Year-Round Schooling Part 2

In my previous post, I looked at some of the research and academic arguments around year round schooling. In today’s post, I want to comment on some of the social issues around year round schooling and how it might affect our communities.

I was born in a small town in BC, and growing up I had a healthy relationship with the outdoors. I have hiked many trails and kilometers in the Rockies, the Purcells and West Coast Range. I like to think that I have a decent understanding of our environment, and an appreciation for some very important aspects of our province and country. I feel that summer explorations that expand our knowledge of nature and the environment is crucial to sustaining a healthy relationship with the land. It should be our goal to encourage outdoors learning, formal and otherwise, as much as possible. To give a concise example of what I’m referring to, let me recount an experience I had two years ago. I was teaching 60 kids in grade 8 science. Part of the curriculum is the topic of water systems and we spent some time talking about glaciers. Despite being located in Vancouver, of the 60 students only two had ever actually seen a glacier. We were within 100 km of glaciers and all the spectacular sights and experiences that surround them, yet only two kids had any idea of what a glacier is really like. I wonder what kind of custodians of our environment we can have, if the future custodians are so far removed from what they are charged with looking after? Unfortunately, the more that we push school into the summer months, the less the experiential learning our kids will have - people tend to stay indoors during inclimate weather.

This year at school I casually asked my students what they thought of having year round school. For the most part the kids were in favour of it. This really surprised me and I probed further by asking what kinds of things they do in summer. Nearly all the kids replied with the same answer: nothing. My students do nothing in the summer. Maybe they’ll play some video games or go to a movie, but that’s it. No trips, no excursions to the outdoors. Nothing. And this wasn’t a low SES school, in fact it is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in BC. But the kids don’t do anything. I happen to think this is a bad thing, and is not something that we should promote or encourage. From what I understand, many of these families have expressed an interest in year round schooling to our school district. For me, this is not reason enough to move in that direction. Our elected public officials and trustees have a duty to guide and protect our society for an overall public good. Call it utilitarian or deontological ethics, or simply a social contract, it is what they are charged with. If our society is improved by allowing for summer explorations (and I think it is), then this is something worth fighting for, regardless if a minority take advantage of it.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail highlighted a new phenomena in our school systems: the increase of students attending summer school. Whereas summer school used to be used by students that are struggling academically, now summer school is used as a means to get ahead or improve marks to A’s or A+. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/are-kids-failing-at-summer/article4397211/

I see this first-hand at the school I taught at. Many of my grade 9 science students were going to take Science 10 in the summer, so that they could start their senior science courses (physics 11, chemistry 11, biology 11) in their main Grade 10 year. The same happens for math. To me, this is a sacrifice of the whole student for the goal of high marks or academic resumes. Again, our society is missing out on something if all we value and give credit for is traditional academic achievements. We should not be encouraging it.

Given that summer school costs are funded directly the Ministry of Education, it would make sense that the government would want to shift from summer school to year-round schooling in order to rid themselves of the expense. I wonder how much influence the MoE has in terms of encouraging year round school as a means to control costs. As a society and educators, starting with the MoE, we should be actively promoting summer explorations and experiences. Ironically, the families that like the idea of year schooling may find that their paths for getting ahead in school (as mentioned above) will be gone if and when summer school is replaced by regular school.