Recently I had a conversation with my sister about the advantages and disadvantages of a year-round school. I know, I know, school all year-round, no 3 month summer, sounds terrible, right? Maybe not. I don't know about you but I absolutely hate our 3 month straight summer break, where you become so detached from all of your school friends you almost want to go back for the first day. Then we get started with the first month of school EVERYDAY and only look forward to our one week Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. But what if we had only a 7 week summer break, with shorter school days, and more of our 3-day weekends, or 1 week breaks that we crave.
Studies have been done showing that a large percentage of students go through "summer learning loss". (citation below) I must say I am guilty of this. After going through 3 months of not opening binders, talking about World War 1, writing a 3-page essay, bringing out that graphing calculator I love, or conjugating preterite progressive verbs on a daily basis, I don't understand how anyone expects us to jump right back into our learning from the previous year and remember, lets say, our hundreds of Spanish vocabulary words.
Still not sold on the whole idea? I'm sure you're wondering what we would do without a summer break to take a big vacation to Hawaii or the Bahamas every year. Well, year-round schools would have more evenly and frequently spread breaks throughout the school year. Making room for maybe a family vacation without missing school, or even just a week to veg out on the couch with friends. And on top of that, no reteaching of basic skills we forgot over the 3 month summer. Or rereading the same exact class syllabus in each class for the first week of school... I don't know about you, but right about now I'm already needing a week-long Thanksgiving break. Lets say, midterm break? I like the sounds of that.
One con to year-round schools, LONGER SCHOOL DAYS. Alright, now it sounds terrible, but don't forget about the plus sides, I still think it's a valid suggestion.
Recently I had a conversation with my sister about the advantages and disadvantages of a year-round school. I know, I know, school all year-round, no 3 month summer, sounds terrible, right? Maybe not. I don't know about you but I absolutely hate our 3 month straight summer break, where you become so detached from all of your school friends you almost want to go back for the first day. Then we get started with the first month of school EVERYDAY and only look forward to our one week Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. But what if we had only a 7 week summer break, with shorter school days, and more of our 3-day weekends, or 1 week breaks that we crave.
Studies have been done showing that a large percentage of students go through "summer learning loss". (citation below) I must say I am guilty of this. After going through 3 months of not opening binders, talking about World War 1, writing a 3-page essay, bringing out that graphing calculator I love, or conjugating preterite progressive verbs on a daily basis, I don't understand how anyone expects us to jump right back into our learning from the previous year and remember, lets say, our hundreds of Spanish vocabulary words.
Still not sold on the whole idea? I'm sure you're wondering what we would do without a summer break to take a big vacation to Hawaii or the Bahamas every year. Well, year-round schools would have more evenly and frequently spread breaks throughout the school year. Making room for maybe a family vacation without missing school, or even just a week to veg out on the couch with friends. And on top of that, no reteaching of basic skills we forgot over the 3 month summer. Or rereading the same exact class syllabus in each class for the first week of school... I don't know about you, but right about now I'm already needing a week-long Thanksgiving break. Lets say, midterm break? I like the sounds of that.
One con to year-round schools, LONGER SCHOOL DAYS. Alright, now it sounds terrible, but don't forget about the plus sides, I still think it's a valid suggestion.
http://childparenting.about.com/od/schoollearning/a/year-round-school-pros-cons.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment