Here at Sparklife we don’t often twist your arm about following politics (especially during summer break), but when those politics involve the continued existence of summer vacation itself we suggest that it’s worth a look.
Recently, politicians from President Barack Obama to former congressman Newt Gingrich have been giving the thumbs down to the length of school days and years enjoyed by American students, and within a couple of years it’s possible that high schoolers will be spending a lot more time behind their desks.
The complaint: The short school days of students in the U.S. and the three month summer break both date back over a hundred years to when many more of us were farmers. Now that most of us aren’t needed to plant tubers and herd cattle from June through August, there’s no point in giving students 90 consecutive days of R&R every summer.
It’s true that American students do spend a lot less time in school than those in Europe and Asia. If you go to school in the U.S. you’re probably in class for about 32 hours a week. By contrast, any Sparklers hailing from Sweden spend between 50-60 hours. Elsewhere, school years also tend to be anywhere from two weeks to more than a month longer, and it’s no secret that your math skills shrink like the Magic School Bus over summer vacation (unimaginatively known as “Summer Learning Loss.”)
But in defense of our summers, it’s not as if everyone just curls up on the couch watching endless James Bond marathons on cable or sitting out in the sun waiting to sauté. Many students have full time summer jobs, where they’re learning things like CPR or business skills, and plenty more have summer camps or sports that give them a chance to meet friends and learn things away from textbooks. And we haven’t even mentioned all the other things you can do with a summer, like this, this, or this.
And so we turn the floor over to you, Sparklers: Do you think you learn anything useful between June and August? How attached are you to your current school schedule? And if it comes to it, would you be willing to protest the loss of your summer vacation?
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