So school starts tomorrow.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by LukeA

Yes, I agree.

Even though part of me (while in high school) wanted an extended summer vacation, I was fine with six weeks off in June-July- #1, I've always HATED summer (I've f'ing hated this current one as it is) and #2, I was in Phoenix, and summer in Phoenix especially sucks.

A year-round high school calendar with sufficient vacation breaks (spaced appropriately) really does make the most sense. It also helps introduce the concept that the real world doesn't revolve around a three month summer vacation.

"The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream."

(Stephen King has that quote in one of his books - - "Insomnia," I think it is.
It means that the kids are the real rulers of the world, and they're the ones
living in the "real world.")

Just to try to extend the thought, in the 1960s, the "real world" involved making steel, and mining iron, and building skyscrapers and roads and bridges, hauling concrete around the country, even building locomotive engines. These days it's all about moving pieces of paper from one place to another - or usually in files over the internet - and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with making something. Don't get me wrong, of course people have bills to pay and most have to live in the "real world" and it's extremely difficult for most families and most individuals. Many people are working 70 hours a week and/or have 2 or even 3 jobs. I understand all that. But if we as a society had the same priorities we had in the 1960s (for example), we wouldn't be concerned about teaching kids to "keep up" with China and to be able to move pieces of paper around faster than they can. They aren't - they're building things. BIG things, made of steel. HEAVY stuff that costs a lot of money, and makes even more money. Moving pieces of paper and information around, as a group, essentially boils down to play behavior. Students can learn to move information around all they want - but is it really gonna help much? Year-round school years aren't gonna help our society as a whole if they're not learning what they need to learn. And the more that they start to realize (as a group) that they're wasting their time (at least somewhat), then the more of them are gonna rebel. Then you have more disruptive students, more kids cutting class, etc., and LESS gets done.
We need to work efficiently, not more.

Just some ideas.

P.S. - By the way, to paraphrase Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs, "ALWAYS go back to first principles - what are the real MOTIVATIONS behind something?" Why is it that the teacher's unions would feel motivated to have their teachers working 12
months a year instead of 9? And granted that teachers have historically been underpaid, and I'm sure that there's plenty of school
districts where they're still grossly underpaid. Having said that, I can tell you that in the school district here - a "working class" neighborhood - they're making $75,000 a year, the last I heard. That was a few years ago, it's probably more now. Double that (almost...) for a married couple. Many of them ARE making what most would consider to be "good money." 12/9 X 75 grand = 100 thousand dollars a year. I really do doubt that the teachers unions have in mind that this be done for free. I suspect there may be other motivations.