Now it's September! Now Summer is officially over! So, why have the children been back in school for almost three weeks? Why have they done this? Summer is too hot to be stuck in a class room,and we have had several days when the children have just suffered with the heat, because the school board wants to rush them into school before the season is over.Well, why not? It's no skin off their noses. They have Air Conditioned offices,likewise their cars to take them to and from said cool offices, they aren't out walking to school in 100 degree heat, sweltering in stuffy hot classes, and then walking back home in the heat of the day! I feel this is rather an irksome turn of events, taking most of the summer fun time away from the kids,which they say is for the good of the children's education, but I don't believe it. I think they just want the test scores to be better, now that there are watchdog groups putting schools performance under a microscope,and this is the response to that perceived threat, saying the children forget too much over the course of a three month break! Well, balderdash to that! It seems to me more likely that they don't pay the good teachers enough to keep them, and so what they have left aren't doing the job! A good teacher doesn't have to have children in the classroom beyond the normal amount of time, because they have a talent of communicating with youngsters,and once the connection is established, the children are inspired to learn at a faster rate. Poor teachers spend most of their time breathing down the back of the kids necks,and handing down tons of homework to make up for their own shortcomings. What the school board fails to realize is, the smart kids aren't getting the attention they deserve, because an incompetent teacher is incapable of controlling the class when it is filled with ruffians and bullies,who they either can't or won't correct or dismiss, and the good student is usually intimidated by those same unsavory characters. Who wants to speak up in class if the rowdies are going to beat you up in the hallway, or threaten you on the playground? And the school does nothing to the offenders when they are reported or caught, so school is no longer a safe place to be. Which is an even stronger argument in favor of a longer summer vacation.
And now, the school officials are considering the year-round school schedule. What a horror that is! It didn't make any sense to me when I saw it being played out in Oregon twenty years ago,and it certainly doesn't make any sense to me now.
School should be in session when the weather is too cold to enjoy being outside, when you're glad to be in where it is warm and dry. That's when children can turn their full attention to their studies and not sit there drifting and dreaming about swimming and roller-skating,picnics and fishing!
I guess I can see it so clearly from a child's perspective, because when I felt misunderstood as a child, I vowed I would not forget what it was like to be a child. So many of our "educators" now have forgotten, it is little wonder they are in the process of turning our schools into experiments in progress, rather than leaving things the way they were. You know. Back when School didn't start until after labor day, when the nights were cool enough to be able to sleep,and it was no longer too hot to cook a good meal during the day.
OUI?
Posted by: OLDCATMAN | September 06, 2006 at 01:08 PM