My school year is almost over. My students and I always manage to end the year on a good "note" (pun intended, I teach music!). I am grateful to them for this . . . it helps me to recover from the bleak winter and causes me to look forwards to the next school year. I like this cycle . . . which caused me to pause when I read an "educational reform" article. Disclaimer: music teachers tend to despise anything having to do with educational reform as we are mostly excluded from these efforts.
While I try to avoid written discourse on educational reform, the concept of year round school keeps popping up in places that I can't avoid. While I understand that this concept exists to raise standardized test scores, I think that this policy must have been created by people who didn't go to their neighborhood pool in the summer. It must have been created by people who never climbed the apple tree . . . or picked flowers from their neighbors garden . . . or built a fort in the woods . . . or who went to movie matinees on the hottest days . . .
Students (and teachers too) should be allowed time away from school to experience personal growth. The concept of having a new beginning each year is important to student growth. It allows them to start over each year with mostly new teachers. Students have the opportunity to shed the baggage from the previous year when they make a fresh start. When I was growing up, the first day of school was filled with such optimism. I had a new outfit for the first day and new notebooks and school supplies. I was always excited to meet my new teacher. Aren't cycles of renewal part of life? I think so.
Year round school is justified by reformers as halting the regression of skills. Well maybe . . . anyone who has worked with children know that learning is not always marked by continual progress. Learning is sometimes easy and sometimes not. Kids "master" new concepts but sometimes forget them when their class moves on to a new unit. This is how our brain works. Pathways are created when new information is assimilated. Those pathways become stronger when they are consistently used but will fade when not used. Let's face it . . . we can't use every pathway in our brains all the time. Proponents also cite the fact that kids spend most of their time in front of the television . . . well, not all tv is bad! Besides, most kids I know have too much energy and like to do things. This faulty reasoning underestimates the need of kids to be active.
Besides, we are discounting the value of the activities and experiences that children engage in during summer vacations. Kids go to camp, create art work, take lessons in new things like karate, music instruments, and pottery. Kids make new friends and discover new internet sites. They might also develop more proficiency in the current version of Madden. These are varied experiences that cause cognitive, social, physical, and emotional growth. We shouldn't discount the importance of spending time with family members. Our family structure erodes more each year, or so Fox news projects. Summer vacations are a time when families connect. Some of my best memories are from the times when my dad and mom would play hide-and-go-seek with all the kids in our neighborhood. Why would we want to take away the value of spending time with family and friends? Building effective social relationships has a direct effect on school success. Why would we want to discount the value of play? Early childhood educators have always promoted play as a necessary part of learning about our environment. Shouldn't kids have the opportunity to pick up cool looking rocks and stone and sticks?
While I do understand the politics of these types of "reform", do we really want to deprive our students of the opportunity to climb a tree, eat a sticky popsicle, or jump off the highest diving board at the pool? Shouldn't a child be able to start each new school year with optimism and a fresh slate? Maybe we should give the students a choice: they can draw on the driveway and sidewalks with chalk or practice their six time tables . . . I suspect that we all know what the result of that question would be!
