I'm a big fan of summer. I still have the same "back-to-school" nightmares I experienced as a kid as the days get shorter each August. I think that "Back-to-School" sales before Independence Day are a form of child abuse. I believe that casual neighborhood play, family vacations, scouting and organized camps produce powerful learning experiences unrivaled by school.
When I hire new teachers, I look for people who worked at a summer camp. These are teachers who love kids and know how to engage them in meaningful (and fun) activities without coercion or a scripted curriculum. In 2007, I took issue with then Senator Clinton's call for more tutoring and suggested that the federal money allocated for tutoring children in "underperforming schools" be spent on summer camp (My Plan to Fix NCLB). The richest nation in the world can afford high-quality summer activities for even its poorest children.
Also in 2007, I published When the Jumbotron says, "Read," You Read! That article addressed the folly of forced summer reading assigned by schools, the outlandish claims made on behalf of the practice and the punishments meted out for non-compliance. I marveled at the quality of books assigned as summer reading when compared with the standardized drivel "read" during the school year and mourned the absence of meaningful discussion accompanying the reading.
When I was a kid, the only time you heard the combination of the words, "summer" and "school" was if you misbehaved or failed a course during the school year. How I long for the good ol' days.
Just when I think that schooling can not get any more punitive or heavy-handed, things get worse. Schools no longer feel constrained by the impulse to ask kids to read Homer Price, Holes or Because of Winn-Dixie for pleasure under a tree on a balmy summer day. Now, school leaders view children as their serfs and every waking minute of a child's life as their property. Such megalomania may be rooted in the paranoia created by the testing uber-alles policies of NCLB and Race To The Top. Whatever the motivation, robbing children of summer is irresponsible, ineffective and malicious.
Wow! Those are strong words, Dr. Stager. What are you talking about?
My "niece," let's call her "Miss Summer," just completed eighth grade in a Northern New Jersey public school district. Miss Summer is an excellent student with perfect attendance and a great many interests she looks forward to pursuing during the summer. They include swimming, playing with her brother, developing friendships, practicing the trumpet, fishing, genealogy, reading and doing nothing at all but staying in her pajamas on rainy days and watching cartoons. When I was a kid, our society valued those activities and embraced childhood. That is no longer the case.
At the end of eighth grade, Miss Summer received a substantial packet of work to be completed before she sets foot in her new high school. The transition from primary to secondary school is stressful enough, but now a mountain of homework hung over a carefree summer like a rain cloud ruining your beach vacation. Miss Summer's school district is no longer content with suggested summer reading for parents interested in supplementing a child's education. Hell no!
Miss Summer has assignments in nearly every subject, is expected to read Dickens' Great Expectations alone and without teacher support, write a thesis or two and submit the work by assigned due dates via a Web-based plagiarism site, Turnitin.com.
This mountain of homework is not only cruel, it is irresponsible, miseducative and profoundly unfair for the following reasons.
I do everything I can to combat to the misguided federal education policies turning schools into joyless test-prep factories. I'll march. I'll write. I'll speak out. I'll organize. I'll donate. I'll provide educators with alternative strategies and help them improve their practice. I will challenge the plutocrats who threaten teachers and children.
What I will not do is defend educators who transfer their misery to innocent children. It is unconscionable for teachers to outsource their corpulent curriculum to children. You have no right to surveillance when a child is at home. If kids cannot count on you to stand between them and madness, who will protect them?
For more arguments against homework, read Alfie Kohn's book, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing or watch his DVD, No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning.
Follow Gary Stager on Twitter: www.twitter.com/garystager
http://davidwees.com/content/25-things-kids-can-do-instead-of-homework
public school= memorize, test, dump information (TOLD what to think, do and "learn")
homeschool = Learn, retain, and build on that information (Follow interests, given flexibility, personal attention, learns to love learning--because it is FUN!)
http://jacksonvillehomeschoolkids.yolasite.com/socialization-of-home-vs-public-educated-children.php
Someday--the education system will realize we are out of the Industrial Revolution, and revamp to fit today's modern world....
I have received a few messages from students saying they were bored over summer break and can't wait for school. Not every family can afford to do fun things over the summer, unfortunately.
Do you think it's a good idea to give kids homework when they have yet to attend the school or meet their teachers?
Where to schools get the right to overrule how families spend their leisure time?
Parents and kids in the US are familiar with the first week or two of school and the last month or so being "less than optimal" as "We're just getting started" or "We're winding down to vacation."
Now imagine that school starts and finishes FOUR times per year. Wasting a week at the beginning and a few more at the end four times per year, greatly disrupts the process of schooling. Learning is unaffected because it's naturally occurring at all times.
Your argument seems to discount the powerful learning opportunities possible outside of school, as well as reinforces the the idea that we should do a lot more of what some argue doesn't work.
Oh yeah, the lose it or lose it theory is silly. If what kids were being taught in school was indeed useful, they would use it without coercion or a longer school year.
Too many people think that learning must be drudgery or it's not "rigorous."
The kid who reads Harry Potter or Twilight for fun learns more than the kids we drag through some classic that even the adults don't enjoy. Pleasure does not inhibit learning!
And we overlook all the important things learned during "free" time. I'm glad you point that out. Family vacations, and the experience of seeing new places, can be the most important learning experience in a child's year.
And on a side note, I would really love if teachers could assign kids books they might enjoy reading. There is plenty of literary merit in modern titles that can teach the same concepts while being entertaining for the kids.
The image of teachers has taken an unfair beating over the last few years. Does this bogus practice help us to be seen as valuable professionals or does it promote teacher resentment and bashing?
Thanks Gary for telling the truth.
I volunter.
Sign me up.
Excellent article, and I am now following.