Back to school!?!?!

[norsegirl]

The back to school commercials have already started. In fact I think they started a few weeks ago. REALLY!?!?! Do we really need to talk back to school the second the kids start Summer vacation? It's like having Christmas stuff in the stores before Hallowe'en. It bugs me how our advertisers are trying to push us into a culture of always looking forward and never enjoying the present moment.

Comments

[real-jayde.livejournal.com]

I agree!!!

However, I think that kids in the states go back to school earlier than kids in Canada do.

Mind you this is the first year in my life as a student or a teacher that I've had to go back to school *before* Labour Day - crazy.

[hel_ana]

Yeah, in Florida, they started school by the second week of August.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

I just got an email from my sister - her girls (in Missouri) are starting back on August 13th.

[hel_ana]

And it looks like they're starting August 24th in Austin.

A month is still a bit much, though.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medb_/]

Yep, supposedly that's why Pennsic got its dates changed (that was the rumour I heard anyway)

[much-ado.livejournal.com]

this is fact.

[eve-the-just.livejournal.com]

Before labour day??? That is nuts.

There's a good financial reason for keeping the school break dates to the traditional July-August off... the cost of AC. Many school buildings do not have adequate AC to keep up with the summer months, and even those that do it would cost more to run at those times of year.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Doesn't school start in about two or three weeks in the south?

The year I went to school in Kansas it was cool that we got out in May, but I was I little annoyed about having to start in August. My Ontario brain was firmly wired to "school start after Labour Day."

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Note: that isn't all of the US mind you. The two years I went to school in Michigan, we started in September, and got out the second week in June.

Of course, the school year has gotten progressively longer since I was child and there are those who are advocating a year-round school schedule.

[eve-the-just.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing those people are working parents? I can see how having to find childcare over the summer months when you have to work might be difficult, but I can't help but feel that summer was just as developmentally valuable as school.

It was a chance to go off to camp and learn how to get along with people day *and* night for a week or two. It was a chance for longer family road trips where I could see more of the world. When I was older it was a chance to take looong bike rides and get in shape. And for me, it was a chance to learn things that weren't necessarily being taught to me in school (I learned a great deal of French vocabulary in the summer between kindergarten and grade 1 for example).

Right now I'm a stay-at-home, but I hope to go back to work eventually, and I still want my kids to have the summer off. To request otherwise just so I am not burdened with the cost and inconvenience of childcare is selfish in my opinion.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

No actually, they're teachers. The thinking is that taking two or three months off every year distrupts the learning process. They point to school systems in Australia and Japan that already have year-round school schedules.

They also claim that summer break is an outdated hold-over from when the majority of the people on this contintent were involved in agriculture and needed the kids to help work the farm during the growing season. Now since only about 10% of the population works in farming, summer break, they argue, is irrelevant and unnecessary.