The Importance of Summer Vacation
As an archway will fall without a sturdy keystone, an education system failing to teach the next generation adequately will fail to give way to progress in the world. Summer vacation is essential to successful learning and development in youth as it gives them a break from stress and allows them time to explore the type of learning that happens outside of the traditional classroom. In order to completely evaluate this topic, one must observe both extremes of the issue, those for summer vacation and those against it.
Taking a numerical approach to this topic leads one to people as mere numbers, which, in its essence has many issues, but once one adds the complexity of the issue at hand those problems become …show more content…
One argument used by the opposition is that, as a result of the on average 2 1/2 month summer vacation from school, children in the US, specifically those students who are from low-income families, are falling behind their international counterparts. This can be disproven by several important facts. First, despite the fact that other so called “higher-achieving” countries, like China, have their students attend school for more days out of the year, their school days consist of fewer hours than ours do. Therefore, if you take into account the US’s fewer number days and more hours daily , we are all in school for basically the same amount of time. Secondly, Jeff Smick of the New York Times commented that “[low-income] students lose about two months of reading skills, while their higher-income peers — whose parents can send them to enriching camps, take them on educational vacations and surround them with books during the summer — make slight gains”. While the objective facts of this statement are true, the conclusion Smink draws from those facts is incorrect. Attending camp or summer school does not necessarily mean that a child is going to gain anything. I’ve seen plenty of kids …show more content…
The most significant part of learning, and the biggest source of motivation to work, is curiosity about the subject you are learning about. Consequently, summer opens students up to a much larger world than that of the classroom. It takes kids out of their textbooks and math worksheets and gives them a chance to try out the real world. It can even be said that “there are many skills students acquire during the summer at a faster rate than they acquire them during the school year”. The biggest threats to learning are a lack of curiosity and energy and, for the majority of students, the stress connected with the school year depletes both of those. Social and political justice writer Benjamin Studebaker describes summer vacation, in an article of his, as “a chunk of time for children to play, to recharge, to explore interests that don’t receive class time in school, to self-manage their time without the constant imposition of structure”. These specific aspects of summer serve to catapult kids into maturity. As a result of this, schools should take the time to explore and realize that success in educating someone should not be judged on the basis of high standardized test results, but instead found through what the students have learned and gained a lifelong passion
As an archway will fall without a sturdy keystone, an education system failing to teach the next generation adequately will fail to give way to progress in the world. Summer vacation is essential to successful learning and development in youth as it gives them a break from stress and allows them time to explore the type of learning that happens outside of the traditional classroom. In order to completely evaluate this topic, one must observe both extremes of the issue, those for summer vacation and those against it.
Taking a numerical approach to this topic leads one to people as mere numbers, which, in its essence has many issues, but once one adds the complexity of the issue at hand those problems become …show more content…
One argument used by the opposition is that, as a result of the on average 2 1/2 month summer vacation from school, children in the US, specifically those students who are from low-income families, are falling behind their international counterparts. This can be disproven by several important facts. First, despite the fact that other so called “higher-achieving” countries, like China, have their students attend school for more days out of the year, their school days consist of fewer hours than ours do. Therefore, if you take into account the US’s fewer number days and more hours daily , we are all in school for basically the same amount of time. Secondly, Jeff Smick of the New York Times commented that “[low-income] students lose about two months of reading skills, while their higher-income peers — whose parents can send them to enriching camps, take them on educational vacations and surround them with books during the summer — make slight gains”. While the objective facts of this statement are true, the conclusion Smink draws from those facts is incorrect. Attending camp or summer school does not necessarily mean that a child is going to gain anything. I’ve seen plenty of kids …show more content…
The most significant part of learning, and the biggest source of motivation to work, is curiosity about the subject you are learning about. Consequently, summer opens students up to a much larger world than that of the classroom. It takes kids out of their textbooks and math worksheets and gives them a chance to try out the real world. It can even be said that “there are many skills students acquire during the summer at a faster rate than they acquire them during the school year”. The biggest threats to learning are a lack of curiosity and energy and, for the majority of students, the stress connected with the school year depletes both of those. Social and political justice writer Benjamin Studebaker describes summer vacation, in an article of his, as “a chunk of time for children to play, to recharge, to explore interests that don’t receive class time in school, to self-manage their time without the constant imposition of structure”. These specific aspects of summer serve to catapult kids into maturity. As a result of this, schools should take the time to explore and realize that success in educating someone should not be judged on the basis of high standardized test results, but instead found through what the students have learned and gained a lifelong passion