School Year Might Go Year Round

[Seil]

This be in my local news. Yarr. (http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/story.html?id=a413da9f-5b0f-43c3-b29a-6ddabcebffa5)

The Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district is once again considering year-round schooling for its students.

Staff members have been asked by the school board to prepare a report on the possibility of implementing year-long learning, also called a balanced calendar, in the district and table it in November.

Such a system differs from the traditional calendar, which gives students a two-month summer vacation.

Instead of 60 days in the summer, and the usual Christmas and spring breaks, the balanced calendar spreads the days throughout the year. For example, a balanced calendar could give students 30 days in the summer, 15 days for a fall break, 15 for Christmas and 15 for spring break.

Trustee Dot Neary asked for the report after a number of parents expressed their support for the change after studies suggesting that balanced calendars result in improved grades, increased student attendance and a decrease in teacher sick days.

Supporters of balanced calendars say long summers are damaging for students who don't keep up with reading or learning activity, and much of the beginning of each year is spent reviewing the previous year's material.

Neary suggested that one or more schools in the district could be part of a pilot project using a balanced calendar. Trustee David Murchie acknowledged that it would be a "significant departure" from the current system, which is largely the result of the need for farmers to have their children on the farms during the growing season.

"Personally, I think that there are less disruptive ways to improve education but I fully support the board's decision to ask that a report be written on the subject," he said.

I'm for it.

[TDK]

I've heard that or seen that story in the news literally every year since I started elementary school. Its not going to happen.


Oh wait, you're Canadian. Maybe its different there?

[Geminex]

It's a pretty good system. I've had experience with both, and I prefer the balanced calendar.

[Token]

I'm also for it. After all, the current method is just a remenant of agricultural tradition.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Isn't that everyone already does? Man I though this thread would be about getting rid of holidays and being like "Hahahaha, suck it up kiddies".

[Token]

Isn't that everyone already does? Man I though this thread would be about getting rid of holidays and being like "Hahahaha, suck it up kiddies".

I wouldn't hate thus, either. My (public) school is really obnoxious about holidays. "Winter" vacation starts Christmas Eve and lasts for two weeks. :/

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't know if that's considered to be good or bad? We have our summer holidays and Christmas holidays combined so I don't know?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

It'd definitely be less of a level breaker for the students; shorter breaks means its easier to get back into the rhythm of classes when you get back, plus you might retain a little bit more of what you learned previously.

[Osterbaum]

Not to hijack the thread too much, but I'm curious as to what are the standard durations for class in your respective schools? For example (from my own personal experience) during grades 1-9 one school hour was 45min and usually we could have two of those in a row at the most. In the gymnasium (high-school, I guess) my school used 75min shoolc hours, but usually there weren't double hours. In the university an hour is again 45min. It's just this talk about a balanced calendar that got me thinking about other school norms and alternatives, like the lenght of a class.

For me a balanced calendar is a more complicated issue. Traditionally university students work one job their summer holidays and thus collect money for the start of the next school year. So while I prefer the idea of a balanced calendar from the perspective of studying, there are quite alot of issues I could see with it and providing your own income at the same time.

[bluestarultor]

I dunno about anyone else, but having had both traditional and year-round schooling (admittedly in college), I wonder if these people have ever considered that kids tend to do a good deal of social growing and "being a kid" during a long summer vacation. Not to mention it's nice to have a real break after the stress of finals.

This strikes me as taking a lot of the fun out of childhood, but then schools as an institution seem to excel at that. It's all about the test scores and beating information into kids' heads to regurgitate. Personally, I think kids need to be given ample time to be kids instead of finding the next more efficient system for conditioning them to hate knowledge and end up working in a cubicle somewhere flinging pencils at the ceiling.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

If that's what your school is like that not something holidays will fix. That's more of an institutional problem you got there.

[Seil]

I think that, on one hand, school is invaluable. It teaches us a whole lot spread out over various subjects, gaining in difficulty as the years progress. I can understand what they're talking about when they say that shorter time atwixt classes would allow kids to retain/use more knowledge.

On the other hand, I've since lost a lot since high school mainly because I didn't have to use it. A lot of Math and English and History I can't quite recall because I've never had to use it. The idea of school, to me, is to give us a good start, allowing us to spread out from senior year to whatever profession we choose.

My problem is that I'm a big fan of experiential learning, and the idea that it's much better to teach people who want to learn. I wasn't really big into school until I knew that what I was learning was important - ie, college. And at that point I had screwed myself through high school so that it's taking me time I could be spending in one class, spending time in other classes getting pre-reqs.

I don't really think that it's that there's too much of a break, I think it's because these kids don't understand why they need to know what they're learning, or don't care to learn it at all until the point where they find out that they need it. They need it to understand what they want to learn or that they can't get a job in their field because their marks are so poor. It's not a question of having shorter time between classes, but increasing student interest.

[Hanuman]

Better learning while giving the parents more time to teach their kids about life?
I'm for this.

Though, I find the youth community in vic/nan troubling, way too much drugs and wigger style floating around there.

Seil why don't you ever come out to our shows up in Van?

[bluestarultor]

If that's what your school is like that not something holidays will fix. That's more of an institutional problem you got there.

It was like that before No Child Left Behind. Think about that.


My main gist was that schools as the West has made them are terrible places where kids sit in cramped, hard seats and aren't allowed to squirm and are forced into a rigid structure of having to raise their hands to get acknowledgment from authority before they can even ask a question. Kids ask questions because they want to know things and I feel a more open conversation suits that better than metering out information they actually want to know one bit at a time. Not to mention they often can't get all their questions answered because it takes too much time out of getting talked at. Then, at least in America, if they get bored, stop paying attention, try to move around a bit to keep their butts from falling asleep, the teachers diagnose them with ADHD and get someone with way too many orders of the same type to have time to make a proper diagnosis to rubber-stamp an order to stuff psychoactive pills down their throats.

Mind you, I'm not at all for the hippie outdoor classes and crud. Those are called field trips. I just think that the current system is an utter failure when it comes to actual learning because all it does is stuff kids' heads with facts instead of making sure they actually understand stuff.

[Seil]

Seil why don't you ever come out to our shows up in Van?

'Cause I'm a full time student with a job.

[EVILNess]

The year round system that I have seen means you go to school for 3 months, get off a month, rinse and repeat.

Students tend to test better too due to the fact that they don't lose learning in the summertime. Also, they get more vacation time.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

We had 4 terms, with 2 weeks in between each term and then a few extra weeks over summer/christmas.

I'm more curious about all these tests everone mentioning. We only had tests/exams in two years of school (the last mandatory year and the last optional year), do you have them every year or something?

[bluestarultor]

We had 4 terms, with 2 weeks in between each term and then a few extra weeks over summer/christmas.

I'm more curious about all these tests everone mentioning. We only had tests/exams in two years of school (the last mandatory year and the last optional year), do you have them every year or something?

With NCLB, a lot of schools are basically teaching the tests for the resultant funding. You get one at whatever they feel are milestone years, I think. Not 100% on that. I also remember some tests that came back with your individual scores in language, math, etc., and your percentile among all kids in your grade, but I don't know if that was actually NCLB.

Aside from that, you have whatever tests your teachers give you just for the class. I dunno about everyone else, but my district was pretty big on cumulative finals.

[Doc ock rokc]

I don't like it. Summer is summer and it means a lot to many different kids. To the Elementary students it's a social time where they can meet up with friends and form relationships. For Middle school students its a Break time. A momentary break in the pressures that they soon will carry for the rest of their lives. In High school students it's a time to get into the workforce and earn money to spend on the last few indulgences before they have to Take on responsible payments.
Or to simplify It's the time they need to be kids in this Ridged system.

On the Test subject. Texas school testing was the Foundation for No Child Left Behind. Now the Testing wouldn't be so bad down here if it wasn't the ONLY THING THEY TAUGHT. I am serious here. The only thing the schools teach is how to pass this test so they can get a higher budget. I know plenty of kids that could have never have passed the grade they where in without cheating like hell but teachers don't care as long as they pass the test.

[Hanuman]

'Cause I'm a full time student with a job.
But, but, you are the sea! You should be able to take 2 hour sea voyages :crying:

[Seil]

Take it up with the East India company.

[ThatPoorMessenger]

Take it up with the East India company.Branding hurts bit though.
Still, a system like that would prevent stagnation of the mind (as many students appear to undergo during summer holidays) but on the other hand, the end of a year is often the point when students are examined, etc. A stressful time (although I don't understand why it's considered stressful), the summer allows time for students to calm down and become something sociable again.
Although I fully agree it is far too long in the current systems that we find in much of the western world, and it does hark back to the days when crops were planted with hand tools and farms tilled using an ox or horse or [insert land mammal of choice]; a 30day summer break (or 4weeks, 2days) would be rather short. It also may not even prevent the mental stagnation that currently occurs.
Overall, I doubt it would actually, change anything. Lazy students would still be lazy, enthusiastic students would still be enthusiastic, anti-social children would still be anti-social. The only viable reason I can see for this is because the current system is old and even that I think is foolish as a reason, if something is old, it isn't inherently bad.

[bluestarultor]

Branding hurts bit though.
Still, a system like that would prevent stagnation of the mind (as many students appear to undergo during summer holidays) but on the other hand, the end of a year is often the point when students are examined, etc. A stressful time (although I don't understand why it's considered stressful), the summer allows time for students to calm down and become something sociable again.
Although I fully agree it is far too long in the current systems that we find in much of the western world, and it does hark back to the days when crops were planted with hand tools and farms tilled using an ox or horse or [insert land mammal of choice]; a 30day summer break (or 4weeks, 2days) would be rather short. It also may not even prevent the mental stagnation that currently occurs.
Overall, I doubt it would actually, change anything. Lazy students would still be lazy, enthusiastic students would still be enthusiastic, anti-social children would still be anti-social. The only viable reason I can see for this is because the current system is old and even that I think is foolish as a reason, if something is old, it isn't inherently bad.

Well, in this case it is bad, but my personal opinion is they're taking it in an even worse direction.

Really, the way they force you to take all the "core classes" just means kids are forced to cram their heads with stuff they really don't care about and often aren't likely to have a use for. Then you only have so many electives to choose from because they keep the options limited to avoid interfering with the core classes.

I can understand forcing things like math and English (or whatever is the native language) all the way through, and history and science up to a certain point, but not forcing kids to take all of them plus gym class all throughout their education.

Basically, I think gym should be an elective, because not everyone is a sports star any more than everyone is a band member, and while it's nice to think you're solving obesity, you're really not, because they're going to walk out and buy soda and chips for lunch. History is one of those that's not really useful due to all the bull it's filled with and the incredibly limited applications, but if someone wants to learn about stuff like ancient Egypt, the option should be available. And not all science is for everyone. I'm much better with chemistry than I am with physics.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you let kids study subjects relevant to their interests, you're probably going to see a spike in grades, too. Forcing them to stay in school year round might let them forget less, but that just means their heads are full of more stuff they'll never need.



But the BIGGEST failing I see of the school system is that ENGLISH CLASSES NEED TO TEACH SPELLING!

[ThatPoorMessenger]

Basically, I think gym should be an electiveIt's often argued to be good for team building excercise but TBH, we can do that in other classes.

[Jagos]

I actually feel that I would have done far better in a year round school. You still get breaks and ~month long days off, but I was always a guy to go into a library during summer breaks in Atlanta and not necessarily socialize with a lot of kids in my neighborhood.

I think that it would be a lot better to keep them focused on their studies and the kids that do this will build up a small network of friends, same as in a regular school with the 3 month long break.

I still think that the 3 month break does more harm than good. What would you do if you were given a 3 month leave from your job and nothing to do in the interim?

[ThatPoorMessenger]

I think that it would be a lot better to keep them focused on their studies and the kids that do this will build up a small network of friends, same as in a regular school with the 3 month long break. Making them focus on studies won't mean they do better, however. Soem kids are just apathetic about it. :(

[bluestarultor]

I actually feel that I would have done far better in a year round school. You still get breaks and ~month long days off, but I was always a guy to go into a library during summer breaks in Atlanta and not necessarily socialize with a lot of kids in my neighborhood.

I think that it would be a lot better to keep them focused on their studies and the kids that do this will build up a small network of friends, same as in a regular school with the 3 month long break.

I still think that the 3 month break does more harm than good. What would you do if you were given a 3 month leave from your job and nothing to do in the interim?

Travel? Visit family you don't get to see often? Disney? Pool? Video games? Job?

[ThatPoorMessenger]

Travel? Visit family you don't get to see often? Disney? Pool? Video games? Job?What are these concepts?! :rolleyes:

[Seil]

Video games?
What are these concepts?!

Mess, you are now banned from the internet.

3 month leave from your job
Job?

So blues, if work gave you a three month vacation, you'd... go to work?