Growing up in America, it is hard to imagine what life would be like without a summer break. But David Von Drehle of Time Magazine argues that spending so much time outside of school can be bad for many kids. He especially believes that it affects children of lower class. The differences in high-income kids and low-income kids is huge. The high-income kids usually keep up the pace of learning during the summer, while the low-income kids lose ground or stay the same. He uses evidence from hours of instruction and math scores for fifteen year old children to show how we lag behind other countries.
Here is a video that shows how children can keep caught up:
http://www.youtube.com/
Others argue that Von Drehle doesn't have all of his facts right. Inge Dean, of Play Therapy states that summer vacation is vital for unstructured learning. This unstructured learning helps children develop ways to "unwind" and discover the world on their own. It is up to the parents to see that there children do not sit on the computer all day. He even goes so far as to quote Richard Louv:
“if it is true that being in nature reduces the symptoms of ADHD, then the converse may also be true: ADHD may be a set of symptoms aggravated by lack of exposure to nature. By this line of thinking ….the real disorder is less in the child than it is in the imposed, artificial environment. Viewed from this angle, a society that has disengaged the child from nature and natural play is most certainly disorder, if well-meaning.”
Personally, I think that it is important for children to be able to experience summer, but I also think that they should find ways to continue learning. Once again, this comes down to good parenting and schooling. If students can find an strong interest in a subject, they will be more likely to continue learning about it in the future.
See the following links for more information. The first link is the Time Magazine article and the second and third are arguments against the article.
http://www.time.com
http://blogs.greatschools.org
http://www.goodtherapy.org
