More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation

Well this is one of Obama's idea that I am mostly in favor of. Some school districts have already implemented systems of going to school year round with great results. In those schools the year really isn't extended much but rather than having a long summer and winter breaks they have several smaller breaks.

I don't necessarily agree with longer days as I think that they are sufficient, but longer years I can definitely get on board with. I know there a lot of kids out there who hate that idea, but it is time for us as a country to get our education levels at least on par with other top nations

reply to post by Violet Sky


I agree....my kids are the same way. The amount that they have now is just fine, and the teachers won't put up with that crap anyway. If it did happen, I would be keeping my kids home alot more. Almost sounds like another reason to start home schooling!

Originally posted by lucentenigma

Originally posted by sad_eyed_lady
Jeeze, take all the fun out of being a kid. Maybe make the kids with D or lower average do summer school and reward the rest with a fun 3 month vacation. It might be a little incentive to try harder.

Summer vacation is a tradition.

Summer camps, swimming pools, building forts, first girlfriends, rites of passage.

I think summer vacation is an important development as school itself.

I agree with you 100%!

Search about JOHN TAYLOR GATTO

www.johntaylorgatto.com...


www.spinninglobe.net...

" In school, a washing away of the innate power of individual mind takes place, a "cleansing" so comprehensive that original thinking becomes difficult. If you don't believe this development was part of the intentional design of schooling, you should read William Torrey Harris's The Philosophy of Education. Harris was the U.S. Commissioner of Education at the turn of the century and the man most influential in standardizing our schools. Listen to the man.

"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred," writes Harris, "are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom." This is not all accident, Harris explains, but the "result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual." Scientific education subsumes the individual until his or her behavior becomes robotic. Those are the thoughts of the most influential U.S. Commissioner of Education we've had so far.

The great theological scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer raised this issue of the new dumbness in his brilliant analysis of Nazism, in which he sought to comprehend how the best-schooled nation in the world, Germany, could fall under its sway. He concluded that Nazism could be understood only as the psychological product of good schooling. The sheer weight of received ideas, pre-thought thoughts, was so overwhelming that individuals gave up trying to assess things for themselves"

------

www.primitivism.com...
"This false self is observable in the frozen facial expressions, stereotypic gestures, and unexamined behavioral patterns of the general public. This false self determines much of our everyday lives, so that we are seldom the origin of our actions. We lapse into the false self at the first sign of danger, under stress, or simply because it is the path of least resistance."




School : it does not need to teach children to be "Nazis" or "Communists" or whatever. It's enough that it teaches them not to think for themselves.




[edit on 28-9-2009 by pai mei]

reply to post by Majiq


That's fantastic if you want your society to be an over producing, over consuming pack of robots.

Materialism is the death of this nation...

Why exactly must we compete with everyone and be no 1 at everything? Is that a HUMAN life? Is that why I am alive to achieve and achieve and produce and produce?

For what purpose...

I was blessed with an IQ so high that if I spoke it you would never believe me...

And being that smart it occurred to me long ago that LIVING was better than constant achievement.

I have not done anything Amazing with my life, I am successful mostly, and at times I have chose to not even be that... to make enough and not work for a couple of years not to sit and horde Millions...

Because I value the ONE life I have to live, I don't want to waste it in a lab coat...

I want to go to camp as a kid and play and as an adult i like riding a 4 wheeler and climbing mnts and living a life of EXPERIENCE not abor for some cause or trying to save the world or be the best at whatever I do every time

I want to make love and climb and live and drive and and have fun...

And NO

Americans living that way will not be the no 1 economy in the world, nor police the planet and that is okay...

It's not our job in life to work to death, just because Obama is an Over achiever or Japan is we can decide... that's not for us, it is our fundamental right as a people.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.

Albert Einstein


A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.

Chinese proverb


It is our choices, Harry, that show what we really are, far more than our abilities.

Albus Dumbledore in one of the Harry Potter books & movie


“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Angela Monet


“I’ve learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life."

Maya Angelou


Life is just a chance to grow a soul.

Powell Davies



Where there is love there is life.

Mohandas K. Gandhi


How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.

William Butler Yeats



Sure let them work all year around, never be children, never have that first kiss in a good setting, never play...

Why not remove what is left of childhood and humanity

I for one would rather die than not live

reply to post by pai mei


Wisdom as strong as the man you named your avatar after.

It lets me know I am not the only one left alive.

The school budgets can barely operate for the current time frame. Adding additional months to the school schedule would break the bank. Unless Obama plans to increase taxes yet again.

I forget exactly where, but it is the Netherlands, Norway or Sweden, somewhere like that. But their kids join school later, and spend less time in school, and outperform most of the rest of the world academically.

When you live in a society that values wealth over everything else you get generations of children whom are neglected whilst their parents pursue the almighty dollar. That's capitalism for you.

The reason some of these countries can do this is because their governments support families with maternity leaves, paternity leaves, big tax breaks so mom might not have to work, generous leaves for parents, ect. This allows parents to make a more significant contribution to the education of their offspring.

I was educated in the US, and to be frank I feel let down. Yes I had some good teachers and some bad teachers but all in all no teacher ever really had the time to give me what it was I needed. I learned the most important things from my parents, but I never had the newest fashions, or the most popular toys....

Extended school time will only allow the masses to work even more, to buy even more and to feel even more empty. Instead, we could push for less working time, allowing parents to spend more time with their kids.

reply to post by mopusvindictus


Thanks Pai Mei is the one from Kill Bill.

You are right also about the "life" that is lost.
www.primitivism.com...

Thor Heyerdahl - Kon Tiki :

"It did not matter anymore if we were in the year 1947 AD or BC. We were alive and we felt it intensely. We understood that the lives of humans were full even before the age of technology, without a doubt more full and rich in many ways than the life of the modern man.
Somehow time and evolution did not exist anymore: everything that was real and had meaning was today, the same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow. "

Originally posted by sad_eyed_lady
Jeeze, take all the fun out of being a kid. Maybe make the kids with D or lower average do summer school and reward the rest with a fun 3 month vacation. It might be a little incentive to try harder.

kids today are not competing with the kid down the block. kids in other parts of the nation and the world are achieveing at a greater rate then most in america. kids just being allowed to play for 3 months a year puts them at such a disadvantage. thecondition of this countries plunge toward becoming a third world nation is manifestation of that old 19th century dogma.

Originally posted by Violet Sky
What might benefit some, would not benefit all.
My children are high achievers already

That's not the point

The point is that the bar is so low anyone can be a high achiever here
but if your kids went to India or Japan they would probably flunk exams belonging to 3 grade levels below them, maybe 4.

Anyone under 18 should be in school 12 hour a day 7 days a week and 365 day a year.

Crime would go way down.

And all dropouts should be thrown in jail or work camps to keep down crime.

Originally posted by Solarskye
Um? Has anyone ever heard of taking " Government out of our schools"? I guess they want to make us more stupid! Ever since Government has taken over the education of our children, our children have suffered the consequences of being mediocre. I'm sick of Government being in every little phase of our lives when we should be up in their business alot more. NO!! I'm not for longer school days, I'm for getting Government out of our schools and the private sector in.

You sound like "keep the Government out of my Medicare" people. Look at the competition: in most developed countries which are ahead of the US in terms of education, the students benefit from PUBLIC systems with the government involved and standards established. Tuition is free in many nations, and I think that's a wonderful thing. What I see in your post is a faith in private sector being some kind of miracle worker which will solve every problem it's applied to. This is completely false.

While I agree with this theory in principle, the truth of the matter being that US students are as a whole falling behind our foreign counterparts, much work has to be done IMPROVING the hours they already spend at school, rather than just adding time onto the day.

Let's face it, you can have kids in school 24 hours per day. But it won't enhance their education or better their lot in life in the least if we don't begin to make the hours they spend there more productive.

What good is it going to do in a school that already doesn't have enough books for their students to keep them there longer? If you don't have a book to study from, or workbook to work in, no amount of additional hours will accomplish anything.

Once again, it's putting the cart before the horse.

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady


There are plenty of secondary education options for students and families to explore if they feel the need to spend more time in a classroom.

Obama is a dumbass.

I think 5 day weeks, with occasional 2 weekers here and there is the preference..

School supposed to prepare you for life...rarely do you find a job that gives you the summer off. Yes, there are some seasonal careers out there, but few and far between.

Also, summer vacations tends to make kids forget things, become dull, etc. Not saying eliminate it all together, but perhaps limit it to 1 month only, then have a 2 week before halfdays, and 2 weeks after half days (wind them down, then wind them back up)

Donno, but if we forego logic and wisdom in the name of tradition, then prepare to live in mud huts as our nation gets surpassed by every other nation taking education and progression seriously.

Alternatively, it could be offered as a option...let the smart kids that will end up ruling the nation goto the full time school, and let the future traditionalist ditch diggers go to the traditional schools

reply to post by jimmyx


Put them at a DISADVANTAGE How?

The Knowledge of the world is doubles every five years now... So are we going to add 30 days a year and fill these kids with that by 18 anyway?

In 20 years will we quadruple the school week for kids?

OR

Is the real issue life long learning and University training? The number of kids who go to college? What can public school teach by age 18? The basics?

We have been taught the basics all century... up to Calculus in Math English and History and Science...

I had those subjects covered by the age of 8 and spent the next 10 years bored to death... until COLLEGE

What will they do put electron microscopes and Nuclear reactors into PS 123?

NO

HOW ABOUT STUDENT LOAN RELIEF AND GUARANTEE UNIVERSITY IS PAID FOR TO ENCOURAGE KIDS?

WHY DO 50% OF AMERICAN KIDS DROP OUT OF HS?

BECAUSE COLLEGE IS UNAFFORDABLE... AND THEY DON'T SEE IT HAPPENING FOR THEM

Be competitive pay for people to go to COLLEGE where you learn competitive school any moron can pass public school with little effort.

University level engineering however costs 800 a semester just for text books

I guarantee if you take away Summers and time after school LESS kids go on to University because they can NO LONGER SAVE MONEY at Summer Jobs

The man is an Idiot, he only thing they want from this is less time with parents and more time being programmed by the State

What competition? what edge?

Last i checked you couldn't take Organic Chem and Advanced Physics in 3rd grade and the KIDS who CAN handle those classes are there by JR High and BORED to Death already

What will more public school give people?

More Sanitation workers and Cab drivers that have not only watched Beowolf the Movie but read the book too?

Originally posted by DraconianKing
I don't think it is the time of the education but the quality that needs to be improved. Spending more time in a crappy school with useless educators won't do anything, it would probably make things worse.

I think this is a crucial point you raise DK.


Also i think that parents seem to be in a rush to fill every idle minute , of young children especially .
Sometimes a child gazing out a window is not doing `nothing` .
We would do well to remember it.





[edit on 28-9-2009 by UmbraSumus]

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Oh that's a load of nonsense.

1/5th indian school children molested

Yeah there's a place where kids have it good...

And they still get 2 months off a year

Japan only has 20 more days than our school system...

is ruining summer going to change that there are demographics in the USA that aren't as naturally good at Math as Asians?

Yeah I said it.... they ARE better at Math

So what? It's not the 20 extra days.... They are better at Math, good for them let them be good or better at something for christ sake, these god damned maniacs are ruining our lives...

You KNOW damn well Public school didn't make you smart you were either smart or you weren't...

If there are stupid kids or kids who live horrifying lives LET school be open for them...

But don't make smart kids who are already bored and slowed down by a public school system that caters to the lowest common denominator have to sit there miserable extra time for no reason it's just going to turn them off to school.

reply to post by ANNED


Crime will go down in the neighborhoods Obama cares about...

My kids life doesn't need to made into crap to help save the Ghetto...

PERIOD