It is that time of year again—the end of December. Schools are closed for 2 weeks. Well okay, some for longer than that, particularly colleges. My eldest has about 4 weeks off. And it literally is a break for her. She had finals before school go out and starts all new classes when school resumes. She couldn’t do homework if she wanted to.
That’s what all this time off is supposed to be. Time to relax, rejuvenate, prevent burn out. I’m sure K-12 teachers look forward to that. Okay, some of them probably have grading to catch up on. But don’t they understand that kids need a break too?
It really is true that 11th grade is a brutal year. These kids are going to crash. And then I overheard some students talking about winter vacation. No, they were not sharing their anticipation of a wonderful week of skiing, or days on end sleeping in, lounging around, or using Facebook.
No, that’s not what they were talking about. I couldn’t believe it as they listed all the assignments and projects their teachers expected them to complete in those two short weeks.
Teachers need to apply winter brakes—and slow down all those assignments. And let’s not forget that in most K-12 schools, the semester ends in January. Sure it doesn’t matter for elementary school or probably even middle school. And I know that most classes are year-long so that even if finals or midterm exams happened in December, teachers could still give work over the break.
But come on. Let’s rethink this. At the very least, how bout a moratorium on homework assignments over winter break. Let kids study (or not) and get caught up in preparation for finals. At best, how about starting school earlier so the semester can finish before break. Some schools even use the quarter system with exams before Christmas and Easter and then in June.
We won’t improve education in America by dumping more and more work on kids and not recognizing that everyone needs some time to have a real vacation so they can return ready to focus and make it through until spring break.
