summer vacation creates between income groups:
Middle- income kids lose a month of (math) knowledge during the summer, while poorer kids lose a full three months (in reading comprehension). Middle-income kids use their summers to enrich their lives --- trolloping off to summer camps and family vacations – while low-income kids are relegated to home alone, hours in front of video games, boredom and isolation. The solution, according to “Time” sources, is organized summer learning and enrichment camps -- summer school -- which philanthropic organizations have been building throughout the country, and which public schools have begun to offer in some low-income areas.
I make no apologies for my knee-jerk response to this and every other “case against summer vacation” – a response that has little to do with nostalgia. Nor am I necessarily against summer “enrichment,” if that’s what it really is.
My disdain, rather, is built around the concept of “academic achievement.”
Don’t get me wrong. I support public education and every child having the opportunity to do well in school.
What I do not support is academic achievement as the definition of childhood’s success.
What I cannot hold up is the success of a child’s life being tied to formal education, being tied to numbers, being tied to competition in China, where kids get six weeks of summer, which are spent studying for entrance exams.
I happen to believe there are other critical aspects of humanity to promote during childhood, such as balance, such as family wholeness, such as identity and a sense of play. Wrap a child’s year around school, which is what would happen if he were given a couple of weeks off here and there, and he would become a functionary in an economic system. Life outside school would no longer constitute enough constant space to give it an identity of its own, its shape determined by the individual family for better or for worse. It would be only a blip of time here and there, a small break from the system that sets the clock for life.
I do not pretend to know the answers for failed academic achievement. I appreciate what my teacher friends tell me about the summer brain lapse. I am hesitant, however, to believe that summer enrichment camps, especially if they are run by the public school that has already failed the student, is going to make that much difference in the end.
Meanwhile, I know this is a country that prides itself on its ability to compete, and that competition is only getting fiercer. Duncan’s vision of the 11- or 12-month school year may one day ride right into town on the fear that competition promotes. If and when that day comes, Mr. Duncan, I hope you and your staff are aware of
additional issues that will need addressing:
1. All schools will need to have the same time off so that if my family wants to visit my sister’s family in Memphis during whatever coveted time we have, we won’t be visiting while her kids are in school.
2. All schools will need air conditioning. This would have been especially important this summer, which included the hottest July in recorded history.
3. All schools will need to reinstate daily physical education classes and incorporate plenty of outdoor time into the day. More time in school means less physical time with friends and family.
4. All schools will need to fix the start and end time to coincide with a particular age group’s sleep needs. While younger kids are OK with “early to bed, early to rise,” teenagers’ brains have been proven to function better if they go to bed at 2 a.m., and get up at 11.
5. Extracurricular activities, like sports and music lessons, should be kept at a minimum if kids are going to get enough sleep, down time and family time, and homework time without collapsing, which means the school is going to have to take up this slack, too.
6. Homework, once and for all, will have to be kept at the recommended limit of 10 minutes per grade level, preferably less. Remember the adage that begins “All work and no play.”
7. While we're at it, keep in mind there’s only so much one child can carry on his back. “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see,” wrote cultural critic and author, Neil Postman in “The Disappearance of Childhood.”
--Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been publishing her column about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. E-mails are welcome at dlbhook@yahoo.com.
