<p>missypie, I have a real problem with sports being factor into academic schedules. Public high schools are not sports academies and, especially living in Texas, I’m about fed up with how poor many of these kids are allowed to so long as they keep their gpa just high enough to play. </p>
<p>What is the problem with Arts and Crafts? When did our society decide that unless you can put it on a standardized test, it’s of no value? Every year that passes, I’m so glad I took my kid out for middle school. He actually had time to learn how to learn, not just memorize.</p>
<p>Actually, sports were not considered when they changed the start date. Practices for the fall sports started the first week of August when school got out on May 25th and practices start the first week of Ausut when school gets out on June 4th. Dear tourism industry: For those families, you just made summer vacation shorter.</p>
<p>There is plenty of real intelligence and creativity coming out of Asian educational systems. Don’t kid yourself that despite their relative ignorance, American kids are especially “creative”.</p>
<p>Okay, I looked up the numbers on a study of productive time spent in school. though the data are a little old, I doubt much has changed. It implies there is a lot that can be done in the time currently allocated.</p>
<p>(Greenwood, C. R. (1991). Longitudinal analysis of time, engagement, and achievement in at-risk versus non-risk students. Exceptional Children , 57, 521– 536.) </p>
<p>So 1.1 hours a day, up to 1.7 hours a day of actual academic time. But this assumes the kids are ready to RECEIVE academic instruction at such times, and that the academic instruction is in material they don’t already know.</p>
<p>So cut it in half. (Which explains why my homeschooled kid, who didn’t do even an hour a day, is now at Princeton. ;))</p>
<p>My elementary school had a good approach to this problem. School days were the same as at any other summer school, but we had no summer break.</p>
<p>In summer, classes were focused on review (in fun ways–games and such) instead of new material, and an hour or two of each day was spent at the park. No homework was given during the summer. The main purpose was to prevent learning loss, and school was actually pretty fun in the summer. Additionally, if students weren’t falling behind, parents could take students out of school for part of the summer for vacations, camps, etc.</p>
<p>This worked great for me–like everyone else, we had a “fun” summer with camps, vacations, time outside, no homework, etc. But we didn’t experience summer learning loss.</p>
<p>Imo, one of the contributors to “lazy” childhoods, and a missing piece of a child’s education, is the lack of available jobs for 14 - 18 year olds.</p>
<p>During the summer, and during the school year when the kids get out at 2:00 and don’t do a sport (or even if they do), there is not much for them to do that is productive and educational, without a lot of planning, organizing and transporting by mom. Even simple jobs teach so much about responsibility and money.</p>
<p>Smart kids homeschooled by smart parents do well in college. Why would ANYONE think that is a surprise. Problem is some kids are homeschooled by not so smart parents (rules and regulations aside) and many kids have parents who would be totally lost trying to homeschool. The average kid in school is not the average kid on CC. The average parent of a public schooled kid is not the average parent on CC. I would suggest those who feel that their kids are better off homeschooled maybe follow in the footsteps of the Colfax family: " One of the earliest and most widely reported evidences of successful parent-directed education came from California. An article in the Harvard Crimson describes it: Starting in 1973, when the Colfaxes moved to California from St. Louis, Missouri, the boys took on their own projects and helped each other learn everything from basic algebra to plumbing.4 The Colfax family used their ranch in Boonville, California, as both setting and curriculum to home educate their boys. While they used some books, most of their learning resulted from hands-on experience: raising animals on the farm, building the ranchs house, barns and sheds, and experimenting with electrical wiring while installing their family phone. Reed and Drew Colfax both attended Harvard and, according to Harvard administrators, attained admirable social and academic achievements." A third son soon followed his brothers and their dad went on to join the local school board to help make things better for more kids.</p>
<p>The problem with arts and crafts is that it has no educational value besides teaching arts and crafts. I had a crap load of arts and crafts projects in English/history/science, even math, classes that wasted time that could’ve been spent actually learning the material.</p>
<p>Isn’t it remarkable that a non-trained parent without a college education could supposedly provide a better education than the local schools without much money, a library card, the internet, and a few friends sharing the same objective? </p>
<p>However, not as remarkable as the steadfast denial that our system of education that clings to the greatness of monopolistic governmental system is not performing as it should, and this despite placing the bar just what is expected from a third world country! </p>
<p>In fact, in a cynical way, the public system of education is greatly rewarded for its failures as a better performing system might greatly diminish the millions of students who are sent to private schools or homeschooled. Were the families making the financial or time sacrifices to decide that it is easier to send the kids to a well-working school, the entire system would be placed at the verge of collapsing if needing to absorb such massive influx of students. </p>
<p>As far as changing the school year length (and realizing that we no longer live in a agrarian society that needs the children in the fields during the summer) this will not happen as long as the system is held prisoner by people who want a shorter year, a shorter week, less obligations, and more money. Fat chance to see that reversed anytime soon in a real where collective bargaining reigns supreme. </p>
<p>In fact, you better start preparing yourself for a four-day week with one day of self-guided assignments. There used to be three main reasons why teachers decided to embrace the vocation … June, July, and August. Soon, you might need a fourth one, namely the three-day weekend!</p>
<p>I agree we need to be productive, but all work and no play means sad child. That’s just a stereotype. Also, kids most often take after their parents :D. Really I think it’s up to the kid if they want to study/work hard, but the parent conditions their choices. Homeschooled or not, the kid has to want to do well.</p>
<p>PMK: I wish they had more, not less, arts and crafts in school. </p>
<p>But I want art to be taught in arts classes, not in History, Math and Science.</p>
<p>My kid did not enjoy having to make a house out of a shoebox so that she could label the six rooms of the house in Spanish, and so that the teacher could grade her Spanish based on how much she liked the shoebox project.</p>
<p>She loved the watercolor elective she took in middle school where they painted still life and had an art exhibition afterwards.</p>
<p>I will agree with that, but sadly most of it isn’t a function of the educational system, at least not where I am. There is creativity, but there is little room for harnessing it from a long-term career point of view. Many of the most creative people I know are in school now training to be lawyers or economists because paths to creative careers are limited and filter early (typically programs in the creative arts are in polytechnics or private colleges, which students typically enter at age 17 - often forgoing the opportunity to take the A Levels - look, the dichotomy between arts and crafts / academic achievement again).</p>
<p>My experience throughout my public school experience is simply that there are kids who do not want to be at school. They only go to school to socialize with their friends and “have fun” which invariably means things like disrupting class, making life hard for teachers, and terrorizing other students. I do believe that if these kids weren’t there, the learning environment would be a lot better. Teachers would spend less of class time trying to reign in the kids and more time actually teaching.</p>
<p>Of course, this begs the question, what do we do with said kids that don’t want to be in school? If we just let them not go to school, they’re probably going to end up turning to crime to support themselves as they grow up, or simply for something to do and not be bored all day.</p>
<p>Other countries don’t have better schooling results because of their techniques or hours or whatnot, they get better results because they have a better attitude towards education than we do in America. After all, the term intellectual is used as an insult by a significant percentage of the populace. Until this sort of public attitude is changed, no amount of “fixing” of our school system will do much good.</p>
<p>We in America are too enamored by the “quick and easy fixes!” and “I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect me!” schools of thought to seriously consider making the hard decisions and actually implementing long-term solutions to the problems here.</p>
<p>I think a four day week with self-guided projects on the fifth day sounds excellent, if we’re making good use of those four days.</p>
<p>There will always be students who don’t want to go to school. Students in this country don’t want to go to school because they HAVE to, whereas in other countries is a privilege. Honestly, if we let just one generation choose whether or not they wanted to get an education, I think America would learn a lot - and the next generation around, a lot of kids would probably be going to school. Obviously, that will never happen. But it’s just another reason to separate by level, which will also probably never happen.</p>
<p>Yes, many kids only go to school to socialize, but around the age of 12-13, the <em>good</em> ones start going for real academic merit. I know I do. If there is a field trip to somewhere, or I have the opportunity to skip a day, I won’t. The kids who realize this are the successful ones. If the kids just want to goof off I blame the parents.</p>
<p>Why make certain classes mandatory at all? If only students who wanted to be in each class were in each class, time would be spent much more productively. Granted, students who decided never to take math wouldn’t get into engineering colleges, but that’s a choice they can make . . . </p>
<p>I’m also a little resentful about criticism of students who come to school to “socialize.” Socializing is an important part of education too! It develops important real-world skills and can be a lot more useful than some academic classes. Granted, I’m not talking about kids who talk about Gossip Girl all day. But I learn a lot more from my friends on many school days than from my teachers. We make a game of teaching each other flags and heraldry; we discuss literature, theater, and philosophy; we debate ethical questions; we talk about U.S. and British politics (the big debate right now is whether Michael Martin will be ennobled after he resigns); etc. I often learn more from these discussions than from my classes.</p>
<p>I’m not criticizing students who socialize at school, I’m criticizing those who do nothing but socialize, and make it hard if not impossible for teachers to actually teach in classes. And you may not be talking about those kids that do nothing but discuss Gossip Girl all day, but I’m sure talking about them. There is a big difference between those that socialize productively and those that do it disruptively.</p>
<p>If a kid is good enough they’ll learn at a decent school even if the surrounding kids talk. Besides, if you care so much then send your kid to private school.</p>
<p>"If a kid is good enough they’ll learn at a decent school even if the surrounding kids talk.
Spoken by someone who undoubtely has never had difficulty hearing what someone is saying in a noisy restaurant.
What about students with Auditory difficulties- those who learn best visually rather than auditorily? Should they be told “tough luck” because of the way their brain works?</p>
<p>No, definitely not. What I mean is that this thread is focusing on that kids are evil and socialize and only learn if the have strict rules. My point is let those kids do that, and the kids that deep down are good, however they’re impaired I think are able to work well. I know that in many classes the bad kids ruin it for everyone, I say let them. Someone has to be my garbage man, someone has to be the one working at McDonald’s. I just think the kids who truly are good and want to learn will find a way to learn no matter what.
The parents condition if the kid wants to learn, just look at kids and their parents, the similarities are striking.
If you are good at heart and still cannot learn then I am deeply sorry, some things in life are unfortunate.</p>
<p>I think strict rules are great, but making more rules encourages them to be broken.</p>
<p>Don’t do something because the rule says to, do it because it’s the right thing to do.</p>
<p>Have a dish of candy out, eventually the kid won’t really care it’s there. Worked on me.</p>